We Stole The Secrets Of Umami And We're Giving It To You For Our 10th Anniversary

We stole the secrets of umami from the food industry, and we’re giving them to you.

Because if MSG was so good, why is there no MSG 2?

Tim, founder of Vite here, and we’re giving you the same umami tech that’s going in our v3.2 Vite Ramen to amp up anything you want...

And it’s a seasoning with 21.3x the umami of MSG*.

How the hell did we manage that?

Alright, I’m going to come clean here. The thing is, this science is already very well established, and it’s been a technique we’ve been using for years. It’s all over the food industry, but while making v3.2, I noticed something really weird.

For some reason, this couldn’t be bought anywhere. The everyday person couldn’t use it.

...Why was that?

First, though, we need to talk about MSG.

...I’ll try to keep it short. Try, being the operative word.

MSG stands for monosodium glutamate, and it’s possibly the most misunderstood and contentious ingredient ever made. MSG is, simply, the pure, concentrated flavor of “savoriness,” also known as “umami,” the fifth taste after salty, sweet, bitter, and sour.

See, there’s this prevalent, and honestly infuriating belief that goes around that “if you can’t pronounce it, you shouldn’t eat it,” and that’s even BEFORE the huge misinformation campaign around it.

But first of all, it’s not that hard to pronounce, and second, we’re demonizing the more honest, straightforward version of things. MSG is the scientific name of this ingredient, and a lot of names get “scary” when you say the precise scientific name.

Take something like omega 3, for instance, something most people know as “healthy” and “good for you.” What if, instead, I said, docosahexaenoic acid, or eicosapentaenoic acid?

Oooo, scary.

But would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?

The point of this is that MSG is the exact same glutamate that gives food the rich, savory flavor that we love across food, from parmesan cheese to meat to mushrooms to tomatoes and more.

It doesn’t cross the blood-brain barrier, unless you inject it directly in yourself, which, y’know, is generally something you shouldn’t be doing with ANYTHING.

Oh yeah, did you know that’s actually how those “studies about MSG” came about?

If you’re interested, here’s our quick video about MSG, and our longer article on why we added MSG to Vite Ramen way back a long time ago.

Oh, right. I was supposed to keep this shorter...

Okay, moving on, MSG is the most concentrated form of direct umami that exists... so, how did we make it 21.3x stronger?

Simple. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, as the saying goes, and in our case with umami... We can stack other ingredients on top of MSG to make it even more powerful.

Exponentially so.

Meet our good friends inosinate and guanylate. These are two other powerful compounds involved in savory taste, with inosinate being common in things like fish, and guanylate being common in things like mushrooms, and why combining things like fish, mushrooms, plus other umami heavy compounds make a much more delicious dish than if you just ate them separately.

It’s also the basis behind dashi, a core component of Japanese cooking, which often combines:

Kombu, a seaweed rich in sodium and glutamate
Fish, chock full of inosinate
Mushrooms, ripe with guanylate

Put these together, and they amp up umami to levels far beyond what they can each do alone.

In fact, science has even come up with a way to measure this, using something called the Equivalent Umami Concentration(Yamaguchi et al., 1971), which estimates how much plain MSG would be needed to produce the equivalent delicious umami on your tastebuds.

And using that calculation, our blend comes out at 21.3x the umami of regular MSG.

Yeah. It’s that much better. We’re dethroning the king of flavor.

At these levels of concentrated, amplified flavor, there’s another effect that happens.

For those who need lower sodium in their lives, this can help you reduce sodium in your diet, while keeping things delicious.

While saltiness and umami are different tastes and synergistic in their own right, both help make savory foods satisfying. But umami carries a distinction in being able to replace the salty taste better than any of the other basic tastes on our tastebuds.

In a study done by UC Davis in 2020, MSG alone was able to replace 31.3% to 60.9%(depending on food) of sodium from salt while still being enjoyed the same amount.

Now imagine what can happen with something that’s 21.3x more potent, gram for gram.

Of course, for those who don’t need to watch sodium, you can just use it to amp up your food even more, since it synergizes with salt, too.

But even beyond that, we also took a look at other enjoyment enhancing spices, and blended some of those in as well, to create an even more powerful effect. We kept these spices as neutral as possible in the blend, while keeping their effects prominent.

That part, though, we can’t tell you about :^)

Gotta keep some things secret, ‘cuz I’m pretty sure we’ll find copycats soon, just like always.

On our 10th anniversary, October 16th, we’ll be releasing this seasoning to you. We call it:

Vite Umami Amp.

A little shake, a lot more flavor.

An all purpose seasoning built around MSG, inosinate, and guanylate, bringing that amplified umami into your own kitchen. Vegan, and doesn’t contain any of the big 9 allergens!

Want to know more about how MSG, inosinate, and guanylate is made? We’ll have more of a deep dive in the page on release!

Meanwhile, I’ll also be streaming on twitch.tv/timjzheng on October 16th, 4PM PT, and talking about this, v3.2, and other stories across our 10 years. Come join and say hi!

P.S. Batch 6 is still open for a few more days, so if you want in Batch 6 delivery, get your preorders in now before it closes!