People were already exploited umami before they knew it had a molecular source. After learning to taste umami clearly (for example, unsalted chicken broth) I r

People were already exploited umami before they knew it had a molecular source. After learning to taste umami clearly (for example, unsalted chicken broth) I realized a number of things: umami is in many things now as a flavoring- anything with "yeast extract" will have umami flavor umami maxxes out pretty quickly- after a certain amount, it doesn't taste better (or worse, really). It just saturates. it's not surprising we have a dedicated taste receptor for umami. Umami is mainly provided by two things: hydrolyzed amino acids, and hydrolyzed nucleosides. That is, the constituents of proteins and DNA. It's very convenient to consume umami compounds because they are easy sources for the process that metabolizes and converts foods into new protein and dna.