If you look at the list of ingredients in industrially produced foods, you will discover the addition of flavour enhancers in many of them, mostly sodium glutamate or monosodium glutamate.

Flavour enhancers are added because industrially manufactured products often lose a lot of flavour due to the complex processing procedures, which is to be restored with the addition of flavour enhancers.


Flavour enhancers work by emphasising the flavour of the food. Interestingly, glutamate is now recognised as a flavour enhancer in its own right, adding a new flavour to the list of the four previously known flavours: sweet, sour, bitter and salty. As this fifth substance was discovered in Japan when it was extracted from an algae that is very popular there, it has been given a Japanese name: "umami".

This was a welcome discovery for the food industry, as the production of glutamate is relatively simple and far less expensive than other flavour enhancers. Glutamate is produced from fermented molasses, which in turn is a waste product of sugar production.

However, glutamate is also found in nature, as it is an amino acid, which in turn is known to be part of proteins. Glutamate occurs naturally in foods such as tomatoes and cheese, and is also produced naturally during the production of certain foods such as meat and sausage products, but always in combination with other proteins.

However, the food industry uses artificially produced flavour enhancers and in a dose of up to ten grams per kilogram of a product, which exceeds the dose of naturally occurring glutamate many times over. Furthermore, the legislator has not set any maximum limits for spice mixtures, which means that they can contain particularly high levels of flavour enhancers.

Glutamate is less suitable for dairy products or fruit juices due to its property of being easily soluble in water. Nevertheless, there are countless products with these additives, especially in classic convenience products such as instant meals, packet soups, sauces, snacks, stock cubes and spice mixes.

Glutamate itself has a slightly salty flavour, which is another reason why its use is dependent on products that contain this flavour.

In the product labelling, the substance is assigned the numbers E620 to E625 and must of course be listed.

Possible harmful effect

Have you ever heard the term Chinese restaurant syndrome? In Chinese and Asian cuisine, glutamate is often used as a flavouring. After visiting Chinese restaurants, many people complain of headaches, nausea and palpitations or numbness in the neck or upper body, leading to the suspicion that flavour enhancers could be responsible.

However, laboratory tests have not yet been able to prove that glutamate is the real culprit. It seems that particularly sensitive people are affected; not everyone has to reckon with such side effects after a visit to a Chinese restaurant.

Nevertheless, there are other suspicions being voiced by opponents of these supplements, even if research has not yet progressed far in confirming or refuting them.

First of all, glutamate is responsible for the fact that you eat more than you would without its addition. This explains, for example, how you can gobble down a whole bag of crisps when you should have felt full a long time ago.

This property of the flavour enhancer is one of the reasons for the sharp rise in the number of overweight children and adults in Germany.

Furthermore, there are even suspected links between glutamate and the development of serious diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, as the substance is suspected of being able to manipulate or even kill brain cells.

What is certain is that regular and increased consumption dulls the sense of taste and food that has not been mixed with flavour enhancers tastes bland.

Recent studies in Japan are currently investigating whether there is a link between sodium glutamate and reduced vision.

The conclusion is that although it is permissible to consume products enriched with flavour enhancers from time to time, care should be taken as far as possible to ensure that this consumption does not get out of hand.

If you are looking for alternatives, you will find them and, especially when feeding children, care should be taken to ensure that they eat natural and unadulterated foods. Organic products help here and the very best way to avoid unwanted additives is still to cook your own food.