What even is MSG? Is it bad for you?
Okay, Jam. Today, we're gonna talk about MSG.
Jam:Madison Square Garden. I've heard it's a great place.
Melissa:No. The MSG food stuff.
Jam:Oh. We're
Melissa:gonna talk about, is it actually bad for you? What even is it? Do we need to worry about it? And We're just gonna you know, we're just kind of rolling with our common food question theme that we had from turkeys into Now monosodium glutamate MSG.
Jam:Monosodium glutamate. Don't worry.
Melissa:We'll get into it.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:The way I phrase this in my notes is we're gonna take a big old bite Out of MSG misconceptions. That's nice. So that's what we're doing today. Are you ready?
Jam:I'm very ready. Let's do it.
Melissa:Okay. Let's do it. Hey. I'm Melissa.
Jam:I'm Jam.
Melissa:And I'm a chemist. And I'm not. And welcome to chemistry for your life.
Jam:The podcast helps you understand the chemistry of your everyday life.
Melissa:Okay. Before we get started, I wanna do, 2 things, which 1 is to say thank you to our new supporter On Patreon, Sarah m.
Jam:Yes. Sarah, welcome to our Chem Unity, our supporters, and we are so grateful to have you helping make this show possible.
Melissa:And, I was really excited because Sarah is from Canada, and I love Canada. It's beautiful. It's fun. Tried to get a job there. What can you do?
Melissa:Yeah. But I was really excited to see our new addition in this educate ed educate. This episode is dedicated to you, Sarah.
Jam:It's an episode dedication or an episode.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:Like we always say, you know, an ep vacation.
Melissa:The other thing I like to do, we haven't done in a while, is just reintroduce ourselves and kind of give a quick premise of the Joe? Yes. So I really am a chemist.
Jam:Yes. She really is.
Melissa:And Jam really is not a chemist.
Jam:Very true. Melissa has her a bachelor's, master's, And a PhD in chemistry.
Melissa:All of the degrees. Yes.
Jam:And I have 1 degree, and that was enough for me. But it's something that is not chemistry.
Melissa:It's not chemistry, but it is radio, television, and film. And so we're really grateful to JAM for doing all the all of this.
Jam:And it also qualifies me to be learning these things from Melissa Right alongside you guys, because I am not a chemist, and science is not my background. I'm interested in it, but I I'm not formally trained in it at all. So Melissa teaches me live a lesson about chemistry in everyday life, and I learn it alongside you guys.
Melissa:Yeah. Yay, chemistry.
Jam:Yay, chemistry.
Melissa:So that's a little bit about us. And now we're gonna get into this episode. And A long time ago, my brother asked me to cover what is MSG, and I think someone recently asked me, But I couldn't find it in her email. So if you send it on Instagram, it can be hard to track those down.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:So, sorry. And if you let me know, I'll give you a shout out in The next bonus episode, which will probably be recorded in January. So sorry. But I'll shout you out if I missed you, and I'm sorry. So I chose this topic because it goes really well with last week's episode.
Melissa:It feels almost like a part 2 because this is another commonly known food fact that might not be as much fact as we think.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And it's centered around sorry. I just am coming off of a cold. It's centered around amino since again.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:Okay. So if you want more information on amino acids, we talked about them last week, and we've talked about them often in the past before. Just last week, we did a good review. And so I said, this is part 2 of what I like to call amino acid atrocities. I try to think of, like, a good alliteration with libel, you know, but I could I couldn't really think of anything.
Melissa:But so just kidding. But MSG is an amino acid. So I or not MSG is not amino acid. It centers around this episode centers around amino acid. And I was gonna ask you
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:What you remember about amino acids from the last time we recorded. And we actually took a break because I had a cold last week, so it's been a little while Since jam has thought about this.
Jam:I remember that amino acids, Make up proteins.
Melissa:Yep.
Jam:And
Melissa:They're the small molecules that contribute.
Jam:Yes. The small molecules. And and proteins are obviously at palver. Mhmm. Right?
Jam:So and we talked to a couple episodes ago about, like, just things that those can do in our bodies, as they kinda break down and interact with Mhmm. Our bodies. And wow. It does feel like a long time ago.
Melissa:It was a long
Jam:time ago.
Melissa:I think it was it was over 2 weeks.
Jam:Oh, we talked about we also talked about, function functional groups.
Melissa:Yep. That's what we're building.
Jam:Okay. Yes. It is. And the the patterns of those certain Molecules together, having similar functions when they present themselves in even in new combinations of molecules.
Melissa:Those Atoms within molecules.
Jam:Atoms with the molecules. Yes.
Melissa:So just to, to reiterate, everything you said was great. Amino acids are Small molecules that when strung together make up a large molecule. That's what a polymer is. It's just a large molecule made up of several small molecules. And in this case the polymer that they make is, you know, protein.
Melissa:So amino acids are the foundations of proteins. Mhmm. And they usually are made up of, They're always made up of a carbon backbone, but they have 2 main functional groups on them, an amine functional group, which is a nitrogen with some hydrogens around it, and a carboxylic acid which, has a carbon bonded to an oxygen. It's like double bonded to an oxygen on one side, and on the other side, it has and oxygen bonded to a hydrogen. So that's the big features of an amino acid.
