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    News and Articles on Umami



    Mixing It Up: Enjoy a healthy vegetable salad  Aug 31, 2008
    The phrase most often used during the week was that a recipe was packed with umami, the fifth taste, or a more literal Japanese translation of deliciousness. I have been reading Connie s book and have applied the cooking principles and ingredient selection to our meals at home. (La Crosse Tribune, WI)

    Like the Taste of Chalk? You're in Luck--Humans May Be Able to Taste Calcium  Aug 23, 2008
    (, which contain approximately 50 to 100 taste cells, comprise receptors for at least five specific tastes salty, sour, bitter, sweet and umami, or savory. . (Scientific American)

    Magnifying Taste: New Chemicals Trick the Brain into Eating Less  Aug 6, 2008
    The Elusive Umami: Although it was discovered a century ago, umami still struggles for acceptance as the fifth basic taste the tongue recognizes ... Humans sense five taste qualities: sweet, salty, bitter, sour and savory (also called umami, which roughly translates from Japanese into delicious flavor ). (Scientific American)

    The Inside Scoop: Gastropub planned for Marina; Ponzu gets a new chef  Jul 24, 2008
    The trio is part of the Vintage 415 team that also owns Mamacita and Umami. Inspired by the public houses of England, Valentine says they'll turn the restaurant into an American gastropub, with a casual menu served in a setting of button-tufted brown leather banquettes, rustic wood floors and antique lamps. (San Francisco Chronicle)

    Make Mushrooms Your Pick of the Season  Jul 19, 2008
    In addition, mushrooms have umami. Also known as the "fifth taste," umami foods are described as hearty or savory. (Canton Daily Ledger, IL)

    Tong Chee Hwee's menu: Hakkasan  Jul 19, 2008
    An exception to that rule, however, is sherry, which is delicious with a classic fish soup - then again, manzanilla and fino are good with shellfish full stop - and will also work well with Tong Chee Hwee's lobster and spinach concoction, particularly because both have a slight umami flavour that is reflected in the enoki mushrooms ... What is great about both of these sakes is that, like the sherry, they have more of the umami that's also threaded through the food. (Guardian Unlimited)

    Your Health: Mushrooms offer more than good taste  Jul 13, 2008
    The Mushroom Lady wrote on Jul 11, 2008 6:46 AM:" Not only do shiitake mushrooms have wonderful health benefits, they are also a source of Umami, enhancing the flavours of all the other foods they are served with. ". Neil Redding wrote on Jul 12, 2008 9:28 AM:" Great to see more coverage of the shiitake's benefits - I'm a big fan of them, and eat them multiple times a week, usually sauteed in olive oil and garlic salt. They go well with so many things - pasta, brown rice, all sorts of... (Green Valley News & Sun, AZ)

    Taking A Cue From Breath Fresheners, Researcher Develops New Method For Taste Testing  Jun 16, 2008
    Greg Smutzer, director of the Laboratory of Gustatory Psychophysics in the Biology Department of Temple's College of Science and Technology has created taste strips similar to breath-freshening strips, but these edible strips contain one of the five basic tastes that are detected by humans -- sweet, sour, salty, bitter and monosodium glutamate, which is also known as umami taste ... Added into the solution is a small amount of a taste stimulus that will give each strip the desired taste: sodium... (Science Daily)

    Chef tastes victory after cancer fight  Jun 14, 2008
    "You see how the salty, sweet, bitter, sour and umami [the 'savoury' flavour] go together," he said. "You've isolated them.". (Globe and Mail)

    The din of dining  Jun 5, 2008
    Umami, San Francisco. The Bay Area's noisiest (Noise Rating: BOMB). (San Francisco Chronicle)

    Who needs recipes?  May 14, 2008
    Flavours are countless, but there are only five tastes: salt, sweet, acid, bitter and umami ... And then there is umami - the full-on pleasure taste ... Dedicated umami receptors on our tongues hunt for and recognise proteins, which we need to build muscle. (Guardian Unlimited)

    'Trendiest' S.F. Eateries  May 8, 2008
    I'd also have to throw in 1300, right next to Yoshi's, probably Suppenkuche, and maybe Umami in the Marina. The trends. (San Francisco Chronicle -- Crime)

    patrick Riley  May 2, 2008
    Umami has been recognized as a fifth taste. Umami turns the bad to a good taste ... Umami is most recognized in beef taste. (Great Falls Prairie Star, MT)

    The Roving Feast: Meatballs evoke memories of Grandma  Mar 27, 2008
    Following her cue, I mix a little soy sauce in the meat itself, then shake some in the pan as the patties brown, adding a hearty, umami hit. I have no doubt the soy sauce was her own idea, a twist of flavor she discovered when she reached the multicultural land of California. (San Francisco Chronicle)

