Will monosodium glutamate ruin human health? In fact, the saying that monosodium glutamate destroys people's health has been circulating since the last century. In the last century, a Chinese-American contributed to the New England Journal of Medicine, claiming that he felt uncomfortable after eating in a Chinese restaurant for 20 minutes, and the reason for the discomfort was probably that MSG was put in the Chinese restaurant.
In this regard, this famous medical magazine published this article without any investigation and scientific research, which quickly aroused people's thoughts. More and more people claim that their hands and feet are numb and palpitations occur after eating monosodium glutamate. Later, a local word "Chinese restaurant syndrome" appeared to refer to monosodium glutamate.
However, in 1993, 7 1 healthy subjects were tested by a special research institution. The results show that there is no evidence that monosodium glutamate will cause problems to human health, let alone cause cancer, so monosodium glutamate is not a carcinogen.
Some groups even asked participants to describe their physical feelings after eating Chinese food. Many participants said that they had symptoms such as physical weakness. But the staff said that these Chinese foods do not contain monosodium glutamate.
After that, participants were given French fries and other food. The subjects said there was nothing wrong with their health, and then the staff said that a lot of monosodium glutamate was used in the French fries.
It can be seen that monosodium glutamate will not affect the human body, and it will not cause cancer.
Did monosodium glutamate ruin Chinese food? Since monosodium glutamate does not harm human health, does it harm Chinese food? We know that in food, we pay more attention to the original flavor. However, the appearance of monosodium glutamate has given food a taste that does not belong to it. Does this mean that monosodium glutamate ruined Chinese food?
In fact, it is not monosodium glutamate that ruined Chinese food, but pepper.
In ancient China, pepper was not a favorite food of nobles. This is because nobles have the ability to buy fresh food, and these fresh foods are richer in taste in the processing of ingredients, and they don't need peppers to improve their taste, so the taste pursued by nobles is "fresh". And the more delicious the food, the fresher the ingredients and the more expensive it is. Therefore, in ancient China, only nobles could enjoy delicious food.
However, poor families can only buy meat that is not so fresh or tastes bad, such as pigs in the water. In order to improve the taste of the original food, they will use pepper to enhance the taste, thus making the food easier to eat.
Now, because pepper is more irritating and can stimulate people's taste buds, spicy food is more popular with people. The umami is a bit lonely. For example, Yangzhou cuisine, which is famous for its umami flavor, can hardly compete with Sichuan cuisine, which is famous for its spicy flavor.
But in the eyes of those who pursue the original flavor, monosodium glutamate ruined Chinese food, because Chinese food pays attention to tradition. In the past, people used chicken, duck, fish and other meats to cook broth for more than 20 hours, and the last boiled broth was the essence of these meats. Now, however, people can mix it with monosodium glutamate and other ingredients.
In fact, this can't blame monosodium glutamate, because the appearance of monosodium glutamate has solved people's pursuit of umami flavor; Although the blended broth contains monosodium glutamate, it is not only monosodium glutamate, but also many other blending agents, which are not as safe as monosodium glutamate.
In addition, the appearance of monosodium glutamate actually improves the delicacy of food, because umami usually exists in meat and seafood, which is very expensive. Now we can buy monosodium glutamate at a very low price to improve the delicious food.
It can be seen that monosodium glutamate has not ruined Chinese food.
To sum up, monosodium glutamate, like sugar, salt and soy sauce, is just a condiment, and there is no such thing as ruining Chinese food. Moreover, it has been scientifically proved that it is harmless to human body and will not have any negative impact on human beings.
Therefore, we should not demonize monosodium glutamate, but use it as a seasoning normally.