Melissa:And if the functional group stuff doesn't mean Ton to you. That's okay. It's just like what Jam said. Functional groups are groups of atoms that show up in all different types of molecules. And, though, when those atoms are grouped together in that certain way, they have consistent properties, and we're gonna talk about that a lot today.
Melissa:I Nice. Did wanna really hit back on that. So everything you said was perfect. Good job. We should have let our listeners pause and let them Think about also what they remembered, but what can you do?
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:Sorry, listeners. Spoiler alert. Okay. So Glutamate. MSG stands for monosodium glutamate.
Jam:K.
Melissa:Okay. So let's get rid of the monosodium, and let's just think about glutamate right now.
Jam:K.
Melissa:So glutamate is an amino acid. It's different from tryptophan because our bodies can create it. Also, it's made up of different atoms, but Our bodies can create it. So it's in tryptophan, we had to eat it. Right.
Melissa:But in this one, we don't.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:Glutamate, we don't. So sorry. The the congestion I haven't talked this much in, like, over a week, so the congestion is getting me. Okay. So glutamate is another amino acid.
Melissa:Our bodies can produce it. And so it's not considered necessary to eat, but it is considered safe to eat. It's already in our bodies. So just like other amino acids, you're gonna ingest it when you take in proteins and things like that. Okay.
Melissa:Some foods that glutamate is commonly found in in high amounts are tomatoes, seaweed, Parmesan cheese, mushrooms, fish sauces, Worcestershire, Marmite, all these have glutamate in them.
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:So And it does play an important role in our bodies as a neurotransmitter and then also it in in the, cells in our intestines, It can provide energy to those cells as well. So it's around.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And it's fine. And it's good to eat. Like, relatively safe to eat, no problems with glutamate, and it's an amino acid. So And our bodies even make it. So, you know Yeah.
Melissa:It's great. Yeah. No beef with with glutamate. Okay. Now let's talk about what the monosodium part of glutamate is.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:What does it sound like?
Jam:Sounds like 1 sodium atom is part of this.
Melissa:That's exactly right. Nice. So how could that 1 sodium atom be hanging around? Let's talk about that.
Jam:How could we hang your on?
Melissa:Okay. Be hanging your on. So we have our different functional groups that are consistent on amino acids. And in the case of glutamate, You know, it's actually got 2 of the carboxylic acid functional group, and Think that's right. Hopefully, that's right.
Melissa:It's a question myself. At least has one of those because it's an amino acid. Yeah. And the reason that things are called Acids, oftentimes, they are good at giving up their hydrogen atom, and then they'll keep the electrons from that bond. So a bond is Typically made up of 2 electrons being shared between 2 different atoms so that they each have their, you know, their stable.
Melissa:They've got their outer Shell reached there at an energetically favorable place. They each have the right number of electrons.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:So they share them. When a bond is broken, those electrons are no longer shared. And they either distribute unevenly with 1 molecule, like, or one side of the bond, I guess, 1 atom Getting extra electrons in the other side of the bond not having enough or it splits evenly. Each one has 1 electron, and that's called a radical. We've talked about that before.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:Radicals are wild. Radicals are radical.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:In this case, often, hydrogen bonds to Something else. Ours is a hydrogen bonded to an oxygen at the end of the carboxylic acid group. The hydrogen will go away, and it won't take its electrons with it. So it's losing electrons, so it becomes positive.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And what stays behind, the oxygen becomes negative. It has Extra electrons. It keeps all the electrons that were in that bond.
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:Okay. And that's typically how acids behave. Acids are willing to give up that hydrogen atom, And they keep the electrons and then give up the hydrogen. Mhmm. So carboxylic acid is no is No different.
Melissa:That functional group tends to behave in that way where it's willing to give up its hydrogen and it'll keep the electrons is pretty stable. It can handle those extra electrons.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:So it's not gonna have a hard time. So it's like, sure. The hydrogen could go and do other things and become positive, and I'm gonna stay back here and be negative.
Jam:Got it. But before that happens, before anything else is interact with it, you just had some of that acid, it would be largely positive and ready to give up.
Melissa:It's not really largely positive. It's just It's like neutral.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:But it's easy to break that bond and give up the positive hydrogens.
Jam:It wants to give up the Hydrogen as soon as it can.
Melissa:Mhmm. And that's why we you may remember from chemistry class, like, acids being associated with protons, which are positively charged hydrogen atoms. They don't have any of their John's? Yeah. It's not that the acids themselves are already positive.
Melissa:It's that they're ready to give up that.
Jam:They're very willing to become negative.
Melissa:Yep.
Jam:Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I always have to remind myself this because acids, for some reason, just the way I associate them and the words or something, seem like They are negative.
Jam:You know what I mean? Not like they're willing to become negative. Yeah. Which is a really important distinction
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:When we get into the weeds of chemistry, but it's, like, Something I've had it's a hard time shaking the idea, so I have to, like, remind myself by saying it out loud to you and, like, double checking
Melissa:That's great.
