DOES ANYBODY USE IT,OR KNOW HOW TO USE IT?

MSG is a chemical flavour enhancer. A lot of people have an allergic reaction to this product. If your food is properly flavoured with salt, garlic, herbs and spices, there is no need to use MSG. It is used mainly in the convenience food business as a cheap alternative to REAL flvour. I would avoid like the plague any product that contained MSG.

i know you dont agree with it victoria,but being a foodie i like to find things out.

i asked a catering teacher ,and she hadnt heard of it.

how shallow is that!

Really!? A "catering teacher" had never heard of MSG? I don't think the "teacher" has an qualifications, then.

I'm with Victoria132 on this one, there should be no reason to add MSG to a dish although it is a very effective flavour enhancer. I remember once at cooking school where we had an example pan fried steak, one half with MSG and one half without. The difference was incredible!

And yes the MSG side tasted more "beefy", it actually tasted better. But, still.......

The Japanese call it Aji-No-Moto and use it on everything from edamame to shabu shabu.

thanks to you all for your help-yes the catering teacher had never heard of it!!

i like to find out about something once i start-interesting comment on the steak!

dont worry,ill probably just try it the once.

what on gos planet is a catering teacher?

arthur10 i will try to ignor your rudeness. this is a message board. for all to view, use and reply to. I ask again what a catering teacher is?

You are completely out of order Arther10. You bring shame to yourself and this board. I should also like to know what a catering teacher is and in what capacity they work, and what they teach to whom.

Who has been sarcasic? What is your problem Arthur10?

Arthur, more info on MSG for you:

MSG stimulates specific receptors located in taste buds such as the amino acid receptor T1R1/T1R3 or other glutamate receptors like the metabotropic receptors (mGluR4 and mGluR1) which induce the taste known as umami, one of the five basic tastes (the word umami is a loanword from Japanese; it is also referred to as "savoury" or "meaty").

Originally manufactured from seaweed in Japan, modern commercial MSG is produced by fermentation of sugar beets. About 1.5 million metric tons were sold in 2001, with 4% annual growth expected.

MSG is used commercially as a flavour enhancer. Once stereotypically associated with food in Chinese restaurants, it is now more often found in many of the most common food products consumed:

1. most canned soups
2. most powdered beef and chicken stocks
3. most flavored potato chip products
4. many other snack foods
5. many frozen dinners
6. almost all fast foods
7. instant meals such as the seasoning mixtures for instant noodles

Marmite, roquefort cheese and soy sauce are extremely high in MSG.

To check whether there is MSG simply look on the side of the food pack and check for "E621".....this code is your MSG.

Only the L-glutamate enantiomer has flavour-enhancing properties. Manufactured MSG contains over 99.6% of the naturally-predominant L-glutamate form, which is a higher proportion of L-glutamate than found in the free glutamate ions of naturally-occurring foods. Fermented products like soy sauce, steak sauce, and worcestershire sauce have comparable levels of glutamate as foods with added MSG. However, glutamate in these brewed products may be composed 5% or more of the D-enantiomer.

Hope that helps!!

help the aged indeed!

thanks as usual t.v.foodie

it comes from sugar not beetroot. i may be foreign as arthur10 says but i know the difference between sugar beet and beetroot. being old is not an excuse to be rude

Arthur was only looking for answers, not argument. Who cares really?

And where does the "sugar" come from? "the root of sugar beets". Who cares really?

All they do is simply ferment the sugar derived from beet roots to extract the MSG. Some MSG is made from cane [industrial] molasses, but not much. Too expensive, cane is used for table sugar.

Everyone interested in this topic should look at everything they buy and notice how much has E621 in it!! It's scary, actually.

Naughty? Why is that? I'm trying to help Arthur in his quest for info on MSG.

The issue of additives to food is serious. Most of us actually have no idea what we're eating.

MSG added by large corporations is one of the culprits.

not in british food. you are making out it is fine for arthur10 to ad his msg to his food when it could harm him greatly. you are editing to give yourself backing which is incorrect and untrue. you even said it was made from beetroot! you have adulderated the facts in a dangerous way.

Don't think so.....

"Tons" of E621 is "British Food" And plenty of other "Exxx" to worry about also.

you may be laughing at this. msg can kill if used too much. your advise is out of the moderate. the amount you advised is excess to say the least. dangerous to anyone over 50 or with any health problems.
please yourself arthur10. i advise not to use it in your diet. stay well.

That is the difference between someone who just searched the internet to advise and someone who knows what they are talking about.

Well done.

thank you larissab

I agree chickn, MSG shouldn't be used in anything much less by people "over 50".

The real crime with MSG and other additives, though, is that we're ingesting it without really knowing. It's too much effort for all of us to look through the mil-ling lists of E-numbers on the backs of all these packs of prepeared food people are buying.

But, you're right, in home cooking everyone should simply refrain.

no need to wory about the minute amounts in foods. dont eat processed foods and dont use it in your own cooking.

Hear, hear!!! Don't eat processed foods! Wiser words were never spoken!

I'm so glad someone has brought up the topic of additives to our daily foods. It's not just prepackaged foods, it's also in our breads and cakes and even fruits and vegetables.

Did you know most citrus is "gassed" to help coloration!

TVFoodie and ChicknLikn, you have overreacted grossly to the issue of MSG.

Here's a great link of E-numbers [link]

But of everything that is being added, MSG is hardly a major worry! [link]

I have avoided all products with MSG for years. For a while it was difficult to find products without it but not so bad these days.

I was suprised when TVFoodie said it was in Marmite as I thought it was MSG free. It is not listed in the ingredients:
Yeast Extract, Salt, Vegetable Extract, Niacin, Thiamin, Spice Extracts, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, Celery Extract, Vitamin B12

Can you clarify TVFoodie ?? would appreciate it