Shim's kitchen: UMAMI = Delicious [MSG]

DIM SUM DUMPLINGS = OODLES OF UMAMI

During my Cantonese Cooking lessons I was surprised to see my teacher repeatedly use what she called Chicken powder in pretty much every dish. When I enquired as to what this was made of, she showed me a tub of ‘Knorr’ Chicken Bouillon or powdered stock. I was pleasantly surprised as I too from time to time use stock in the form of stock cubes e.g. OXO. However what was shocking was that she went onto explain that it contained MSG – monosodium glutamate.

I was aware that MSG had a reputation for causing all sorts of complaints from headaches, rashes, irritability, heart palpitations, Irritable bowel syndromes, asthma, muscle tightness and nausea. I have certainly experienced nausea after a heavy glutinous cheap Chinese take away and vowed never again! I was not aware that people still cooked with it. My teacher explained that even if restaurants claim that they do not add MSG to their food or they claim to serve food with no MSG at all, they inadvertently do so as MSG is found in many other products. This could be through the chefs working there being uneducated, illiterate or just unaware of the fact of what MSG actually is i.e. a flavour enhancer with many guises.

So I looked into it and lo and behold MSG is a neurotoxin which is known by many other names e.g. E621 – a flavour enhancer or just as Glutamate. This got me thinking about labeling and how difficult it is for people to work out what the hell they put in our food. Everything processed seems to have flavour enhancers. If you are seriously allergic to MSG then you are really in big trouble.

E621 = MSG

That also got me thinking about allergies vs. food intolerances and what people perceive they suffer. An allergy is an immune response. The body perceives something [an allergen] to be harmful and creates antibodies to fight it. When the body is presented with this allergen huge amounts of antibodies are released to protect the body. These chemicals produce a cascade of events and effects on the body most commonly a rash [like hives], swelling of the tongue/lips, tingling in the mouth, difficulty breathing and constriction of the airways. If the reaction is severe it is called an anaphylactic shock and can be fatal unless that person gets a rapid injection of Adrenalin to reverse the effects e.g. People who have peanut allergies, seafood/shellfish allergies who need to carry around an EPI pen which is their shot of adrenalin in case they have the allergic reaction.

By the way, people in the East don’t seem to have heard of or have any concern for peanut allergies. We were given bags of peanuts to enjoy on Cathay Pacific on our flight to HK! In Europe and USA they have pretty much banned it in case a tiny molecule of peanut should enter the air conditioning system and then kill a child! Here peanuts are omnipresent in sauces and oils. Shrimp paste is prominent in most curries and don’t be fooled into thinking that telling the restaurant that you are allergic to shellfish will prompt them into changing the oil they used to fry shellfish in just before they began to prepare your dish!

This satay [peanut] paste contained shrimp paste too! Double trouble for some!

With a food intolerance the severity varies from person to person as does the type of reactions that ensue when the offending item is consumed. It can be due to lacking enzymes to process that particular food e.g. Lactose Intolerance where you have no lactase enzyme to process any dairy, milk or cheese. It can be due to an absorption problem e.g. People with Coeliac disease which is an autoimmune condition that destroys the guts lining. They cannot tolerate gluten in particular and can become very ill if they eat even a small amount. [Note: Soya Sauce contains gluten - there are gluten free versions called Tamari you can get in speciality shops]. An intolerance can lead to nutritional problems, malabsorption and gastric disturbances like severe diarrheoa and vomiting.

People who suffer severely from these kinds of afflictions are usually careful to check labels but the rest of us who may be in between and have only a few symptoms may not even realize what we have been using.

Labelling these days can be very confusing. I thought ‘lite’ versions of sauces were better versions as you associate ‘lite’ with lighter/healthier but that is not true. ‘Lite’ Soy sauce or ‘thin’ soy sauce is saltier than the dark variety. Salt generally is near impossible to decipher from product to product. We are not supposed to have more than 5-6g of salt per day. What does that quantify? Do you know how much that looks like? That is supposed to be a teaspoon. Most products list sodium rather than salt [sodium chloride] – how much sodium is in salt?? It is a mine field and it is no wonder we cannot be bothered to work it out.

Sugar is another issue. I assumed all ‘Diet’ drinks contained no sugar compared to their original versions! Next time you get a diet version of a sugary drink – check the label. You may be surprised and shocked at the amount of sugar it contains – just under another guise. Sugar is known by many names e.g. sucrose, glucose, fructose, corn syrup and so on and on. Ever checked or compared cereal labels to see how much sugar it has per 100g? It took me half an hour to trawl through my local supermarket cereal aisle to find the cereal with the least amount of sugar and salt [it was Natural Bircher Muesli by the way]. All the supposedly healthy cereals had huge amounts of sugary dried fruits and salt added to the whole grains. It would be better to put together your own breakfast cereal at home with rolled oats, nuts and natural fruits and no added salt!

As for the MSG – well apparently we like the ‘Umami’ factor that glutamate generally gives food. This 5^th taste can be naturally found in foods such as Tomatoes, Parmesan Cheese, Cured Hams, Anchovies, Japanese Dashi Stock, Mushrooms and Anchovies. Apparently the levels of glutamate increase as the food ripens. They say that the man-made MSG has never been clinically proven to be harmful even though we know people can get transient effects. They now create MSG through bacterial fermentation of carbohydrates rather than using wheat gluten which is something however you have a right to choose whether you eat this substance or not, so check the label! I reckon the only way to really know what is in your food is to make it at home with natural ingredients.

I have no doubt that the Dim Sum I had yesterday [ after which I spent an hour lying down feeling nauseous] had tonnes of MSG. We found an incredibly cheap local place which was delicious but dubious… still I’d do it again for the Umami!