Food flavoring

Food flavoring can damage eyesight?

Allow me to respond to an article by Thomas Geiger that The Jakarta Post of Jan. 5, 2002 has quoted from Deutsche Presse Agenture to avoid restlessness on the part of the community.

Geiger says that "Rats fed diets high in monosodium glutamate (MSG) in Japan developed thinner retinas and began to go blind."

This research at Hirosaki University used three-week-old rat weanlings. Their feed was mixed with 20 percent, 10 percent and 0 percent of MSG. In the case of human beings, usually only 0.1 percent to 0.8 percent of MSG is added to their food. When your food contains 10 percent of MSG or 10 percent of salt, it will be inedible as it would be too salty.

JECFA (Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives) of FAO and WHO conducted in 1987 a research on rats and dogs by putting into their feed 4 percent and 10 percent of MSG for two years. Before the research began, the rats and dogs underwent an ophthalmological and histo-pathological examination and their eyes were found all right.

Prof. Peng-Tee Khaw of Moorfields Eye Hospital in London is wrong in his opinion that "lower dietary intakes could produce the same effects over several decades" because MSG does not accumulate in a human body. The excess MSG in a human body will be changed into alanine and alphaketoglutarate within a short time. If the body is deficient in glutamate, alphaketoglutarate will be changed into glutamic acid. So, the glutamate/glutamic acid reaction into alphaketoglutarate is reversible.

It should be understood that Indonesia is the world's largest MSG producer after the People's Republic of China. Half of the 120,000 tons of MSG produced in Indonesia is exported to Europe, the United States, Africa, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and some other countries.

SUNARTO PRAWIROSUJANTO

Jakarta