![]() One secret to this effect is that unlike salt, which imparts a blast of flavor and then quickly dissipates, MSG stays on the tongue long after food is swallowed, producing a lasting savory sensation, Lee said. ![]() It is a general flavor enhancer, meaning that it can amplify the perception of salt and other flavors that are already in a dish, as well as add an umami element, Soo-Yeun Lee, a sensory scientist and the director of Washington State University’s School of Food Science, told me. MSG isn’t a one-to-one replacement for salt, but that’s what makes it such a promising alternative. ![]() The rest of the molecule is made of the amino acid L-glutamate, which registers as the savory, “brothy” flavor known as umami. It satisfies the need for salt to a certain extent because it contains sodium (it’s right there in the name, after all)-but just a third of the amount, by weight, that salt does. This is possible partly because of MSG’s molecular makeup. A relatively small amount of MSG could be used to rescue flavor in reduced-salt products without endangering health. On the whole, MSG does seem better than salt itself, considering that excessive salt consumption poses so many chronic health risks. But “research has shown no clear evidence linking MSG consumption to any serious potential adverse reactions,” she said. That’s not to say that all symptoms associated with MSG are bunk people can be sensitive to MSG-like any food-and may experience broad symptoms such as headaches after eating it, Amanda Li, a dietary nutritionist at the University of Washington, told me. 1 Suspect.” All the attention “renewed medical legitimacy a number of long-held assumptions about the strangely ‘exotic’, ‘bizarre’ and ‘excessive’ practices associated with Chinese culture,” the historian Ian Mosby wrote in 2009. In the ’70s, the Chicago Tribune ran the headline “Chinese Food Make You Crazy? MSG Is No. Other researchers quickly produced studies that seemed to substantiate this claim, and MSG became a public-health villain. The concerns with MSG originated in 1968, when a Chinese American physician, writing in The New England Journal of Medicine, described feeling generally ill after eating Chinese food, which he suggested could be because of MSG. Given the chance to replace salt in some of our food, it could eventually come to represent something wholesome-perhaps even something close to healthy. Now the chemical may soon get its revenge. But it still has a bad rap: Many products are still proudly advertised as MSG free. The health concerns around MSG have since been debunked, and the FDA considers it safe to eat. A common seasoning in some Asian cuisines, MSG was linked in the late 1960s to ailments-headaches, numbness, dizziness, heart palpitations-that became known as Chinese Restaurant Syndrome. One candidate that has research behind it is monosodium glutamate, the white crystalline powder that has long been maligned in the West as an unhealthy food additive. Last month, the FDA proposed reducing sodium in certain foods using salt substitutes. Persuading Americans to reduce their consumption would require a convincing dupe-something that would cut down on unhealthy sodium without making food any less tasty. ![]() The main reason salt has remained a problem is that it’s a major part of all processed food-and, well, it makes everything delicious. In the United States, salt intake has been a public-health issue for more than half a century since then, the initiatives launched to combat it have been deemed by health officials as “too numerous to describe,” but little has changed in terms of policy or appetite. Such warnings about salt are so ubiquitous that they are easy to tune out. If governments intervene in such profligate salt intake, the WHO urged, they could save the lives of 7 million people by 2030. And not just a sprinkle too much on average, people consume more than double what is advisable every single day, raising the risk of common diseases such as heart attack and stroke. In March, the World Health Organization issued a dire warning that was also completely obvious: Nearly everyone on the planet consumes too much salt. ![]()
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