Jam:That I'm confer that I'm getting that right because, like
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:That, like, instinct wants to take back over Yeah. Or not instinct, but whatever. Assumption from Yeah. Wherever I go, once the tape back over.
Melissa:Something you can think of it that might help is imagine a bond that's neutral but slightly polar. So, like, overall is neutral, but The electrons are on one side and making that side negative, and the other side is partially positive over there.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:If you broke that in half with the electrons distributed the way they are, one side will stay negative and the other side will go be positive. Got it. So it's kind of interesting because neutral is a hard word, but, yeah, The molecule itself isn't already negative. It's just really willing to give up positive hydrogens and take on that negative itself. And I think if you can visualize, yeah, like a or like a lopsided teeter totter where one side is really weighed down and the other side is lifted up.
Melissa:And then don't know if you break that in half. One side is clearly gonna have a lot of extra stuff, and the other is not gonna have extra stuff. Right?
Jam:Right.
Melissa:So that's kind of what's happening in the bond already is oxygen is it's has this ability to sort of pull the the. You can tell I've got a little bit of brain fog for being sick. I've made up a lot of words in this episode. It pulls the negative electrons towards itself So that hydrogen is like, well, I'm barely getting any of these electrons anyway. I'm theoretically sharing them, but it's not gonna be hard to take 1 more step and just break free.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:That make sense?
Jam:Yes. It does make sense. Yep.
Melissa:So and that's carboxylic acids. K. They're willing to do that. That functional group is present on glutamate. K.
Melissa:And what what happens is If you take glutamate and you put it in the environment to where it's willing, you, you know, put energy in and they'll break that bond off and send its acid out into the world, then it's negative. And if it encounters something else positive, they'll hang out near each other
Jam:K.
Melissa:And make maybe another bond. So in this case, you've sent your hydrogen away. You have a negative oxygen. If that encounters perhaps a positively charged sodium ion, The same thing happens if you have positive sodium ions and negative chloride either ions, then you get sodium chloride, which is table salt.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:So Ionic bonds are a little bit different because they're not truly sharing the electrons. It's kind of more like one's negative and one's positive, and they're hanging out near each other. Mhmm. So if you put it in water, those ions will actually kind of start to separate out again. Mhmm.
Melissa:But When it's not in water and it's in this salt form, what you have is glutamate, negatively charged, with a positively charged sodium ion near it making monosodium glutamate.
Jam:Got it. Okay.
Melissa:And that's what MSG is.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:It's glutamate that has given up a hydrogen atom, let it go, kept the electrons behind.
Jam:Mhmm. It's
Melissa:becoming negative. And then finding, sodium ion and then becoming friends with it to make salt.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And that's MSG.
Jam:Wow.
Melissa:So that's the monosodium one sodium.
Jam:Right. And so we make glutamate, But do we do we does monosodium glutamate occur in our Bodies ever, or is it mostly occurring out there?
Melissa:That's a really good question. So when Glutamate is in our bodies. Oftentimes, the it will be in its negatively charged state.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So this is kind of a this is a little bit of a deep dive biochemistry question. Amino acids are really interesting because it's really easy to lose the hydrogen off of that carboxylic acid group. And sometimes it actually wants to go and hang out on the amine group on the other side that's, like, sort of Negative. So that could happen. And if you and depending on the pH of the environment, it will switch where that thing goes, which is Which is very hard, and we don't have to talk about that right now if you don't want to.
Melissa:But So what a lot of times happens in our body is glutamate exists in a negatively charged or without that hydrogen on it. Mhmm. And so once it gets into our body and the sodium and the glutamate kind of start to separate out like they do in water, That glutamate acts the same as glutamate monosodium glutamate, once it's dissociated, acts the same as The glutamate generated by our body. They're chemically the same.
Jam:Right. Okay.
Melissa:So I don't know if naturally in our body Truly, in our body, doesn't encounter a sodium and that association happens. If it's in, like, a liquid solution of water, I think They would stay separated out.
Jam:Got it.
Melissa:And I think that's what a lot of our body is. A lot of water in there.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:But I think that would be better answered by A biochemist. Okay. Perhaps our resident biochemist, Kaibe, who always sends nice things that he's like, oh, I've
Jam:got this off the top of my head. Yes. Yes.
Melissa:Greetings from Brazil. Come try our hot dogs and coffee.
Jam:Yeah. I because I I was figuring that, like, the monosodium glutamate does occur Naturally out there in some way, because it's supposed to be, you know, in stuff. Obviously, people can Get it on its own and figure that out probably a while ago. I was assuming there's probably some way that it just happens, But was like I
Melissa:think it'd be easy for it to happen in the environment.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:I don't know how it's mass produced, though. I don't know if it's, like, isolated from something or if it's Mass produced some other way. Yeah. I assume it's mass produced some other way.
Jam:Got it.
Melissa:Or they isolate the glutamate, put it in a condition where it'll give up its hydrogen, and then add in some Sodium ions.
