MSG in Sausages

[wallie]

I have noticed in a few sausage recipes that msg was listed.
Is this stuff o/k to use? as if my memory serves me correctly I recall there was a bit of a scare about it a while ago.

wallie

[Gordon]

European Food Information Council say it's harmless they even suggest it may help in reducing sodium in our diets since it is only about 20% of the sodium content on table salt.

Other reports suggest it is responsible for killing brain cells in the hypothalamus in children and can be one of the contributing causes of obesity,insulin resistant diabetes, and reproductive disorders.

A fair amount of MSG is used in chineese cooking ( where it's often called 'Taste Powder' ) and has been for years so if there was anything terribly wrong then I recon it would have shown by now.

Besides all that isn't the fat content of sausages also a health risk.

I not sure this is going to help but personally I would use the MSG if a recipe called for it, it seems everything is a risk and what's good for you today is not tomorrow and visa versa.

G

[hoggie]

here is an article on msg
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmont ... 68,00.html

[Ianinfrance]

here is an article on msg
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmont ... 68,00.html

Thanks very much. A fascinating article, as much to give an insight into how rumours start and to explode some of the myths. Next time I see someone who says MSG gives them a headache, I'll ask about M*****e or Ro******t.

[wallie]

Hoggie that was quite an article on MSG, very interesting.
Here am I thinking twice about adding the msg quoted in the recipe and only last week I bought another jar of Marmite for my morning toast.
I have always liked Marmite thinking its good for you as it contains yeast extract, then I read:

Your mate, Marmite, with 1750mg per 100g, has more glutamate in it than any other manufactured product on the planet - except a jar of Gourmet Powder straight from the Ajinomoto MSG factory. On the label, Marmite calls it 'yeast extract'. Nowhere in all their literature does the word 'glutamate' appear. I asked Unilever why they were so shy about their spread's key ingredient, and their PR told me that it was because it was 'naturally occurring ... the glutamate occurs naturally in the yeast'.

Just goes to show we do not know what we are eating these days.

Cheers and enjoy your Marmite.
wallie

[Spuddy]

As Wallie found out: Glutamates are NOT an ingredient in marmite but naturally occur in the product.
They also occur in large amounts naturally in seaweed, cheese (like parmesan, roquefort & stilton), tomatoes, walnuts, nectarines, mushrooms and in smaller amounts in broccoli, sweetcorn and peas to name but a few.

[tristar]

Also in Mothers milk!
And I quote:

MSG the first taste

Babies are born with only two sets of taste buds working. Taste buds for sweet to detect the lactose (milk sugar) in their mother's milk and those for umami which pick up the glutamate taste! If breast milk didn't taste good, no baby would want to feed.

Human milk is rich in free glutamate, about 20 times the amount found in cow's milk. So glutamate is one of the first tastes we experience in life, no wonder we think it tastes good!

Free Glutamate in Milk
mg /100 g

Humans 21.6
Chimpanzees 38.9
Rhesus monkeys 4.6
Cows 1.9
Sheep 1.4
Mice 2.2

In fact glutamate is the most abundant free amino acid found in human milk. There is approximately 4 times more free glutamate than the next most abundant free amino acid, taurine, and 5 times the amount of glycine. The other amino acids are present in much smaller amounts.