Increasing Vegetable Intake Using Monosodium Glutamate: A Reduced-Effort Intervention

Food Intake Study: This will be a 4-week randomized controlled intervention study with a vegetable intake questionnaire, daily food intake, and seasoning usage measurement to test the acceptability of different seasoning ingredients and vegetable intake in healthy adults. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of three groups (a) vegetables prepared with MSG to replace some of the NaCl content (MSG group); (b) vegetables prepared with only NaCl (NaCl group); (c) vegetables prepared with potassium chloride to replace some of the NaCl content (KCl group). Sensory Evaluation Study: A sensory evaluation utilizing all seasoning methods from the intervention will be conducted at a Texas Tech University culinary education lab. In a Texas Tech University culinary education lab, 2-4 vegetables will be cooked and seasoned with either MSG, NaCl, or KCI for taste testing. Then, using a standardized form, participants will rate their acceptability and preference of each vegetable, including sensory characteristics such as appearance, color, odor, texture, and flavor.