Food A We Know It...Dining Experiences in Manila - Part 3

You see, when I returned to Manila, I am suddenly allergic to almost everything (up to this time and now have to take meds for that – this is another blog). I got into this junk food (and I hated myself for this!) because I had no time to cook (I could not find a maid – and this is another blog too) to help me out in cooking as a single working mum. Then we used to eat out a lot, and mind you, even those pricey restaurants in posh locations such as Greenbelt, use MSG in their cooking. I remember once that I worked as a consultant for a well-known chain of restaurants in Makati, Trinoma, and BF Homes, and discovered to my horror much later on that the reason their restaurants get so busy was because of delicious menu loaded with this Knorr Seasoning (I didn’t know then such contains MSG). Ajinomoto says their MSG is “natural” and has the “purest taste of Umami.” I really do not know because I do not want to know.

All I know is that I quit my job eventually because I was ill – I would get massive headaches, pain in my jaw, and at times, felt like losing my balance. I was so scared and always thought I was having a bloody stroke! It took several visits to doctors (one neurologist even told me to take Prozac thinking I was depressed, or maybe crazy?), money spent for medicines which I didn’t know what they were for, time and energy suffering. It took me so long to know and find the truth.

Question is: Why is this allowed to be used in the Philippines? Why is the use not regulated? Who is supposed to be responsible for its manufacture, sell and use to the consumers? Is it the Bureau of Food and Drugs? This I still have to find out.

For the meantime, I am sharing his experience to anyone and especially those who travel to Asian countries, like the Philippines, which is fond of using MSG as their seasoning.

Hey, what happened to natural seasoning? In the UK, we use a lot of herbs and spices, and I have used them for ages even when I was based in Manila. Do we really need MSG to enhance the flavor of our food or “enliven the taste of bland food?” Thins is MSG is not natural; it is CHEMICAL.

They say for Oriental cooking, it makes big difference if MSG is added. Uhmmm, on http://chinesefood.about.com/od/healthconcerns/p/MSG.htm, Rhonda Parkinson says, “"While "taste-essence" is of Chinese heritage, it was never accepted by the elite society of gastronomy where cooking skill and lavish use of natural ingredients are the essence. Today's version is a chemical compound known as monosodium glutamate or MSG and to me it does nothing to enhance flavor. Rather it gives food a peculiar sweetened taste that I find absolutely distasteful, and for some people it has unpleasant side effects.”

There you go.

Why don’t we flavour our food with natural herbs such as basil, thyme, rosemary, and spices, olive oil, garlic, onions, chilies, and the like?  Apart from having medicinal values beneficial to our body we know we are not ingesting chemicals.


I actually brought some spices with me I purchased (and love), like Jamie Oliver's organic salt and spices, and those from Sainsbury's (one supermarket I adore apart from Waitrose and Mark and Spencer's in London) - organic and natural. I have yet to fins something of these kind here locally in Manila.

I will keep you posted!

For me, I WOULD BIN MSG!

Photos from: www.inmagine.com

 This is purely the opinion of this blogger based on personal experience.