Jam:Isolate the glutamate. That sounds like it's waiting to be included in a poem about chemistry. You know?
Melissa:About MSG? About how it makes food taste better? Yeah. Okay. So that's all that that MSG is is it's basically another form of an amino acid that we generate with our own bodies.
Jam:Okay. And
Melissa:so then the question is, is it actually bad for you to eat it? And there's not a lot of evidence that it is.
Jam:Not a lot of evidence says it is bad. Yes. Okay. Interesting.
Melissa:So originally, it seems like this originated from a scientist in the sixties who ate a bunch of Chinese food and felt bad afterwards and theorized that it was the MSG
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:And wrote that into a journal, and then that was it.
Jam:And that's, like, the situation we all use it in now too. Uh-huh. It's like most people I've heard Reference MSG growing ups when I was a kid, but that was specifically around Chinese food and Maybe a couple other cuisines, but they were like, oh, yeah. It makes you full of fast food. You know?
Jam:You don't eat as much. It's like that. It's like that's like like Most rumors I've heard about MSG have circled around Chinese food for some dumb reason.
Melissa:Not just in Chinese food. It's in everything.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:It's in all processed foods.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:And it's in Glutamate is in a lot of foods already just anyway.
Jam:Yep.
Melissa:And glutamate does give us this the umami flavor, you know, that that, like, a Eady savoriness.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:And so I think I don't I don't know how this 1 guy's theory persisted.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:But there is not a lot of evidence to support it. So, there I read as many articles as I could. One thing said, there might be evidence that if you have a large quantity on an empty stomach, there are some people who may be negatively affected by it. Or, one review stated that, you know, there were negative effects found in animal trials, but they weren't Repeatable in primates. Okay.
Melissa:In human trials, it promotes hunger and food intake and possibly weight gain. But it's like, well, is that just because the food is better?
Jam:Right.
Melissa:So you just wanna eat more?
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:Because it enhances that savoriness that makes food taste really good.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:And then when I was talking to Mason about it, because I like to sometimes tell him about the episodes is, like, as a practice around
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Without spoiling Jim. He asked about the sodium, and I think it is possible that if you're trying to have a low sodium diet, adding more sodium in, just like adding more salt in is not great.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:So that could be something of concern.
Jam:Yeah. I could see there being something like this is, like, just completely spitball theorying. Just that, like, If if it's already naturally occurring in a lot of savory things, and you have something that has more or less of it, whether it's artificial or not, that maybe We are in some way tricked into thinking we have eaten a lot of really Good material because we've, like, been experiencing a lot of savoriness over and over.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:For instance, like, I just can't you know, like, Maybe just in terms of mass, I could eat more chips than I could steak. Yeah. What things are my body trying to do all the time, about every food, Just to tell me whether I'm full or not and why I've eaten enough, you know, things that are, like, more umami
Melissa:They trick your brain.
Jam:Right. But it's it might not be actually the MSG that is causing it. If I could just see there being some part of our bodies that's Trying to figure that out Yeah. And just basing it off of, like
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:What we're eating. You know? We can all eat more of some things than we can other things for better or for worse. You know, I'd love to eat more of some stuff, but I can't. You know?
Jam:Yeah. I just reach my limit or whatever.
Melissa:I think it's hard. It's just so complex.
Jam:Yeah. Right.
Melissa:But I think the thing that I took away from this is probably anything in huge abundance, like even just regular salt, is not good for your body.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:But if you're gonna sprinkle salt or MSG, g, from what the evidence shows is not medical advice. I'm not a doctor. It does not seem like it has a significantly negative effect on your body. There's just not evidence. And even you said whether it's artificial or not, I think you've been, like, artificial added in, but it's not this is still something, you know, chemically adding glutamate from A tomato or adding glutamate that is mass produced, just like with the vanillin extract episode we did, they're going to be chemically identical.
Melissa:And so It's just funny that something that our body naturally produces got this bad rap that's naturally found in a lot of plants, Got this bad rap, and it's like Yeah. Known as something different. You know? Where it's just. Yeah.
Melissa:It's just it's just an interesting little Food myth that I that is circulated widely and that's not really clearly based in anything. Yeah. And I think We do a lot of times associate that with Chinese food, but I think when people talk about the saltiness in fast food, all kinds of food, there is Monosodium glutamate is part of that
Jam:salt.
Melissa:So and you can buy little bottles of it and add it to your food. I've never tried that. But
Jam:I have seen people do this. Most recently, I have, like, watched cooking videos where people have used it.
Melissa:Mhmm. And
Jam:they'll say, like, use a little bit of this, and they Really go way into it. They don't they don't say, like, by the way, it's not bad for you or whatever. They're just like and this gives us flavor. They talk about the flavors. Like, this is like that.
Jam:And that would say, like and this is occurring, you know, pretty abundantly already in things like blah blah blah.
Melissa:Yeah. You know,
Jam:they just list some things. We add a little bit to this. I watched this video the other day where a guy just tried some on its own Just to see what would happen. And he was talking about
Melissa:You were already watching videos about MSG before we talked about this? Yeah. Did you already know everything I told you? No. Okay.
