Day 175 -- Pass The Umami, Please.

After my yummy new recipe on Day 174, a tempeh, mushroom and asparagus dish marinated in Soy Vay, I realized that the new foods that I love the most are foods that have an abundance of the umami flavor.  I wrote about umami in an earlier post, but just to recap, umami is the fifth flavor that the tongue can detect, besides, salty, sweet, bitter and sour.

Of course, meat, especially grilled meat, has a lot of umami, and so does cheese.  One of the places I get that rich flavor is from mushroom.  And marinated in soy, they're even better.  Miso, wine and tamari also add that flavor to food.  Ripe tomatoes and tomato sauces and paste (along with ketchup and sun-dried tomatoes are great.  Balsamic vinegar, olives, nutritional yeast, and mushrooms round out my list of my favorite umami foods.  It's no wonder that I love a good Caprese salad since it has cheese, tomatoes, olive oil and balsamic vinegar as ingredients!

This article, from the blog Vegan For Her, postulates that eating foods rich in the umami flavor can actually cut cravings.  Umami flavor is one of the first flavors we like as babies as milk and breast milk are both rich in umami.  Like the sweet flavor, it's something we love for a lifetime.