06 Sep 2024 Putting tired old food myths to bed
Multiple myths surround what’s good or bad for us – BS-beating journalist Ivo Vegter lays out the facts on MSG, carrots, the five-second rule….
Multiple myths surround what’s good or bad for us – BS-beating journalist Ivo Vegter lays out the facts on MSG, carrots, the five-second rule….
MSG is unhealthy
Few chemicals have a worse reputation than monosodium glutamate (MSG), and few deserve their reputation less.
MSG has been used since the 19th century to add flavour to food. MSG has its origins in seaweed extract, which the Japanese have used forever to season bland rice-based dishes.
In the early 20th century, Kikunae Ikeda, a Japanese scientist, isolated it in the hope of making cheap, mass-produced food taste better, and so ward off malnutrition among the working masses.
Other products of this line of research? Beef broth (Bovril) and yeast extract (Marmite). What the scientists found was something called glutamic acid or glutamate, of which MSG is the most common salt.
It is found not only in seaweed, but also in such tasty treats as soy sauce, anchovies, parmesan cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms, meat, walnuts and asparagus. In fact, a typical consumer will ingest 13g of MSG daily from natural sources, and a mere 0.5g from food additives.
Glutamate is responsible for the fifth commonly identified taste sensation, in addition to sweet, salty, sour and bitter. The Japanese call it “umami”, or “the good taste”. We might call it “savoury”.
In 1968, however, one Dr. Robert Ho Man Kwok wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), claiming that shortly after a meal at a Chinese restaurant, he experienced numbness at the back of the neck radiating down both arms and back, palpitations, and general weakness. He said he couldn’t be sure what caused his condition, which he dubbed “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”, but MSG was one of the possibilities.
Since then, however, MSG has been blamed, entirely anecdotally, for a dizzying array of vague and general symptoms, including headaches; flushing; sweating; face pressure or tightness; numbness, tingling or burning in the face, neck and other areas; quick, fluttering heartbeats; chest pain; nausea; and weakness.
Some studies in animals have found possible associations between MSG and various symptoms, but more recent research points out that negative effects were only detected after giving lab animals extremely high doses of MSG that no human could ever consume.
Unless you’re allergic to MSG (which very few people are and which you’d know by allergies to foods that naturally contain glutamate), there is no reason to believe modest MSG consumption is at all bad for you.
Sixty-six years later, there are still calls for the NEJM to redress the false and racist legacy of their “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” article.
As a taste enhancer, MSG often replaces salt and fats. There are good reasons to believe that both salt and fats, when consumed to excess, can pose health risks.
So here we have a traditional seaweed extract. It occurs naturally in many tasty foods. It has been extensively researched, but has not been found unsafe to consume in normal amounts. It helps make bland but nutritious food taste better. It cuts down on fat and salt intake.
Hard to imagine a better health food than MSG.
The five second rule
We all know this one. You drop some food on the floor, and some wise mother figure will say as long as you pick it up quickly, it won’t be contaminated with bacteria.
It may be true that dropping food on the floor, in most circumstances, doesn’t immediately make it inedible. If a floor is fairly frequently cleaned, a bit of dirt likely won’t kill you.
However, actual scientists conducted actual science on the subject, and found that the floor surface and food type makes a much bigger difference than exposure time, and bacteria, if present on the floor, can contaminate food instantaneously.
Eating carrots improves your eyesight
This one is mostly, but not entirely, false.
Carrots do contain beta-carotene, which is a precursor to Vitamin A, which in turn is necessary for the body to produce rhodopsin, a protein that is important for both low-light and colour vision. Vitamin A deficiency is a well-known cause of blindness in poor communities around the world.
In a person with an otherwise healthy, balanced diet, however, eating additional carrots will not improve eyesight.
The link, tenuous though it is, made it just plausible enough for the British air force to use it as propaganda.
During World War II, German pilots were amazed to discover British fighters in the air whenever they got even remotely close to Old Blighty’s shores. The crafty Brits spread the word that British pilots could spot incoming raids from miles away because of the superior eyesight produced by a diet full of carrots.
The truth was a military secret: Britain was using a newly-invented technology called radar.
Milk with rBST should be avoided
How many times have you heard that cattle treated with growth hormones produce contaminated dairy products that are unhealthy?
What seems like a widely accepted fact is, in fact, a myth.
Recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) is a synthetic version of the BST that occurs naturally in cows. In the 1970s, scientists discovered that dosing dairy cows with a little extra BST could significantly increase their milk production.
A commercial product was developed and tested for well over a decade, before the US Food and Drug Administration approved it for use.
Critics claimed it was unnatural, of lesser quality, and that it contributed to breast cancer in humans. None of this was true.
Naturalness is irrelevant. Arsenic, cyanide and botulism are natural.
The quality of milk from rBST-treated cows is not statistically different from that of milk from untreated cows.
And the cancer scare is based on slightly elevated levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), although it would contribute less than 0.1% of the IGF-1 that the body naturally produces already. Such a small change cannot plausibly have the effect of increasing the risk of cancer.
Swimming after eating is dangerous
A 1911 Boy Scouts book warned: “Many boys make the mistake of going into the water too soon after eating.”
I was certainly taught that. The logic was that being satiated diverts blood from the extremities to the digestive system, which could lead to cramps, either of the extremities or of the stomach, which could make swimming difficult, which could lead to drowning.
That’s not true. Let me quote the American Red Cross: “There is little recently published scientific literature or even general information on the effects of eating before swimming or swimming after eating. Several studies were conducted in the 1960s that showed no effect on swimming performance and minimal side effects at several different time intervals after a meal. No major medical or safety organizations make any current recommendations to wait before swimming after eating. No reported cases of eating before swimming causing or contributing to fatal or non-fatal drowning are reported in any of the literature searched. Currently available information suggests that eating before swimming is not a contributing risk for drowning and can be dismissed as a myth.”
Source: DailyFriend.co.za, read full article here