201101481 Park Jean/ Cause & Effect Essay Final Draft/ Thur56

'MSG', the Best Ingredient    Have you ever thought about why homemade dishes are sometimes less delicious and tasteful compared to the ones sold in the restaurant? Most of people may have assumed the secret of those restaurant dishes; it's an artificial flavor enhancer or 'MSG'. The MSG has an intolerable attractiveness but it is also known as unhealthy ingredient that makes people fat and sick. However, it has scientifically approved that MSG has nothing do with fretting people's health and the actual effects of the MSG is unknown. Thus it will be described in below why MSG got such misconception and the true facts of it.   First of all, MSG is not an artificial flavor enhancer but in fact, it came from natural food ingredients. MSG is the abbreviation form of Monosodium L - Glutamate and it is abstracted from the sugarcane. The glutamate and sodium are mixed together to make both sweet and salty tastes that eventually makes savory tastes. In addition, people have neglected the fact that actually lots of vegetables and meats contain MSG. For example, tomatoes, green beans, corns and Farmasan cheese contains more than 1,000ppm, which is pretty high amount, of MSG but we eat these food ingredients every day in our life.   Another misconception of MSG is it's fatal to men's health. However, it was denied recently by the Food and Drugs Administration. The misinformation got widely known because the 'Chinese Restaurant Syndrome' was reported in US, 1968. At that time, many customers felt sick and vomiting after eating Chinese dishes and people have concluded that it's because they contained lots of MSG. Since then, most of companies advertised their products as 'free MSG' and that made consumers to think that MSG is harmful to human body.   Finally, it was proven that avoiding the use of MSG affects people to put more salts to make pungent flavors. This means there are chances that people can eat more salty dishes and eventually it will cause negative effects on their body. According to the scientific research, salt and even Vitamin 12 and C has higher lethal dose than MSG. Although overuse should be limited, though an adequate amount of MSG can bring a great taste. Therefore, avoiding MSG doesn't exactly mean you're only eating healthy ingredients and extend your life span.   To conclude, despite the fact that MSG does not have any negative effects, still many people hesitate to use the ingredient. But the truth is MSG is made up from natural sources and it does exist in many food ingredients. It's just that wrong information and cognition made people prejudiced and refused to use it in homemade cooks. Since it came out that MSG is not harmful, at least we don't have to worry about ingesting MSG when we have a meal in restaurants.