What is the correct chemical formula for monosodium glutamate? Recently, I am interested with home materials and I discover that the chemical symbol for MSG or monosodium glutamate is $\ce{C5H8NO4Na}$.
My problem is shouldn't it be $\ce{NaC5H8NO4}$ as we always write the metal first before the non-metal?
It should, but in organic molecules salts, often the counterion is written latter, to indicate its position on the molecule acting like so, for example, in sodium acetate, $\ce{CH3CO2Na}$, this would be something like a "semicondensated" formula.