People need to eat if they want to survive, and we’ve been chemically designed as humans to enjoy eating certain types of food. We want to be satiated and full by the end of our meals in order to live healthy lifestyles. But this feeling of satiation can be confused with the feeling of being healthy.

As a matter of fact, the majority of Americans believe that their eating habits are healthier than they think, although the United States is considered to be the 10th most obese country in the world.

Furthermore, when Fulshear high school students were asked to rate their eating habits on a scale of 1-5 (one being the worst, five being the best), 24 out of 30 students said that their eating habits were at a three or higher. Only six students gave a rating lower than three.

So, what is causing American society to miscalculate their eating habits? Monosodium Glutamate, also known as MSG, is the reason why when you eat something, you feel good, and your body believes it.

The compound MSG had been used in Japanese cuisines for many years in soups, albeit unintentionally, and in 1908, Kikunae Ikeda, a chemist that worked at the Tokyo Imperial University, figured out that it was behind one of the five essential flavors: Umami.

Umami is a taste that is associated with protein-rich foods such as soy or meat. There has been some evidence that shows a relationship between a person feeling satiated and the presence of umami in their food.

So, what does umami have to do with our eating habits? When food tastes good, our body wants more because it thinks that the food is good for us. However, MSG can be an additive on other food products that have little nutritional value. Its usage is similar to salt.

For example, Doritos, Lays, and Cheetos all have MSG added onto them. I’m sure most people don’t consider any of those products to be particularly healthy, especially in large quantities. However, the MSG makes your brain believe that those chips are good for you and will make you feel satisfied. However, since corn-based chips are made up of carbs rather than protein, you would need to eat much more of them before your stomach feels full.

Many people, despite knowing that these processed foods aren’t healthy, cannot resist the umami flavor. So what can people do to still get the umami hit without wrecking their bodies in the process?

Just like MSG can be added to unhealthy foods, it can also be added to healthy foods to give them an extra kick. Putting MSG on a steak, which already has an umami flavor, will make it taste better and is a healthier option that a potato chip (although steaks aren’t the healthiest foods in existence.) Other meat options include fish, shrimp, calamari, and chicken. All of their flavors can be enhanced using MSG.

There could be a variety of different reasons why Americans think they eat healthier than they do, but MSG is definitely playing a role in that process. The sooner we as a country realize the effect MSG has on us, the better our eating habits will become, and the healthier we will get as a collective.