    Yamahai warriors  Feb 23, 2008
    "It really does make it more likely that you'll end up with sake with a more robust character, a richer, broader flavor, more umami and yet a cleaner finish.". While sake made using the modern sokujo style sometimes comes out with a cloying sweetness or a lingering aftertaste, Nasu says, yamahai's clean finish can be a draw. (San Francisco Chronicle)

    Celery Makes 'Grandma's Penicillin' Tastier In Cold & Flu Season  Jan 24, 2008
    In particular, celery's extract enhanced the sweetness and umami (meaty or savory) taste of the broth, even though the extract had virtually no flavor of its own. From the extract, researchers identified three compounds responsible for celery's flavor-enhancement. (Science Daily)

    American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- Jan. 16, 2008  Jan 22, 2008
    Wishing your Valentine good heart health on February 14 and throughout 2008" Then consider the food some people love to hate, and hand over a gift bag of broccoli along with that heart-shaped box of chocolates. Researchers in Connecticut are reporting impressive new evidence that eating broccoli may protect against heart disease. Their study is scheduled for the Jan. 23 issue of ACS Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication. Researchers have known for years that... (EurekAlert!)

    Monsoon gets new name, renovation  Dec 30, 2007
    Located at 17800 Bluemound Road, the restaurant will close in early January and be renovated for Umami Moto, which loosely translated means "deliciousness" or "delicious essence." The new restaurant is expected to open in late January and will be led by restaurant developer and consultant Al Balda. Polaski, president of , took full control of the Monsoon brand in late 2007 and said he was inspired to build on the brand's success as well as offer a new take on the Asian fusion concept. (Milwaukee Business Journal, WI)

    A well thought-out spot  Dec 6, 2007
    It's a study in umami, the savory fifth taste that occurs in ingredients like mushrooms, featured here along with chicken. It's appealing but tastes little like the tom yum you get at a Thai restaurant. (Boston Globe)

    Fruit Flies Prefer Fizzy Drinks  Aug 31, 2007
    D., director of the NIDCD. "This research raises the question of whether people also may have the ability to taste carbon dioxide and perhaps other chemicals in food. If this were found to be true, our sense of taste could be even more complex than we realize." Currently, scientists recognize five tastes in humans: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami, or savory. Before today's findings, fruit flies were known to be able to taste sweet, bitter, and salty. (Science Daily)

    Flies prefer fizzy drinks UCB, Aug. 29  Aug 30, 2007
    This is one of the first, if not the only taste sensation discovered in animals beyond the five that humans taste - sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami, or savory ... While Scott has shown that fruit flies can detect sweet and bitter compounds, and now carbonation, she has discounted their ability to taste umami and said that their ability to taste sour compounds is questionable. (University of California Newswire, CA)

    Researchers find new taste in fruit flies: carbonated water  Aug 30, 2007
    Currently, scientists recognize five tastes in humans: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami, or savory. Before todays findings, fruit flies were known to be able to taste sweet, bitter, and salty. (EurekAlert!)

    Sour taste make you pucker? It may be in your genes  Jul 12, 2007
    The findings, in conjunction with previous work on sweet, bitter, and umami (savory) taste, suggest that people differ in how they perceive the taste of foods, and that these differences are determined in part by their taste genes. So someone who inherited a high sensitivity to sour taste may find foods containing lemons or vinegar off-putting, whereas the same foods may be better accepted by a person whose genes make them less sensitive. (EurekAlert!)

    Making sense of taste (Shelley Widhalm)  Jun 14, 2007
    Taste occurs when special sensory cells located in the tongue, throat and cheeks respond to the five basic taste qualities, that of sweet, sour, bitter, salty and savory or umami, says Barry Davis, director of the taste and smell program at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda. He holds a doctorate in neuroscience. (Washington Times, DC)

    In brief: Hot licks  Jun 14, 2007
    That fifth sensation: umami ... In 1908, a Japanese researcher identified a complex fifth element he called "umami," a word with no English translation. (Anchorage Daily News)

    Chemistry in action  Mar 24, 2007
    He worked with of the University of Reading to see why, and they found that the jelly has tons more glutamic acidthe source of the famous meaty, nummy umami flavor (See )--than the flesh. So, special note to my boyfriend: I now have scientific proof that de-seeding tomatoes is silly. (Nature News Service)

    The Origins of MSG  Mar 18, 2007
    His discovery of MSG was quickly patented in Japan and the U.S. And in developing MSG, which made people want to eat more, Kikunae also added a new word to the Japanese lexicon: umami -- a terms whose roots are derived from a colloquial term meaning "tasty.". In 1909, the Suzuki Chemical Company began producing MSG under the name Ajinomoto, translated as "essence of taste." The product was a bit of a failure as cooks and restaurants preferred using soy sauce as a flavour enhancer. (Suite101.com)

