Text

E-book Umami : Taste for Health

---

Penilaian

---

Umami is now commonly identified as the fifth “basic” taste quality, joining sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. It must be emphasized that the term taste quality refers to human (and perhaps other species) psychological representations, not to the ligands that elicit those representations; for example, NaCl elicits a salty taste in humans, but sodium chloride itself is not “salty.” The four traditional basic taste qualities have a very long and deep history in human experience. As detailed in a recent review (Beauchamp, 2019), sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, along with pungency and astringency (these last two are tactile qualities, not taste qualities), were identified as the basic building blocks of perceived taste in Chinese, Indian, and Greek writ-ings dating back several thousands of years. Moreover, these four taste qualities, as well as the two tactile qualities, also make up much of what is reported to be the current taste world in many independent, relatively isolated cultures around the world (Beauchamp, 2019).These four basic taste qualities likely exist to provide vital information on the health and safety of potential foods. Sweet and salty substances are generally highly palatable, signaling vital nutrients: calories and sodium. Bitter compounds, with generally negative hedonic qualities, usually signal danger or poison. However, bit-ter has also been seen as a signal for medicinal value, both historically and currently, in many cultures around the world (Beauchamp, 2019). Functionally, sour remains a puzzle. Among several hypotheses to account for it, one is that it acts as an inhibi-tory signal for unripe fruit that could also injure the oral cavity, and another is that it could signal the presence of certain micronutrients (Breslin, 2019; Liman & Kinnamon, 2021). It is significant that, for sweet, salty, and bitter, the perceptual signal is generally identical with the actual function of the signaling molecules. That is, most sweet compounds in nature are calorie-rich, virtually all salty substances in nature contain sodium, and most molecules that are bitter act as poi-sons at least in high concentrations.At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda identified the glutamate ion as inducing a novel taste quality that he proposed was a signal for protein, analogous to sweetness being a signal for energy or calories (see Chaps. 2 and 3). He described this novel quality as “the peculiar taste we feel as umai [meaning, according to the translators, meaty, brothy, or savory].” He called this taste umami. Subsequent studies further identified the ribonucleotides 5?-inosinate and 5?-guanylate as synergistic enhancers of this novel taste, although for humans and some other species, they may not produce a taste on their own. Beginning in the late 1960s and 1970s, additional researchers also proposed umami as a novel fifth basic taste. This idea gained momentum from a scientific meeting held in 1985 and the publication of the proceedings Umami: A Basic Taste(Kawamura & Kare, 1987). The evidence used to support the proposal that umami was the fifth basic taste at that time consisted primarily of human sensory studies and animal model studies of behavior and physiology.

---

Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

-

No. Panggil

612.3 BEA u

Penerbit

Switzerland : Springer Nature., 2024

Deskripsi Fisik

205 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9783031326929

Klasifikasi

612.3

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

-

Subjek

Nutrition

Info Detail Spesifik

-

Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

-

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

Komentar

---

Anda harus masuk sebelum memberikan komentar