"MSG Free Buillon Cubes"

[Corona688]

I recently got this nice-sounding product from a local "old fashioned" food business, and only today did I take a closer look at the ingredients list.

Salt, hydrolized plant protein, blackstrap mollasses, beef fat, maltodextrine extract, dehydrated vegetables, spices, disodium guanylate.

A few suspicious things but nothing that set off my alarm bells, except the disodium guanylate... Maltodextrine turned out to just be the stuff that makes it a cube instead of a powder... Then when I wikied disodium guanylate, it set off all the rest of them in the very first sentence:

Disodium guanylate (E627), chemical formula C10H14N5O8P, is a food additive used as a flavor enhancer, in synergy with monosodium glutamate (the sodium salt of glutamic acid, MSG).

Sure enough, I found MSG in them after all: "Hydrolized Plant Protein".

On thinking on it, isn't that just boiling the hell out of plants?

And if it was hydrolized animal protein, wouldn't that just be boiling the hell out of an animal?

How exactly is homemade beef broth made? Boiling the hell out of cow bones?

...so on third(fourth?) thought, these things are naturally made after all (Except for the disodium guanylate, which is only "evil" since it comes with MSG..) And came away with a better appreciation of the anti-MSG silliness. I wonder if they're going to start selling salt-free salt, too!

[viscousmemories]

...speaking of the anti-MSG silliness, what's that all about? I seem to remember starting a thread once upon a time to ask why it's so evil and coming to the conclusion that it isn't. Why is it supposed to be?

[Corona688]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

...speaking of the anti-MSG silliness, what's that all about? I seem to remember starting a thread once upon a time to ask why it's so evil and coming to the conclusion that it isn't. Why is it supposed to be?

People are afraid of it because it's a chemical with so long a name it's been acronymized. It may be bad for you, but the way corn sugar's bad for you -- too pure -- rather than being an Evil Toxic Chemical That Will Eat Your Schemey Little Brain, or ETCTWEYSLB for short.

[pescifish]

Aren't some people allergic to it and/or get weird reactions when they eat it?
I sure don't/didn't! When I was a kid, we used to douse everything we cooked with Accent!, to "wake up the flavors".




Oh, here's an article that Google coughed up about how MSG works and why some people have sensitivities. The MSG myth

[livius drusus]

Yeah, I heard the headache thing too, but I hadn't heard about the other symptoms they mention in that article. A "pins and needles headache" does not sound like fun to me.

[Beth]

MSG-rich foods can cause migranes for my son and me. I noticed this long before I realised it was probably the MSG that was causing it. But, MSG does make food taste good.