Umami: Taste for Health

Umami: Taste for Health explores the role of glutamate in umami taste and its potential health benefits, including reducing salt intake, promoting satiation, and supporting healthier aging. It also provides practical culinary applications to increase umami flavor and promote healthy eating.

Format: Hardback
Length: 198 pages
Publication date: 13 September 2023
Publisher: Springer International Publishing AG

Umami: Taste for Health is an Open Access book that explores the concept of umami, the unique taste imparted by the amino acid glutamate, first described by Dr. Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo University in 1908. Over the past century, hundreds of studies have explored the mechanistic underpinnings of the taste, leading to the characterization of the umami taste receptor in 2002. However, how this fifth basic taste figures into nutrition and health remains underexplored. Umami: Taste for Health provides an overview of the relationship between umami and human health. Authors explain how glutamate not only produces a characteristic oral sensation in the mouth but also functions as a signaling molecule to induce physiological responses. With the support of recent studies, the book demonstrates how the taste properties of umami make glutamate a promising substance to lower salt intake, promote satiation and support healthier aging. The text also covers practical culinary applications to increase umami flavor and practical usage of umami for promoting healthy eating.

Dimension: 235 x 155 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783031326912
Edition number: 1st ed. 2024