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xdcx

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Posts posted by xdcx

  1. Please don't ask me to prove or disprove something unless you can properly define what it is you need me to prove or disprove.

    Also, for, I think, the third time ... where, exactly, did I say "there are no taste receptors for umami?"

    This has grown tiresome, truly.

    I'm asking you to support your opinion. You make statements like "Let's also remain focused on the fact that "sweet" really IS one of the four basic taste receptors;" and " It has not been scientifically proven to be much of anything." but then when asked to prove that there are 4 and not 5 taste receptors you attempt to distract and refuse to admit that you're wrong. So please, prove how there are only four basic taste receptors when commonly accepted science says there are 5?

    http://www.livescien...h-debunked.html

    Now, with all that being said, what exactly is your problem with adding MSG to food and how is it different for any other additive like salt/citric acid/sugar? (which is like the 5th time since you like keep count but you still haven't answered)

  2. I do appreciate the discussion, but I'm absolutely not going to spend my Friday afternoon digging up studies (btw, you're asking me to prove the negative). That said, I'd like to know your definition of umami - an exact, precise definition. Mine is "aftertaste" or "finish" because I don't buy that there's anything more to it than that, and I do not believe that anything fundamental to basic human cravings did not exist before the early 1900s, orgasmatron notwithstanding.

    I don't boycott Chick-fil-A because of MSG (or anything else, for that matter), although my statement above could certainly lead someone to think I do. It was my suspicion of MSG that drew my attention to their ingredients list (where I still can't find anything about it, one way or the other), and I didn't like what I saw - I simply don't want all of these ingredients, whether they're MSG, 1400 mg of sodium, crappy processed bun, or, for that matter, inhumanely raised chickens. If I'm hungry on a rural interstate, I'll grab a sandwich and a waffle fries before I get a fast-food burger, but that's about as far as I'll go. To answer your first question specifically: overuse (*).

    You're not finding my answers satisfying because quite frankly, I'm really not saying anything of great strength, even though you keep trying to wring something out of me.

    (*) I avoid margarine at all costs, and I cannot think of one single exception, but I'll happily dip my sashimi in soy sauce. And, for whatever it's worth, I've probably had more MSG this week than you have.

    You made statements about studies could be shown on both side about caffeine. That lead me to believe that you were saying that there was something supporting your opinion that there are no taste receptors for umami. I already posted one for my opinion, I just figured that since you keep banging this drum that you would have based your opinion on something.

    How do you precisely describe sweet, bitter, sour, or salty? I can point to examples, but can't give you a definition of those, umami is no different. It's use is just as valid as salt, sugar, or citric acid.

  3. It has not been scientifically proven to be much of anything. I can show you studies that say caffeine is good for you, and studies that say caffeine is bad for you.

    The body naturally craves salt.

    The body naturally craves sugar.

    The body does not naturally crave umami.

    During the video, David Chang mentioned something about MSG being the most vilified ingredient in western culture. I propose that both salt and sugar are several orders of magnitude (*) more vilified than MSG. Also, given the population of China, etc., MSG has got to be one of the most pervasive additives in the word. Before I first started mentioning the preponderance of MSG a few years ago, there wasn't much discussion of it at all on internet food boards - I'm more than happy to be party responsible for the "vilification" of flavor-enhancing additives such as this, and if the discussion turns against the gross overuse of heavily processed salt and sugar, then so much the better - I assure you I've railed against "industrial food," "chain restaurants," and their arsenals of refined carbohydrates and chemically manufactured "flavors" more than I've railed against MSG as a stand-alone villain.

    (*) Each order of magnitude is "times 10." So yes, I'm saying that salt and sugar are 1,000, 10,000, perhaps 100,000 times more vilified than MSG. Ever heard of high blood pressure and type two diabetes? Guess what they're strongly linked to.

    There are taste receptors for umami. That's a proven scientific fact. If not, then please find me the studies that prove otherwise.

    While I appreciate the reply, you didn't actually address my question. So is your issue the use or the overuse of MSG? You don't seem to be talking at all about how it can be used responsibly something you clearly think can be done with other food additives like salt, sugar and citric acid. You don't have people talking about how they're allergic to salt or sugar. Faking headaches because they think someone slipped a bunch of table salt in their fried rice. You boycott Chick-fil-A because of MSG, not the 1400 MG of sodium in a single sandwich. The MSG in the sandwich has no negative effects on the body, but 1400MG which is about half the daily recommended amount. Your vilification seems to be misguided and misplaced.

  4. I stand behind my statement. In fact, I've just re-read it five times and don't see anything about it I'd change or retract.

    Ignoring the part that it's been scientifically proven to not be a marketing concept, why is it different from salt/citric acid/sugar?

