Monosodium Glutamate

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MSG gets a bad press. Not entirely sure why, as the stories about it are largely unproven.

No uncommonly you will see products claiming 'no MSG'.

Or restaurants with the same sign. No MSG.

They are misleading you folks. What they mean is 'No Added MSG'.

You see, for all its bad press, MSG is naturally occurring in most foods, especially the following:

Meat
Fish
Cheeses, especially hard cheeses like parmesan
Tomatoes and tomato juices, concentrates and sauces
Stocks cubes and concentrates
Sauces such as soy, fish, oyster etc
Spreads such as Vegemite®, Promite®, Marmite® etc.
Foods containing added Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP)
Mushrooms
Corn
Peas

And Human breast milk.

Glutamate is produced by the human body and is vital for metabolism and brain function.

Enjoy.
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French Dressing

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French dressing is one of the classic salad dressings.

Mine is typically made 'by eye' rather than recipe but, in essence, is as follows:

50ml cider vinegar
200ml olive oil
Crushed garlic, to taste
Qtr teasp mustard powder
Salt & Pepper.

So, for a product that is about 80% oil, how do the Krafts of this world explain the culinary obscenity that is "Fat Free French Dressing"?

Sure, it is a 'salad dressing' but why not call it what it is 'Sweetened, jellied vinegar"?

It's not French. And it's not right.


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Alcohol & Mouth Cancers.

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A local news outlet ran with a story recently that said research had shown that increased alcohol consumption lead to increased mouth cancers.

The trail to try to find the supporting research lead back to a UK cancer body but a request for a reference went unanswered.

The report (SBS News) said that over the last 30 years alcohol consumption had gone up and so had the incidence of mouth cancers. Ergo, drinking increases your chances of mouth cancer. The stated increase was 25%.

Sounds scary. But what if the chance had gone from 1 in a million to 1.25 in a million.

Not quite so scary.

And what else has changed over the last 30 years with things that go into people's mouths?

The Western diet has dramatically increased its consumption of chilli, a known mouth irritant.
Much more processed food.
Much more junk food.
Many more novel food additives, such as artificial sweeteners.
Vegetable consumption has decreased.
Fruit consumption has decreased.
Oral sex has, anecdotally, increased. (human papilloma virus (HPV), is a known carcinogen.)
Beer consumption down, wine consumption up.
Genetically modified foods introduced.

To mention just a few.

I will take their survey just a little more seriously when they can tell me how they allowed for these other changes.

And who paid for the research. And why.
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Nutmeg

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Most people know of nutmeg, a common spice. Goes well in eggnog and such like.

What most people don't know, and continues my theme that everything is bad for your and laboratory rats at some level, is that nutmeg is toxic. Certainly if you applied to have it approved for use as a new drug you wouldn't get it past the food authorities.

We had a fruitcake submitted due to a complaint that the consumer's lips tingled when she ate the cake. Was it contaminated? No, but it had high levels of nutmeg.

Wikipedia says of nutmeg toxicity:

In low doses, nutmeg produces no noticeable physiological or neurological response.

Large doses can be dangerous (potentially inducing convulsions, palpitations, nausea, eventual dehydration, and generalized body pain).

Users report both negative and positive experiences, involving strong hallucinations, and in some cases quite severe anxiety.

Use of nutmeg as a recreational drug is unpopular due to its unpleasant taste and its possible negative side effects, including dizziness, flushes, dry mouth, accelerated heartbeat, temporary constipation, difficulty in urination, nausea, and panic. In addition, experiences usually last well over 24 hours making recreational use rather impractical.

Good reason to cut back on the nutmeg and up the rum.
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The criminal mind

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There was a newspaper item this morning about police in the US finding a body. It was disfigured and minus fingers and teeth, to avert identification.

But first a diversion...

I used to work at the coroner's court labs in Melbourne. People would drown someone in a bath tub and then throw them into the sea, not realising that we looked at the water in their lungs to see if they drowned at sea. They would kill someone and then burn the house down, not realising that we looked at the blood for evidence of the carbon monoxide poisoning that would be present in a fire victim and absent if they where dead before the fire started.

I used to work looking at foreign matter in food. We could often tell if the object was in there before cooking or entered after, either by accident, sabotage or extortion. Insects, for example, have an enzyme called phosphatase which is destroyed by cooking. If you must slip a cockroach into a pizza, cook it first.

Time and time again, people wanting to commit a crime, big or small, overlook something quite basic.

Back to our anonymous lady...

The police identified her by the serial numbers on her breast implants.
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Radioactive Calamari

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Every so often we get stories that go along the lines of :

"I went out to the kitchen in the middle of the night to get a glass of water. I didn't turn the light on and I saw the food in the cat bowl was glowing!

Is it radioactive?"

Most spectacular when it is calamari rings.

No, it is not radioactive, it is just active. With bacteria.

Pseudomonas fluorescens. A common spoilage bacteria that secretes a fluorescent pigment. It is generally harmless to humans unless they are already immunocompromised.
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A little more on garlic...

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While we are on the topic of garlic, I was presented with a complaint once where the lady had mixed chopped garlic with lemon juice and microwaved it.

It turned bright green.

Some months later I was shown a bottle of garlic cloves, preserved in vinegar, that had similarly gone bright green.

What's going on?

Part of the problem is that this is not how garlic was traditionally treated. It would normally be cooked in a neutral sauce. And a thick sauce that hid it from view.

The two complainants were treating garlic in a a totally different way to normal.

But the reactions were perfectly normal.

Garlic has natural levels of iron and natural levels of sulphur compounds. Heated in the presence of an acid (lemon juice or vinegar) these compounds react to form iron sulphide which shows as a green colour.

Harmless.
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