    Strange but True: Cats Cannot Taste Sweets  Mar 9, 2007
    Humans enjoy five kinds of taste buds (possibly six): sour, bitter, salty, umami (or meatiness) and sweet (as well as possibly fat). The sweet receptor is actually made up of two coupled proteins generated by two separate genes: known as Tas1r2 and Tas1r3. (Scientific American)

    Asian-Fusion Flashback  Feb 25, 2007
    Even if they wanted to, the owners couldn't hide a spot as imposing as Umami, despite painting the exterior dark brown and downplaying a small Japanese sign that's unintelligible to 99 ... Umami has become a trendy spot for the Cow Hollow/Marina set ... Umami is to Asian food what boy bands are (or were) to the American music scene: fun, energetic but ultimately not destined to break any new ground. (San Francisco Chronicle -- Entertainment)

    China's true dash of flavor  Feb 22, 2007
    In his laboratory, he isolated the natural glutamates in the seaweed, and to their marvelous taste he gave the name "umami," derived from the Japanese word for "delicious." His work led directly to the industrial manufacture in Japan and then worldwide of monosodium glutamate ... In recent years, however, there has been growing acceptance of the existence of a so-called fifth taste an addition to the traditional quartet of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter known through an emerging consensus by... (International Herald Tribune -- Ed/Op)

    The bubbly issue  Dec 2, 2006
    " While palmiers are usually sweet, Lynne Char Bennett's savory versions can be served as hors d'oeuvres. INGREDIENTS: 1 sheet of puff pastry, defrosted according to package directions Whole grain Dijon mustard 2 ounces prosciutto 2 ounces grated Gruyere INSTRUCTIONS: Instructions: Preheat the oven to 375. On a lightly floured surface, roll the puff pastry out in a rectangle about 12 inches wide and about 1/8-inch thick. Brush with a light coating of the mustard. Cover with a single layer of... (San Francisco Chronicle)

    Kyowa Hakko Interim Operating Income Up 18.4%  Oct 30, 2006
    Sales of Umami seasonings also increased leading to higher overall sales of seasonings. In the Other business segment, sales decreased 7. (CNBC -- Research Alerts)

    Dabbling in mustard  Oct 19, 2006
    Advanced Medical Practice. Develop mktg ess plan. (San Francisco Chronicle)

    Pucker up ... and say ahhhh!  Oct 18, 2006
    Diggs said that "distilled vinegar has no umami." Umami is the so-called "fifth flavor" that imparts a sense of savoriness or meatiness. "But rice vinegar, corn vinegar and wine vinegar all have umami. Especially rice vinegar -- it's the best one because it's not as harsh and not as expensive.". (Seacoast New Hampshire)

    Shrooms to Grow  Oct 5, 2006
    They are adaptable to a variety of cooking techniques and have a broad range of amino acids, which give them the savory characteristic known as "umami" - the fifth element of the sense of taste after sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Mushrooms have been prized throughout time by various cultures, including the ancient Egyptians and the Romans, who referred to them as the "food of the gods.". (The Ledger)

    Isolating a taste for 'tart'  Oct 2, 2006
    The tongue can distinguish five basic flavor sensations: sweet, sour, bitter, salt and umami ... Umami, the "savory" taste of meat and cheese (also found in the food additive MSG), points to protein ... "There are areas of emphasis," Munger said, "but there are not these absolute divided areas." Over time the researchers identified the receptors for sweet, bitter and umami. (Newsday -- Health)

    Nailing down what makes sour sour  Aug 28, 2006
    After that, the animals could not taste sour; other tastes - bitter, salty, sweet and umami (savory) - were unaffected, the researchers reported in the journal Nature. Zucker said scientists were particularly interested in understanding the mechanisms for tasting sour because it "is a taste that underlies one of the most fundamental needs for an organism - to ensure it doesn't ingest noxious substances.". (Philadelphia Inquirer)

    Discerning Sour Taste  Aug 28, 2006
    The team previously discovered the sweet, bitter and umami (savory) receptors and showed that they are found in separate cells, but some researchers have argued that sour and salty tastes, which depend on the detection of ions, would not be wired in the same way ... Tongue with bitter, sweet and umami To determine if the taste cells and receptors for sour were separate from the receptors for the other basic tastes, the researchers tested mice in which they had genetically ablated the cells... (MedIndia)

    Biologists Discover How We Detect Sour Taste  Aug 25, 2006
    Tongue with bitter, sweet and umami receptors in green and sour receptors in red ... The team previously discovered the sweet, bitter and umami (savory) receptors and showed that they are found in separate cells, but some researchers have argued that sour and salty tastes, which depend on the detection of ions, would not be wired in the same way ... The mice could not taste sour, but had completely normal sweet, bitter, umami and salty tastes. (Science Daily)

