Debunking myths
Glutamate is not harmful
You know exactly the taste of glutamate — it is added to chips or instant noodles, and adherents of a healthy diet will thank him for the taste of cheese or tomatoes. Glutamate has been studied for a long time, and many myths have developed around it. For example, that it is an artificially created molecule with a bunch of side effects. But in fact, the data on the harm of glutamate could not be confirmed, and WHO included it in the list of safe food additives. We are figuring out where the myths about glutamate came from and what kind of molecule it really is.
Glutamate is a flavor enhancer, and its use is growing every year. It is added to fast food, which worries scientists because of the obesity epidemic. There is a lot of research on whether glutamate is dangerous. In one of them, scientists fed mice glutamate in the amount of 20 percent of the dry weight of food, and this led to thinning of the retina and blindness.
But no one eats glutamate in such quantities, and there is no danger to health. Other scientists have concluded that glutamate leads to headaches and obesity, but the results were also not confirmed in independent experiments.
What is glutamate? Glutamate is a salt of glutamic acid, an amino acid that is part of proteins, so its taste is pleasant to us as an indicator of protein food. Glutamate has its own role in the brain. It is an excitatory neurotransmitter and participates in the launch of motor centers, the transmission of information in sensory systems and the formation of memory.
At the same time, glutamate from food does not penetrate into the brain, due to the hemato-encephalic barrier, and is digested as a normal component of food. In general, you should not be afraid of glutamate – we eat it regardless of whether we think about it or not.
We consume glutamate every day with a regular meal, even if we avoid flavor enhancers. It is present in both animal and plant foods — for example, in 100 grams of potatoes there are about 120 milligrams of glutamate, and in 100 grams of chicken — about 40 milligrams.
In the doses in which it is in food, even as a dietary supplement, glutamate is not harmful. Its taste qualities are related to the fact that in the course of evolution it turned out that we associate the taste of glutamate with food rich in proteins, that is, with something useful for maintaining life.
At the same time, the role of glutamate in the body is very important. It is an excitatory neurotransmitter — a substance with which neurons communicate. Glutamate is involved in the launch of motor centers, the transmission of information in sensory systems and the formation of memory.
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