What is the difference between chicken essence and monosodium glutamate? Is it more natural than MSG? Harmful to human body? An article to give you popular science!

MSG and chicken essence are placed in front of you at the same time, which one will you choose?

　　Presumably many people will vote for chicken essence, which is influenced by chicken essence advertisements and pictures. In their view, monosodium glutamate, which crystallizes into small white particles, is just a chemical product.

　　But chicken essence is different. You can see that it has a small chicken painted on its packaging and has a faint smell of chicken soup. It must be made of chicken or chicken soup.

　　That's right, the chicken essence advertisement is really in place. It successfully misleads everyone. In fact, it is no different from the function of monosodium glutamate itself!

　　The origin of monosodium glutamate is not actually China, but from Japan in 1908. When experts studied kelp, they extracted a special substance called sodium glutamate , which originally belonged to the sodium salt in glutamic acid . The reason why seafood has umami is actually from free glutamic acid.

　　Not only is it widely found in food, it is also a key compound in cellular metabolism . That is to say, even if people do not consume glutamate from food , the body will produce glutamate.

　　Up to now, the monosodium glutamate that everyone buys on the market is basically an extracted substance processed from grains such as rice and wheat as raw materials , not a chemical compound that everyone imagines;

　　There is only one difference between chicken essence and monosodium glutamate. It is actually a compound condiment, but its main ingredient is still sodium glutamate . It's just that on this basis, it adds other substances, such as salt, nucleotides, white sugar, chicken powder, dextrin, and spices .

　　The reason why the chicken essence has a light chicken taste actually comes from the chemical substance nucleotides , and the chicken powder has a poor content, so it was named chicken essence, but its essence is not much related to chicken. It is precisely because of the presence of other additives in chicken essence that it exhibits the yellow color that everyone sees.

　　In the simplest terms, chicken essence is only secondary processing on the basis of monosodium glutamate, and it is not a condiment made from pure chicken. Compared with monosodium glutamate, it seems to contain more nutrients, but in fact, both are just condiments, and the nutrients we consume through condiments are negligible or even negligible.

　　So the question is, are chicken essence and monosodium glutamate harmful to the human body?

　　In fact, whether it is on the packaging of chicken essence or monosodium glutamate, there are words that suggest that you place it before serving. These words often lead some people to associate it with the rumors of delicate cancer, that sodium glutamate is heated above 120 ℃ , which will produce the so-called carcinogen sodium pyroglutamate, which in turn increases the possibility of cancer.

　　But in fact, sodium pyroglutamate is not a carcinogen, and so far, no clinical studies and investigations have linked it to cancer . It's just that after the monosodium glutamate or chicken essence is heated to produce sodium pyroglutamate, it will lose its original freshness-enhancing effect , making its addition meaningless. Therefore, it is recommended that you place monosodium glutamate or chicken essence before serving.

　　All in all, no matter which one is chicken essence or monosodium glutamate, there is no harm to the human body, let alone the possibility of cancer.

　　However, this does not mean that everyone can add a large amount, because they all contain a certain amount of sodium. Adding monosodium glutamate on the basis of salt will often increase the sodium content of the food. Long-term intake of large amounts can increase the risk of high blood pressure.

　　Therefore, science recommends that everyone try to keep the original taste of food when cooking and reduce the addition of various condiments.