Sugar and MSG

An association of sugar factories has placed a half-page advertisement in Kompas on Nov. 28, page 21, to promote its product with the slogan: "Tasty thanks to my sugar and healthy without monosodium glutamate (MSG)". This insinuates that eating sugar is healthier than eating MSG.

The advertisement features a well-known cook telling us about the ingredients for "sweetened gurame-fish with vinegar."

Fortunately, this is not true that sugar can make the food tasty. The recipe calls for 70 grams of sugar, but also contains tomato sauce, salt, soya, a large yellow onion and 500 grams of fish-sauce. According to The Journal of Nutrition, the Japanese made fish-sauce contains 1.38 percent acid glutamate. So the above mentioned ingredient has 6.2 grams of acid glutamate, which is equal to 7 grams of MSG.

To conclude, the delicious cooking is not caused by sugar, but because it contains salt, tomato sauce, fish sauce and an onion, which, together contain glutamate. And the fish itself contains 2.4 grams of glutamate per kilogram.

SUNARTO PRAWIROSUJANTO
Jakarta