How Umami Are You?

By Laine Bergeson / July 20, 2009 1:43 PM

In the current issue of EL, we have a story on umami, the fifth flavor (following sweet, salt, sour and bitter). Here's a new, interesting tidbit I just read about our ability to detect this rich and rewarding flavor:

A new study from the Monell Chemical Senses Center, an independent nonprofit research institute based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has shown that how much -- or how little -- you taste umami is a matter of genetics, specifically in how the T1R3 taste receptors on your tongue are coded.

The research team asked 242 individuals to discriminate between the taste of weak L-glutamate and salt. Approximately 5% were unable to tell the two tastes apart, indicating that certain people are highly insensitive to umami and thus have difficulty detecting low levels of this taste quality.

In other words, the intensity of your umami experience is individual. It's all about the code on your T1R3 taste receptor.

Interestingly, the researchers speculate that "because these same receptors are also found in the gastrointestinal tract, liver and pancreas, coding variation in the T1R3 gene may also influence how proteins and amino acids are processed metabolically." I'll be curious to know what research eventually uncovers about the role genetics play in protein metabolism.... Fascinating!