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I was talking to a friend of mine and he was saying that MSG makes all food taste delicious. Where can I buy some?
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.As a flavour enhancer - not an ingredient - it is in so much we eat you really do not want to have more of it. Have a look at http://www.organicfood.co.uk/stories/msg.html for one aspect.
Use sea salt to improve flavour, not MSG. MSG occurs naturally as a component of food, so don't add more.
Your friend was right in some respects. MSG is a used as a flavour enhancer and can make certain foods taste better with its addition.
The flavour it gives is called 'umami' and was only discovered a few years ago. You may have been taught that there were four tastes - sweet, sour, bitter and salty. Well this is the fifth. There's some information on it here. http://www.glutamate.org/media/discovery_of_glutamate.asp
Thereis a body of thought that it is bad for you, but there again it is commonly used in japanese cooking and they have one of the longest life expectancies in the world. i think the key is use it sparingly, after all other flavour enhancers such as salt and sugar can have bad side efffects if used to exccess.
You can buy pure MSG at oriental supermarkets, but like salt and sugar it does occur naturally in some foods. many old english recipes use umami flavourings without knowing it. for example oysters aded to steak and kidney pie provide the umami taste, similarly worcester sauce which is made from distilled anchovies and is often added to casseroles etc. provides umami.
in oriental cuisine umami ocurs naturally in fish suace and seaweed amongst other things