Melissa:Good.
Jam:Specific on the cook cooking side. Like, just people talking about using it or it occurring in, but they weren't going into, like, the amino acid stuff. Yeah.
Melissa:But they
Jam:were like
Melissa:had no idea it was an amino acid. Yeah. I probably should have. I took biochemistry. It was in my biochemistry textbook.
Melissa:But
Jam:I didn't at all either. I they really were talking, and then, like, if you're using this or if you are tasting something that's very savory, it probably already is there. You know?
Melissa:Mhmm. And That
Jam:kind of stuff. But it was just a guy talking about whether to use that in recipes or not.
Melissa:Wait. So the guy tried it by itself, and how did it taste?
Jam:He was, like, he was just talking about how odd it was because it's like it is, like, The feeling of, like, having something very savory in your mouth without any of the other tastes though.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:And so I get why. Like, we have we struggle with words for that. You know? Yeah. Like, umami or or just savory don't really get us very far.
Jam:Right? But, he did say something like he suggested this is why it's great to use in things that might be like a, a more heavy vegetable kinda thing because you can kind of help it
Melissa:Feel meatier.
Jam:Yeah. Feel meatier. And you don't have to rely on actually just sort of adding meat to a to a stew or something that may not need it or some sort of dish that might need. So he's talking about, like, here's how you could use this in your kitchen. Could You could use vegetable broth and add in some umami or something.
Melissa:I do wanna add that this reminded me of this. I didn't incorporate, I guess, into the original write up, but, the person who identified, this umami flavor is in 1908. The Japanese chemist, I'm gonna pronounce this wrong, but Kikune Aikida Aikida
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Identified the 5th basic Taste called umami. It was Japanese for delicious taste, and he noticed that it was often in a seaweed broth. And so and it is He was the one who discovered the molecule that's responsible for seaweed the seaweed broth's savory umami flavor. It was glutamate, and so glutamate's present in seaweed too. So I did I I meant to lift him up.
Melissa:I was like, I'm not gonna lift up the guy who lied about I'm not gonna say Ariel theorized wrongly, but I did I did mean to lift up this Japanese chemist and say that he was the one who identified it. And Can you imagine Maybe that's part of why it's associated with Asian food.
Jam:Right. Can you imagine being like, I need to come for the word For this other this entire category of taste. Yeah.
Melissa:Wow. Wild. So that's
Jam:so cool.
Melissa:That's a little bit do you wanna take a stab at explaining it back to me?
Jam:Yes. I would love to. So glutamate is An amino acid.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:Actually, let me start like this.
Melissa:Okay.
Jam:We taste things when we eat them. Most of us, that is. And we There's so many things going on that we can barely understand. We've had a couple episodes go into, like, the realm of taste kinda stuff, like spice and Stuff like that, which is so fascinating. But it's like it's crazy to think about that way down deep.
Jam:It's all these little things. It's all little molecules and amino acids and polymers and, things that we're that are brushing up against our tongues for, like, just seconds, you know, or whatever. So one of those is glutamate Mhmm. Which is a, amino acid. It's also already in our bodies, and not just in the thing we're eating.
Jam:But that is, You said it's 2 carboxylic acids?
Melissa:I believe so. It has it all amino acids have 1 carboxylic acid in 1 amine group. Got it. I'm pretty sure glutamate has 2 carboxylic acids, but let me just look up the structure real quick.
Jam:I know
Melissa:it suddenly, I got scared.
Jam:I know you I mean
Melissa:That was silly. Yeah. Sometimes I just get I'm like, wait. Am I crazy? No.
Melissa:I'm not. It is it does. It has 2 carboxylic acid groups on either side.
Jam:Okay. So as it is on its own, glutamate is ready to give up a hydrogen.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:And once it does that, if the situation allows for it and there's it finds a a bidder, somebody who's wants the hydrogen, And it's gonna deep it up. Once it does that, then it will be negative. Mhmm. So in that in the case if that has happened, And a a sodium ion is hanging out and around, nearby, which should be a positively charged to sodium. Right?
Jam:Then
Melissa:That sodiums also lost its electron somewhere.
Jam:Lost its electron. And so they are a really great potential match there.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:And so if that happens, then we get monosodium glutamate. Mhmm. So we've we have a slightly different, you know, thing going on there now, and it exists in a bunch of other Things already.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:And, of course, like, that interaction of, like, it losing its hydrogen And then deciding to bond with a sodium ion just is normal, very perceivable that it would happen, And doesn't seem to be harmful to our bodies in any way More than other things that we eat Correct. With within a normal Yeah. Normal amounts, not going crazy. And, somehow is that like I guess it wouldn't be the only thing that our Tongues are searching for for savoriness.
Melissa:I have no idea.
Jam:But somehow, it's part of let's just say,
Melissa:you know, it's savory.
Jam:It's at least part of One of the things that our tongues can can detect
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:That makes things taste savory.
