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What is Soy Sauce?

Soy Sauce is a traditional, tasty and healthy condiment widely used in Chinese and South East Asian cuisine.

Soy Sauce is produced using traditional brewing methods from Soya beans and has likely been used in Chinese cooking for thousands of years. It is also used as a substitute for salt and is rich in Antioxidants and has naturally occuring glutamates that are not at all harmful.

Is the soy sauce used by Chinese food vendors in India safe?

Most brands of bottled soy sauce available in India do not use the traditional brewing process.  They are “semi chemical” soy sauces with sugars, caramel colorings, artificial glutamates produced by rapid hydrolysis and other added flavorings. Other undesirables that these may
contain due to chemical hydrolysis are levulinic and formic acids, instead of the beneficial lactic acid in traditionally brewed soy sauce.

These soy sauces are not at all healthy and can harm you. Foodnetindia recommends that you do not buy or consume any soy sauce that is not traditionally brewed, bottled and sold by a reputed or trusted brand.

What about Ajinomoto?

Unlike popular belief, Ajinomoto (a brand name for MSG) is not a traditional component of Chinese or South East Asian food. MSG was first isolated and sold by the Japanese company Ajinomoto corporation about 70 years ago, from where it gets its name! It adds a meaty flavor to food and enhances a specific taste called umami, that makes the entire dish feel very tasty.

MSG must not be used in every day cooking as it is linked to many harmful diseases.

By eating food items containing MSG or glutamic acid, the glutamate levels in the increases  by about 8-10 times. Normally this level should be very low in the blood. Due to this excess level, it may cause severe effects.

Also the ajinomoto ingredients are excitatory neurotransmitters which over stimulates the nerve cells. Excess intake of this ingredient upsets the balance of the neurotransmitter. This imbalance leads to an unhealthy body and also adverse consequences.

We at foodnetindia advise our readers to avoid eating Chinese food prepared in restaurants or by roadside vendors as the soy sauce they use is not a safe product. In addition, they use unsafe and excessive amounts of added MSG (Ajinomoto) which is also very problematic.  Please buy traditionally brewed, zero additive soy sauce from a trusted brand and home cook tasty chinese food!

Sources:

http://doctor.ndtv.com/faq/ndtv/fid/37098/Are_soya_sauce_and_Ajinomoto_good_for_health.html

http://www.naturalhealth365.com/food_news/soy_sauce.html

http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/soy-sauce-the-good-the-bad-and-the-surprisingly-ugly/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-55023/Cancer-causing-chemicals-soy-sauce.html

http://mavcure.com/healthy-living/ajinomoto-side-effects-pregnancy-cancer/

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