Missing MSG?

Koji-Aji also can enhance reformulated products. For example, reduced-salt formulations achieve a boost in the missing initial taste impact, increased spice-derived flavor notes and a long-lasting taste sensation. In reduced-fat foods, the enhancer is used to lend a fullness designed to mimic the mouthfeel of full-fat products.

Mastertaste Inc. (www.mastertaste.com), Teterboro, N.J., a division of the Kerry Group, offers a unique MSG replacer called Natural Flavor Enhancer 681607, which provides the savory umami note of MSG. It is used as a total replacer with a strength of usually 2 to 1 over MSG depending upon application. It is not a yeast or other protein derivative but a combination of different plant-derived cations and anions forming a unique effect. The product is positioned as "natural flavor" and provides for a clean label.

Mastertaste recently developed another “Umami Mouthfeel-type System” product called Natural Flavor Enhancer No. 610250. This meat protein-derived enhancer replaces disodium inosinate and guanylate in applications in which those derivatives are used. It utilizes Maillard reaction technology and provides natural salinity and enhancement to salt-reduced products with no residual aftertaste. The system can also be used to actively reduce salt in food applications by up to half, depending upon application needs.

Salt and its alternatives

Mastertaste also has investigated the physiology of palate sensation and developed a line of natural flavors trademarked as “Oral Sensations” that “provides an effect on the palate such as mouthfeel, lubricity, cooling, salivation, astringency, salinity and other physiological sensations that accompany the characterizing flavor for complete flavor sensation,” according to company literature.

“With regard to taste sensation, no other positively charged ion replaces sodium in speed of impact,” explains Lawrence Buckholz Jr., vice president of flavor development and technology for Mastertaste. “That is why putting a little salt on the tip of your tongue will produce an immediate hit. Sodium chloride also provides an overall pleasant savory or salinity effect that further enhances the taste and profile of foods. It is this effect that we capitalize on in developing natural flavor enhancers.”

For processors who originally turned to MSG to replace salt, sodium chloride may warrant a second look. “It’s the original flavor enhancer, used thousands of years before MSG or its cousins ever were involved,” says Susan Feldman, technical director for the Salt Institute, Alexandria, Va. “There is no solid scientific evidence for the reduction of dietary salt in healthy adults and, as a flavoring substitute for MSG, salt is a well-proven alternative.”

Wild Flavors Inc. (www.wildflavors.com), Erlanger, Ky., has a new salt-replacer product called SaltTrim. Based on plant extract derivatives to be used in conjunction with potassium chloride, SaltTrim blocks the negative tastes of the potassium chloride while maintaining the taste and mouthfeel of salt.

Other companies are taking broader approaches, turning up the flavor by turning up the heat with increased use of pepper, or ramping up the sour with concentrates and derivatives of citrus. Should consumer rejection of MSG and other such enhancers grow, processors have a wealth of alternatives waiting in the wings.