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camwynFood additives 'affect sight'
BBC News Online - Scientists are warning that a flavouring, commonly found in Chinese food, could be linked to sight problems. Tests in rats have shown that high levels of monosodium glutamate (MSG) can damage the retina...
...The Japanese team fed rats three different diets for six months, with either high or moderate amounts of MSG, or none. MSG made up 20% of the diet of the rats given the highest amount. In rats on the high MSG diet, some retinal nerve layers thinned by as much as 75%. They were also unable to see natural light as well...
...Peng Tee Khaw, professor of glaucoma and wound healing at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, told BBC News Online the rats were fed a huge amount of MSG. He said they were given an amount equal to a salt cellar half their size, so humans would have to eat an equivalent amount.
Okay, kids. Quick foodie lesson time:
If you go into a Chinese restaurant and ask them for a dish with no MSG, all that means is that they will not go into the storeroom and get out the can of MSG, or pick up the shaker with the MSG in it. There may still be monosodium glutamate in your food. This is because more than a few of the flavourings used in Chinese and Japanese cooking are naturally high in glutamates. Not, mind you, as high as the amount the rats were given. It's just there. Please be aware of this if you have some kind of allergy to the substance, or if you happen to have an already-extant retinal problem and plan on going for the Guinness Book of World Records entry for 'most lo mein stuffed down own throat' or something like that.
Also, be aware that there are Chinese restaurants that don't add the stuff to begin with. My grandfather had a Chinese friend who owned his own restaurant and wanted to go into business with him, but they never found a restaurant that John (the Chinese guy) was willing to buy. Part of this was because John would walk into the storeroom during his initial inspection tour. If he saw MSG among the other ingredients, he scratched the restaurant off the list; he didn't use the stuff to cook, he didn't like the stuff, and he knew he'd never be able to please the restaurant's existing clientele without it. There are plenty of places with cooks who feel like John - at least there are in my part of the States, I don't know about anywhere else. My Ken Hom cookbook has an illustrated guide to Chinese ingredients for the beginner, and the entry for MSG begins with a line to the effect of 'Never use this stuff'. (He blames its prevalence on the Communists having to feed large numbers of people at one go with not-particularly-good-quality ingredients, so they dolled dinner up with the chemical to make it more palatable.)
I don't like the substance. I've never bought it on its own in any of its incarnations (Accent has never been permitted to cross my family's threshold). I try not to eat snack food that has it in, like Doritos, although it's hard. My favourite Chinese restaurant, Empire Szechuan, has a no-MSG policy. I'm glad of this, really. If my eyeballs go to Hell, I'd just as soon it not be because of this, thank you.
BBC News Online - Scientists are warning that a flavouring, commonly found in Chinese food, could be linked to sight problems. Tests in rats have shown that high levels of monosodium glutamate (MSG) can damage the retina...
...The Japanese team fed rats three different diets for six months, with either high or moderate amounts of MSG, or none. MSG made up 20% of the diet of the rats given the highest amount. In rats on the high MSG diet, some retinal nerve layers thinned by as much as 75%. They were also unable to see natural light as well...
...Peng Tee Khaw, professor of glaucoma and wound healing at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, told BBC News Online the rats were fed a huge amount of MSG. He said they were given an amount equal to a salt cellar half their size, so humans would have to eat an equivalent amount.
Okay, kids. Quick foodie lesson time:
If you go into a Chinese restaurant and ask them for a dish with no MSG, all that means is that they will not go into the storeroom and get out the can of MSG, or pick up the shaker with the MSG in it. There may still be monosodium glutamate in your food. This is because more than a few of the flavourings used in Chinese and Japanese cooking are naturally high in glutamates. Not, mind you, as high as the amount the rats were given. It's just there. Please be aware of this if you have some kind of allergy to the substance, or if you happen to have an already-extant retinal problem and plan on going for the Guinness Book of World Records entry for 'most lo mein stuffed down own throat' or something like that.
Also, be aware that there are Chinese restaurants that don't add the stuff to begin with. My grandfather had a Chinese friend who owned his own restaurant and wanted to go into business with him, but they never found a restaurant that John (the Chinese guy) was willing to buy. Part of this was because John would walk into the storeroom during his initial inspection tour. If he saw MSG among the other ingredients, he scratched the restaurant off the list; he didn't use the stuff to cook, he didn't like the stuff, and he knew he'd never be able to please the restaurant's existing clientele without it. There are plenty of places with cooks who feel like John - at least there are in my part of the States, I don't know about anywhere else. My Ken Hom cookbook has an illustrated guide to Chinese ingredients for the beginner, and the entry for MSG begins with a line to the effect of 'Never use this stuff'. (He blames its prevalence on the Communists having to feed large numbers of people at one go with not-particularly-good-quality ingredients, so they dolled dinner up with the chemical to make it more palatable.)
I don't like the substance. I've never bought it on its own in any of its incarnations (Accent has never been permitted to cross my family's threshold). I try not to eat snack food that has it in, like Doritos, although it's hard. My favourite Chinese restaurant, Empire Szechuan, has a no-MSG policy. I'm glad of this, really. If my eyeballs go to Hell, I'd just as soon it not be because of this, thank you.