Melissa:And one of the The guesses I have is that it's called monosodium glutamate because it has those 2 carboxylic acids. Perceivably, both of the hydrogens could be lost from each carboxylic acid, and it could be, like, bisodium or disodium. Glued me. But I that's that was not talked about in anything I read. But I I would assume the reason they have to specify it's 1 sodium.
Melissa:Like, We don't say monosodium chloride because each chlorine can only have 1 sodium.
Jam:Right. But I
Melissa:think we have to say monosodium glutamate because theoretically, there could be 2 instead of just saying sodium glutamate.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:That's my guess.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:But all of these are colloquial names anyway. There's a there's a actual If anyone's interested in the IUPAC name, it's 2 aminopentanedioic acid. That's the sciency name for glutamate. So
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:Did I miss anything?
Melissa:I don't think so. I think that was a good explanation.
Jam:Dude, that's crazy.
Melissa:Yeah. Just one little other I was so shocked that it was amino acid. I don't know why I never put that together, And that is something that we make naturally. Yeah. Then we just add this monosodium, and it sounds way scarier and confusing.
Jam:Yeah. Somehow even just that Acne MSG sounds worse than, like, other little shorthand, like, colloquialisms we have for molecules that may
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:Be in every life. For instance, like, obviously, h two o sounds like completely harmless to us. Yep. That's right. To your point, here's a here's a good example.
Jam:The MSG, the miss the mystery of it hiding behind Those letters makes it sound scarier.
Melissa:That is a great example. I agree. I thought about I thought about it as I was You know, over the next few weeks after we recorded that, and I I thought I feel pretty firm in my position that I think there are times when it's useful in Communities where it is very clearly understood what they are. Yeah. But I think you're right about other places where it's Unnecessary.
Melissa:It doesn't tell us what they could or should.
Jam:Yeah. And that makes sense that most of them form in those situations. What's the
Melissa:you want backstory, Listen to the bonus episode this this past this month. Yeah. Okay. I guess it was technically, it would be last month when that came out.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:We're trying to get ahead for our holiday break, so our schedule's all kind of whack. Alright. Well, that's everything for your science lesson today. It was a little bit of review of amino acids, of acids in general, and, you know, ions and bonding. There's all kinds of concepts we've heard before, but definitely in a new context.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And I thought it was really fun and interesting. So I'm glad I got to share it. Now do you wanna share a fun thing?
Jam:I would love to share a fun thing. So, just last night, I,
Melissa:I haven't seen Jam in 2 weeks, so I have no idea what this is gonna
Jam:Yeah. She has no idea.
Melissa:I'm ready.
Jam:Just last night, something very scary happened Uh-oh. With our coffee roaster.
Melissa:Uh-oh.
Jam:Yes. So Mason and I, Mason is Melissa's husband. We roast coffee together. We're a little coffee roasting company.
Melissa:Good dotcoffee. Good with an e dotcoffee.
Jam:And we have a roaster that we it's like not super high capacity in it, but it's very nice. Very fancy in the sense we can control from our computers. We can program certain things. We can get all kinds of readings and data the whole time. It's very nice.
Melissa:In other words, they wanted to buy this roaster, and they've made a business to justify it.
Jam:Yeah. That's a pretty good that's a pretty good way of putting it. And some people like to say, you know, takes money to make money, but whatever. However you say it. So we try to take good care of this thing.
Jam:In fact, only 2 weeks ago, Mason and I, instead of roasting one of our evenings, we just actually took apart the roaster, not all the way, but, you know, the parts that needed to, And spent, like, the whole evening just cleaning it.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:And, you know, and doing all of that, and let everything dry out really good before we put that together, and stuff like that. So we've been taking care of it. I put some beans in. I had, like, preheat the roaster like normal. Mhmm.
Jam:And because we did that, I've been having to roast a little bit on my own, and also you guys were sick. So, been roasting on my own to keep up with our orders, and I got the roaster preheated as we always do. Mhmm. Drop some beans in like how you always do.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:And then the beans don't move.
Melissa:Uh-oh. And they're supposed to there
Jam:was a cylinder here. Yeah. It's like a cylinder, like, on it's horizontal. It's slightly at an angle, And it moves fast. Keeps the beans moving.
Jam:And so I drop them in, and they don't move. And it is preheat. It's been it's super hot in there. So the beans start burning immediately. The ones that are touching the side of the drum.
Melissa:And then the other ones don't have anything happening at all.
Jam:Exactly. So I'm trying to figure it out frantically, and I don't dump them out in time. I thought maybe I could just cheat the setting or something like that and dump them out. And then some of these speeds are just absolutely scorched, And the whole batch of beans is ruined. Ruined.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:Which is not the end of the world that, you know Yeah.
Melissa:But what happened to your what happened to the roaster?
Jam:I know. So I'm like, when did this is ever happened before. I'm like, also just like, this seems like the kind of problem that is gonna be really big and bad. Like, Are we are are is our little roaster, you know, very, very ill? Is something wrong deeply with it?
Jam:That will be Either, like, is it dead, basically, or is it gonna be very expensive to fix? Uh-oh. And I also could not work on it at the exact moment, which was very sad.
