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Tracking Flavour Enhancers
I. Introduction
Most people associate flavour enhancers with the term glutamate. In fact, glutamate or its derivatives
are the most important flavour enhancers worldwide. Typically, glutamate is added to pre-cooked meals,
frozen foods, snacks, tinned food, salad dressings and meat or fish dishes. In some countries it is even com-
mon to put it on the table as a condiment for the seasoning of food.
The Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda discovered in 1907 that there was a fifth flavor besides sweet, sour,
bitter and salty, which he called umami (from Japanese „umai“ meaty, savoury, tasty). He found that the
umami taste has to do with the L-glutamic acid and its salts. He recognized its importance for enhancing
the flavour of food, so that two years later, he founded a company for the production and selling of flavour
enhancers together with a partner from the industry sector.
In both food and the human body, glutamic acid can occur in two mirror-image isomers, as L-glutamic acid
and as D-glutamic acid, wherein the L-form predominates in volume. Furthermore, L-glutamic acid exists
in bound and free form. In bound form, glutamic acid is combined with other amino acids and forms pro-
teins. In free form, glutamic acid is present as a single amino acid. Only the free glutamic acid or its salts
play an important role for the umami taste of foods. Most foods contain glutamic acid primarily in bound
form. However, in soybeans, tomatos, milk, spinach and many cheeses, for instance, glutamic acid occurs
naturally in high concentrations.
The greatest importance with regard to flavour enhancers is attached to monosodium glutamate. Other
salts of glutamic acid are monopotassium glutamate, calcium diglutamate, and monoammonium gluta-
mate and magnesium diglutamate.
The detection of these flavour enhancers forms the basis of this experimental kit.
For completeness, it should be mentioned that there are flavour enhancers which are not based on gluta-
mate, but share the same flavour characteristics (umami taste). These are guanylic acid, disodium guany-
late, dipotassium guanylate, calcium guanylate, inosinic acid, disodium inosinate, dipotassium inosinate,
calcium inosinate, calcium 5‘-ribonucleotides and disodium 5‘-ribonucleotides.
In Europe, flavour enhancers are additives which need to be declared either by name or with their cor-
responding E number in the list of ingredients in foods (see table 1). Australia and New Zealand have
adopted the European labeling standards. In the U.S. and Canada one can also find similar rules for flavour
enhancers.
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