    Scientists Discover How We Detect Sour Taste  Aug 24, 2006
    Tongue with bitter, sweet and umami receptors in green and sour receptors in red ... The team previously discovered the sweet, bitter and umami (savory) receptors and showed that they are found in separate cells, but some researchers have argued that sour and salty tastes, which depend on the detection of ions, would not be wired in the same way ... The mice could not taste sour, but had completely normal sweet, bitter, umami and salty tastes. (PhysOrg.com)

    How the tongue tastes sour  Aug 24, 2006
    Taste in mammals is classified into sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami (the taste of monosodium glutamate, commonly found in Chinese takeaways). Until now, only the sweet, bitter and umami taste receptors had been identified, and researchers were unsure whether the other two tastes had specialized receptors for them at all. (Nature News Service)

    Researchers identify the cells and receptor for sensing sour taste  Aug 24, 2006
    In the last seven years, Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher Charles S. Zuker and Nicholas J.P. Ryba at the National Institutes of Health have worked together to identify the cells, receptors and signaling mechanisms for three of the five tastes humans can sense -- sweet, bitter, and umami (the taste of monosodium glutamate) ... The receptor is found in a subpopulation of taste receptor cells of the tongue that do not function in sweet, bitter, or umami taste, the researchers report in... (EurekAlert!)

    Duke researchers locate sour-detecting taste bud proteins  Aug 8, 2006
    All mammals can detect five primary flavors: bitter, sweet, salty, sour and umami (its Japanese name), known in the west as monosodium glutamate, a savory-type flavor. Each taste bud on the tongue contains separate sets of cells that detect each taste. (Herald Sun)

    Great Grilling With Lean Beef  Aug 2, 2006
    Beef Flavor Pairings: the Power of Umami ... Known as umami (oo-MOM-ee) from the Japanese word for "delicious," this fifth taste is described as meaty and savory- or the flavor of beef ... Pairing umami-rich foods- like beef -with tomatoes, wine, soy sauce, mushrooms, cheese, corn, spinach or beets can add an explosion of flavor the next time you grill. (Somerset Daily American, PA)

    How safe are the places where you dine?  Jul 14, 2006
    B. Umami, the "fifth taste" besides bitter, sour, salty and sweet. Expect lots of MSG.. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- Living)

    Umami: That 'mmmm, so good' taste  Jul 7, 2006
    "My mom says that taste when you eat clear soup, and it's mmmm, so good, that's umami," says Obunai, the Japanese chef who owns Repast in Atlanta with her husband, Joe Truex ... All now agree that the time has come to redraw the map of the tongue to acknowledge umami (pronounced "ooh, mommy") as the fifth basic taste in addition to sweet, sour, bitter and salty ... Home cooks and consumers - once they catch on - can use umami as a framework for understanding the variety of ethnic products and... (AZCentral -- Home)

    Umami -- the fifth taste  Jun 23, 2006
    Foods like pizza, cheese, Chinese cuisine and Japanese food are rich in the fifth taste called 'umami ... See if you can tell which food has more umami ... "My mom says that taste when you eat clear soup, and it's mmmm, so good, that's umami," says Obunai, the Japanese chef who owns Repast with her husband, Joe Truex. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- Living)

    Raw fish loses in translation  Jun 19, 2006
    The broth will be dashi the ubiquitous stock made from dried skipjack tuna and sea kelp and it will be filled with umami ... In the West, we associate the satisfaction of umami with meats, cheeses and other caloric sources of animal protein ... Because the Japanese didn't eat meat until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the cuisine found ways to extract umami from sea vegetables, fish and plants. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

    Could MSG Make a Comeback?:  May 4, 2006
    One thing is certain: MSG's prospects have been greatly improved by the food world's recent embrace of umami, the basic taste that is now to the old quartet of bitter, salty, sour, and sweet ... Umami and MSG have long been conflated ... In 2000, when the journal Nature first reported the discovery of an umami taste receptor, it explained that umami is "better known in the west as monosodium glutamate (MSG).". (Slate)

    Kyowa Hakko Profits Decline on Higher R&D Spend but Recurring...  Apr 28, 2006
    Umami seasonings increased their market share, and both sales volumes and net sales were up on the previous fiscal year. In bakery products and ingredients, sales improved from fiscal 2004 due to increased sales of sweet bread premixes, bread flavor enhancers and milk preparations. (CNBC -- Research Alerts)

    Living taste cells produced outside the body  Feb 24, 2006
    These cells contain the receptors that detect taste stimuli: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami (savory). Each taste receptor cell lives for only about 10-14 days, after which it is replaced. (EurekAlert!)

    Smelling good may mean it's good for you  Feb 12, 2006
    The human tongue senses just five flavors - sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami, sometimes called savory - and scent provides considerable added information about a food. Klee is at the Institute of Food and Agricultural Science, University of Florida, and Goff works for Syngenta Biotechnology, an agribusiness company. (Philly.com -- Health)


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