
Fat, salt, and sugar: the “holy trinity” of flavors most people crave. Some may like more of one than the other, but most of people’s favorite or indulgent foods can be traced to higher amounts of one or a combo of these food components.
Indeed, people who say they like sweets may not know that their favorite cookie or cake that elicits nostalgic memories of grandma’s kitchen is actually loaded with butter, with about half its calories from fat alone. The sugar may be the dominant taste, but it’s the butter that provides the caloric heft (and, of course, flavor).
Maybe you dislike sweets but will fight to the finish for the last strip of bacon, which is high in fat and salt. Then again, maple-cured bacon brings the fat-salt-sweet “trinity” into a single food. (Salted caramel, anyone?)
Does “Healthy” Food ≠ Deliciousness & Enjoyment?
In my 35+ years of clinical practice, after taking thousands of dietary histories in children and adults of all ages, I’ve seen people get really excited when I talk about food. They mention favorite meals, what they like to cook, food traditions, new restaurants and more. But mention “nutrition” or “diet,” and the expressions change when they think about the taste of healthy foods. Their fear is palpable: “Here come the “rules,” what they’ll “have to eat,” and they assume eating well is all about “sacrificing.” Bye-bye to taste, fun, and enjoyment of food.
Please, I’d never want such a diet for myself and not for my patients, either!
Taste Buds Are Like Muscles: Both Can Get Tired
Constantly eating salty (and often fatty) food can condition taste buds to expect it, so that a food like an unadorned carrot or a bowl of vegetable soup seems bland. I often think restaurant critics, who dine out constantly on rich food, should only hold that job for a finite period of time, then return to real-world eating, where the rest of us live.
Popular take-out and packaged foods are convenient. I get it. Adding salt has historically been a cheap, easy way to intensify taste and combat “bland.” Unfortunately, they’re also a great way to hike up your sodium intake, and over time this can get taste buds accustomed to a higher threshold of saltiness.
But having “fatigued” taste buds isn’t a done deal. It’s possible to “resensitize” your palate. This study found that about 4-6 weeks after eating a low-sodium diet, the perceived “saltiness” of foods was increased. That is, foods the participants didn’t see as especially salty at the start of the study tasted much saltier after about a month on a lower-salt diet.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to lower your sodium intake – right away, not after 4-6 weeks – and make food taste even BETTER? And without adding tons of salt?
There’s a very easy way to bump up the taste of healthy foods from bland to delicious by adding umami flavor. Not just “OK” delicious, but “I’ll-have-another-helping-please” delicious. The kind of flavor that competes seriously with the high-fat, sodium-heavy stuff for your taste buds.
Enter Umami (a.k.a. Glutamate!)
All experienced chefs know about the flavor value of “umami,” the 5th taste, after sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. It’s what makes food taste more intense. Think about these high-umami foods:
- Mushrooms
- Parmesan cheese
- Tomatoes
- Walnuts, peanuts, cashews
- Bone broths
Almost looks like a shopping list for a Mediterranean diet, and other cultural foodways, too. Glutamate is what accounts for “umami” in these foods. Glutamate is present in every animal and plant protein food we eat. It’s also an amino acid that’s made by your body and is present throughout the body, but mostly it resides in the gut.
Glutamate is also present in a seasoning called “monosodium glutamate,” known to you as “MSG,” and which has been used for decades by cultures all over the world as a flavor enhancer, much as salt is.
But MSG has two advantages:
- It enhances flavor (bye-bye bland!) better than regular salt, and
- Gram-for-gram, it has 62% LESS sodium.
As for the absurd and totally disproven myths about MSG, credible science sense is what I pay attention to, because it informs me better than internet nonsense. Here are the MSG facts you need to know:
- MSG has only 2 components: sodium, and glutamate.
- Sodium is a necessary electrolyte, naturally present in many foods, but also added to many processed foods, and in cooking. We tend to add too much to food.
- Glutamate, as noted above, is present in all protein foods, whether from plants or animals, but it’s also made by the body in much larger amounts.
- You get far more glutamate from food than you could possibly get from MSG.
- Decades of credible science have found it to be safe. Really safe.
MSG in Cooking: Your Best Weapon Against Bland Food!
No need to give up salt. But MSG is a flavoring tool, and to use this wonderful tool best, combine it 50/50 with regular salt to enhance the taste of healthy foods. This combo can still lower the amount of sodium added to your favorite dishes by a whopping 31%! For more, check out 8 Tips for Using MSG in Cooking and in Recipes.