In March, the World Health Organization issued a dire warning that was also completely obvious: Nearly everyone on the planet consumes too much salt. And not just a sprinkle too much; on average, people consume more than double what is advisable every single day, raising the risk of common diseases such as heart attack and stroke. If governments intervene in such profligate salt intake, the WHO urged, they could save the lives of 7 million people by 2030.
Such warnings about salt are so ubiquitous that they are easy to tune out. In the United States, salt intake has been a public-health issue for more than half a century; since then, the initiatives launched to combat it have been deemed by health officials as “too numerous to describe,” but little has changed in terms of policy or appetite. The main reason salt has remained a problem is that it’s a major part of all processed food—and, well, it makes everything delicious. Persuading Americans to reduce their consumption would require a convincing dupe—something that would cut down on unhealthy sodium without making food any less tasty.
No perfect dupe exists. But the next best thing could be … MSG. Seriously. Last month, the FDA proposed reducing sodium in certain foods using salt substitutes. One candidate that has research behind it is monosodium glutamate, the white crystalline powder that has long been maligned in the West as an unhealthy food additive. A common seasoning in some Asian cuisines, MSG was linked in the late 1960s to ailments—headaches, numbness, dizziness, heart palpitations—that became known as Chinese Restaurant Syndrome. The health concerns around MSG have since been debunked, and the FDA considers it safe to eat. But it still has a bad rap: Many products are still proudly advertised as MSG free. Now the chemical may soon get its revenge. Given the chance to replace salt in some of our food, it could eventually come to represent something wholesome—perhaps even something…
Read the full article here
