Are you a happy little glutamate?

There is a buzz around right now caused by monosodium glutamate (MSG), or whatever you prefer to call it.
The savoury flavour otherwise known as umami was named 100 years ago after first being isolated from seaweed in Japan in 1907.
Even if you think you haven’t tasted umami or glutamate you probably have and it has probably compelled you to shove even more food in your willing cake hole.
Chinese food has a bad reputation for containing MSG – its synthasized form – and affecting people with the so-called Chinese Restaurant Sydrome which may or may not exist.
If you believe the syndrome exists then answer me this: have you ever had a headache from eating Vegemite?
Vegemite is made out of yeast extract just like the English Marmite. And Marmite is packed full of glutamate although you wouldn’t know it on the label. As Alex Renton said in The Guardian a few years ago in this excellent article:

Your mate, Marmite, with 1750mg per 100g, has more glutamate in it than any other manufactured product on the planet – except a jar of Gourmet Powder straight from the Ajinomoto MSG factory. On the label, Marmite calls it ‘yeast extract’. Nowhere in all their literature does the word ‘glutamate’ appear. I asked Unilever why they were so shy about their spread’s key ingredient, and their PR told me that it was because it was ‘naturally occurring … the glutamate occurs naturally in the yeast’.

Time Hayward on the Guardian’s Word of Mouth Blog notes:

“Jeffrey Steingarten’s marvellous ‘It must’ve been something I ate’. The third chapter is unique in food writing history in making and winning its argument entirely in an eight word title: ‘Why doesn’t everyone in China have a headache?’)”

Perhaps we should also ask: “Why doesn’t everyone in Australia have a headache?”

Or seeing as Parmesan cheese contains so much glutamate we might ask the same question of Italians. Or ask our friendly French Roquefort munchers.

So, are you a happy little glutamate or do you suffer from Vegemite syndrome?

Top ten 12 sources of Glutamate(mg/100g):
1. Marmite 1750
2. vegemite 1400
3. roquefort cheese 1280
4. parmesan cheese 1200
5. soy sauce 1090
6. walnuts 658
7. fresh tomato juice 260
8. grape juice 258
9. peas 200
10. mushrooms 180
11. broccoli 176
12. tomatoes 140/mushrooms 140

Source: The Guardian and others