
https://www.rense.com/
For Immediate Release: 3/3/08
Product Safety Agency Drags Feet on Critical Rules, Relies on Manufacturers to Police Themselves
Seven rules that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has been working on since at least 2004 – two since 1994 – cover hazards that the agency blames for more than 900 deaths and more than $460 million in property damage annually, a Public Citizen report published today reveals.
https://www.citizen.org/pressroom/
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Yes, MSG, the Secret Behind the Savor
Article Tools Sponsored By By JULIA MOSKIN
Published: March 5, 2008
IN 1968 a Chinese-American physician wrote a rather lighthearted letter to The New England Journal of Medicine. He had experienced numbness, palpitations and weakness after eating in Chinese restaurants in the United States, and wondered whether the monosodium glutamate used by cooks here (and then rarely used by cooks in China) might be to blame.
Cooks around the world have remained dedicated to MSG, even though they may not know it by that name. As hydrolyzed soy protein or autolyzed yeast, it adds flavor to the canned chicken broth and to the packs of onion soup mix used by American home cooks, and to the cheese Goldfish crackers and the low-fat yogurts in many lunchboxes.
It is the taste of Marmite in the United Kingdom, of Golden Mountain sauce in Thailand, of Goya Sazón on the Latin islands of the Caribbean, of Salsa Lizano in Costa Rica and of Kewpie mayonnaise in Japan.
“It’s all the same thing: glutamate,†said Dr. Nuripa Chaudhari of the University of Miami, who was part of the first research team to identify human glutamate receptors.
In September Dr. Chaudhari will take part in the University of Tokyo’s centenary celebrations honoring Prof. Kikunae Ikeda’s 1908 discovery of glutamate flavor. The Japanese company Ajinomoto turned that discovery into crystalline powder form, MSG, and patented it in 1909.
“Just like salt and sugar, it exists in nature, it tastes good at normal levels, but large amounts at high concentrations taste strange and aren’t that good for you,†Dr. Chaudhari said.
If you live in the United States and like spicy tuna rolls, Puerto Rican roast pork or Thai noodles, there is a good chance you are eating, and enjoying, MSG. And if you are the kind of cook who likes to keep a globe-trotting kitchen, well, then, some of these MSG-laden ingredients may deserve a place in your cupboard.
Continues New York times..