Melissa:Oh, because you have this pit in your stomach, making you can't resolve the pain
Jam:here tonight. I needed to move on to do other things.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:Finally, that later that evening, I read a bunch of articles and start Open the roaster up and taking things apart, and I open a section. One of the things I find tells me to open this section that I had never opened before Mhmm. That houses the motor and all that kind of stuff that spins the drum. And I'm tinkering around back there, and it takes me a while to even figure out how to get in there in the 1st place. And then I finally, like, look at enough things and read a little post on some forum that Seems to describe almost, like, the issue that I'm that we're experiencing, and I find this part that has become loose, And I tightened it back.
Jam:It's really hard to explain these things without seeing stuff. Yeah. Even if you're watching YouTube video, I'm not I can't. And tightened things back And, put it all back together, fire it up, and
Melissa:what a relief.
Jam:Completely fixed.
Melissa:There's a similar thing that happened where my windshield wipers didn't work for, like, years.
Jam:Oh, no.
Melissa:They were, like, intermittent for years. Uh-huh. And finally, Mason looked at it. We after we got married, we split up our chores, and he knows a lot about mechanical things. So he takes, like, weird car maintenance.
Melissa:That's his job.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:And all he had to do is was tighten one bolt. Uh-huh. And it was just that it wasn't tight enough, so it wasn't catching. So it wasn't moving the mechanism for the windshield wipers. Like you had the exact same thing.
Jam:Exact same thing because it would kind of spin a little bit, but as soon as there's any weight in the drum, it was having a hard time overcoming because Just slipping. Yeah. This gear was slipping around the thing. So, yeah, I got to name it because Mason it seemed like the kind of thing that I was like, Mason's gonna have to get in here and fix this. Like
Melissa:he's good at that stuff.
Jam:He's very good at it, and I was like, I can try, and I know how to I know how to follow directions on stuff, but I'm not confident in it. So I had this roller coaster of a day
Melissa:that feels so good.
Jam:It feels very good. And the thing I am feeling sort of So happy thing is I'm feeling grateful for our little roaster.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:And the thought of it maybe having been, like, dying Yeah. Or dead.
Melissa:It was heartbreaking.
Jam:Was like, oh, no. Our little roaster that we just been taking early care of. You know?
Melissa:We've been
Jam:we just cleaned it and all that stuff. But now that it's fixed, I'm like, It's
Melissa:like Thank goodness.
Jam:Yeah. It's almost like whenever, you know, like, your dog goes missing for, like, an afternoon or something like that, and he goes back and you're like, I was worried sick. You know? And you're like, But get over here. Yeah.
Jam:So I felt like that about our roaster a little bit.
Melissa:That is so it feels so good that it's fixed, and I do Feel like a renewed sense of gratitude. You know? Like, when things aren't like, when I'm sick and then you can breathe for the 1st time, you're like, man, you just don't know how great it is.
Jam:Yes. Exactly like that. Yeah. A 100%.
Melissa:That's so great. And if you want to support Jam and Mason and get a nice, cool, Custom coffee for a friend or family for a holiday gift. Go to good.coffee. Good with an e. Goode, I call it.
Melissa:Yeah. Googodecoffee. And order you can order the little bags. Right?
Jam:Mhmm. Yep.
Melissa:And then you do they're like a lightweight samples sort of.
Jam:Yeah. We have samples or full size bags as well. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that was my roller coaster of a
Melissa:That sounds dramatic.
Jam:Yesterday and last night, so I'm still kind of Whew. Really from it. What about you? What's been happening with you?
Melissa:Well, I've been sick. A bad, bad cold down bad for, like, over a week. I didn't work for a week solid or I worked, but it was Only things that didn't require me to think very hard. You know? Like Mhmm.
Melissa:I did a cybersecurity training, and then I did, like, You know, I'm I'm applying for jobs because postdoc jobs are just supposed to be for a short period of time. And so, you know, on job applications, you upload your resume, and then they ask you all the questions that you already answered on your resume.
Jam:Yep.
Melissa:It's like, when did you go to school? You know? And so I've done that a bunch lately, and so I did that because it doesn't make a lot of brainpower. You know? But when it came to doing my work, which requires, actually thinking, I couldn't.
Melissa:Yeah. It's I I was just so tired and so brain foggy that I just could not Hang. Yeah. So, one thing I could do, though, is a little bit of activity and then rest. And so I use that little bit of activity and then rest to decorate my house for Christmas this weekend.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:And You might be thinking it's December 7th, classic time to decorate. No. It's not December 7th when this episode comes out. It is The 1st weekend of November when we did this. And so I got my house decorated for all of November December, and I'm just really happy about it because we were supposed to go on a camping trip and, like, take a sort of, like, digital break and, you know, hang out, and I was really sad to give that up.
Melissa:But If I was gonna be stuck in the house for a week being sick, at least I got to be stuck in a house that was Christmassy.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:So
Jam:That's good. That's
Melissa:all. Really fun.
Jam:That's a good, like, yeah, way to take advantage of the situation and do something you know that would lift your spirits.
Melissa:Yeah. And they do lift my spirits right into Christmas spirit.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa:And we recently went through my mom's old Christmas stuff and deviated it out. And so this is the first time, You know, I've had some of my grandma's Christmas stuff around, and then I also had my mom's Christmas stuff and then some of the stuff that Mason and I have gotten together. And so It's really sweet to have all of that in my home and, like yeah. Or, like, it's fully Christmased in our house, even the bathroom has a Christmas shower curtain.
Jam:That's yeah. That's cool.
Melissa:So, yeah, it's a cheerful and and Sentimental and sweet and something that I always do with my mom, and so it's fun to, you know, carry that on. My sister says it's too soon because She thinks you should wait till after Thanksgiving, and I told her Canadian Thanksgiving had already happened. Right, Sarah? So yeah.
Jam:Yeah. I obviously am an opinionated person about some stuff, but I kinda like making the people mad that they think you should wait. You know? But, I like to go ahead and start the Start the music. That's my big thing.
Jam:I'm not a huge decorationsy person. Like, it's not not like I don't have, like, a ton of fun doing that. I do, like, once it is decorated. Yeah. But the process isn't that fun for me, but I like I like just going right on into it.
Jam:Halloween's over. Boom. Christmas time.
Melissa:Boom. Funnily enough, we recorded our 1st Christmas episode on Halloween. So my 1st Christmas sweater, I wore
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:On Halloween day. And I was like, I'm embracing it. It's time. Yeah. So we're in it.
Melissa:We're in the season.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:You know what? Also, you only get so many Christmases. And if you only celebrate them in December, Then Mhmm. That's 1 month of your life that's Christmassy. If you double, if you extend it just to after Halloween, you get twice as much Christmas in your lifetime Mhmm.
Melissa:Than if you only do 1 month of Christmas. Mhmm. Why don't you want that?
Jam:Exactly.
Melissa:If you're a Christmas celebrator, you know, if that's your holiday
Jam:Yep. You heard it first. A a scientist just told us, you will live longer No. If you yeah. You heard it here.
Melissa:I said yes. Though. Twice as much Christmas.
Jam:I heard what I wanted to hear.
Melissa:Yeah. Okay. Well, you know, I can't help that. That's gonna happen no matter what.
Jam:Oh, I get it.
Melissa:Anyway, so yay, yay, Christmas, and yay chemistry. Mhmm. And, thank you so much. Thank you for letting me teach you about MSG and For whoever asked this question and this was really fun. I love learning new things, and I love sharing proper inter information and counteract misinformation.
Melissa:So this was great.
Jam:Thanks for teaching us about Madison Square Garden. Had no idea that all that that's just so weird. You think it's a building, and then you realize it's actually an amino acid. So weird. And thank you.
Jam:Yeah. Like, most of the thanks for whoever asked this question and the many people who have suggested different topics. We love hearing y'all's questions, ideas, things y'all think would be, you know, either a good episode or just a question to follow-up or correction, whatever. Please reach out to us with those things on our website atchemforyourlife.com. That's fem, f o r your life.com to share your thoughts and ideas.
Jam:If you'd like to help us keep our show going and contribute to cover the cost of making it like our friend Sarah did, you can join our super cool Kimmunity of patrons on Patreon. Patreon.com/chem for your life to join that cool community. You get to do some fun things, hear from us more, be part of some some fun activities with us, Etcetera. It's a cool perk.
Melissa:Bonus episodes.
Jam:Bonus episodes, etcetera. Yep. Be good to help us keep our show going, which is awesome. If you're not able to do that, you can still help us by Grabbing in for your podcast app, rating and writing review on Apple Podcasts, and also subscribing on YouTube. Those things help us to share chemistry with even more people.
Melissa:This episode of Chemistry Free Life was created by Melissa Collini and Jam Robinson. Jam Robinson is our producer, and this episode was made by our financial supporters over on Patreon. It means so much to us that you wanna make chemistry accessible for even more people. Those supporters are Sarah m, Avishai B, Brie M, Brian K, Chris and Claire S, Chelsea B, Derek L, Emerson W, Hunter R, Jacob T, Christina G, Katrina H, Latila S, Lynn S, Melissa P, Nicole C, Rachel R, Steven B, Shadow, Suzanne P, Timothy P, and Venus Thank you again for everything you do to make chemistry for your life happen. And in extra special things to Brie who often creates illustrations to go on with episodes of chemistry for your life, You can see those over on our YouTube channel, and you can thank Brie by following her and supporting her at intropic art art station.com or Sure.
Melissa:Nope. At McAllister Brie on Twitter, and those are linked in the notes for our show.
Jam:Yay chemistry.
Melissa:Yay chemistry. I thought you say if you'd like to learn more about, well, today's class.
Jam:Because you said there's a link in the show notes. I just was thinking you said, but you didn't really
Melissa:That's fine. If you
Jam:wanna read the other references, Learn deeper about this, chemistry topic. You can look at the references in our show notes or in the description of the video, and now yay chemistry.
Melissa:Now yay chemistry. Always