  5. And I said that ... where, exactly?

    "My problem with MSG has nothing to do with health reasons; it has everything to do with taking shortcuts and creating "depth of flavor" in a chemistry lab. To the best of my knowledge, umami is a bullshit marketing concept. MSG was "invented" in the early 1900s - what did people do without this "fifth flavor component" for 50,000 years before that?"

    Taking shortcuts==hack move.

  6. Would you please show me where I said where adding salt, citric acid, or sugar isn't?

    Go ahead and link to the post where I said that, please.

    I can't because you've ignored the posts that brought it up in the past.

    Ok, so your point is that adding any season/additive is a hack move?

  7. We've had this discussion before in this thread.

    Yes and your reasoning then didn't make sense either. You're opinion isn't based on facts or science. You're trying to vilify and draw comparisons to HFCS when it doesn't make any sense to. Your point is that adding MSG is a hack move, but somehow adding salt, citric acid, or sugar isn't. That doesn't make sense.

  8. Yes and no - I use raw turbinado in my coffee and sometimes (black) tea, and don't remember the last time I've added white sugar to anything. Then again, I'm not a baker.

    That said, I'll add processed sugar before aspartame or saccharine.

    I can also honestly say that I've never knowingly tasted Splenda in my life.

    If something is sweetened with honey, I tend to gravitate towards that (I *love* honey).

    Let's also remain focused on the fact that "sweet" really IS one of the four basic taste receptors; it wasn't invented by a marketing agency.

    There's an age-old term for umami - it's called "aftertaste" (or, in wine terms, "finish"), and it has nothing to do with MSG aka "Accent Meat Tenderizer."

    Certain restaurants I avoid (that other people just go apeshit for) because I suspect them of using MSG to make their beef taste beefier than beef - I've also greatly reduced my visits to Chick-Fil-A, not because of political issues, but because I now suspect that they go heavy on the MSG.

    I just don't need all the chemical additives in my life, and if I can avoid them (or, more realistically, minimize them), I will.

    Whenever I see fruit flies in restaurants, I view that as a positive sign because they're probably limiting the use of insecticides.

    Chang began talking about "Doritos" as some sort of pro-MSG example, and I honestly couldn't believe what I was hearing.

    I'm not militant about this, but I actively choose to avoid Wal-Mart and pay more at locally owned stores, even for the exact same product.

    People might read this and think that I'm mixing different issues, but I'm really not.

    Calling it a chemical additive is misleading though. Table Salt, MSG, Sugar, Citric Acid are all essentially the same thing, processed raw ingredients distilled into a single thing and used to flavor food. It's odd to me that you pick on MSG calling it marketing gimmick, even though there's actual science that says that it's not.

    I don't see the difference of adding other seasonings and MSG. You're fine with salt being added, sugar being added, but somehow MSG is unnatural and shows a lack of skill in the kitchen?

    http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/19686108

    • Like 1
  9. I watched the first 10 minutes, and couldn't watch any more it was so boring.

    Non-experts speaking on a subject which requires expertise.

    Did this appearance come "from the heart?" Or, was it paid for by someone? It looked pretty darned slapdash and obligatory to me, although I didn't see anything in the first ten minutes that I vehemently disagree with other than emphasis.

    My problem with MSG has nothing to do with health reasons; it has everything to do with taking shortcuts and creating "depth of flavor" in a chemistry lab. To the best of my knowledge, umami is a bullshit marketing concept. MSG was "invented" in the early 1900s - what did people do without this "fifth flavor component" for 50,000 years before that?

    "Oh, but it's naturally occurring, Don - a derivative of seaweed."

    "And HFCS is a naturally occurring derivative of corn. Likewise ethanol."

    Do you have the same issue with sugar?

  10. Thanks, I'm actually looking forward to experimenting w/ the sauce, & w your tips, maybe this will be my best brisket yet (& if it isn't, there's always chili)...Do you use parchment paper instead of foil?

    butcher paper, but yeah. It has the same basic effect as foil, but doesn't ruin the bark.
  11. you could easily sub out tomato sauce instead of ketchup. The bitterness of the espresso and vinegars work well with the ketchup though and really doesn't taste sweet in the final product.

    brisket's not hard once you do it enough. Control your fire, don't go over 300. wrap it in paper once it hits 165 and pull it once you can stick a probe in without much resistance. Put it in a cooler for a couple of hours and you're set.

  12. you're probably going to want to do short ribs. You can get them individually usually from any of the Korean markets around town. If you have access to Restaurant Depot, you can get them in sections of about 4 ribs and 4 sections per cyrovac.

  13. That's somewhat up in the air, but likely in the Uptown part of town (I think this is right, I've spent a total of 24 hours in Charlotte in my life).

    if you're there during the DNC, all bets are off. I'm there for business decently often and stay at the Westin next to the convention center. Around there that's good:

    fuel pizza is right next door and is a charlotte chain, it's good, but not amazing. For southern, there's kings kitchen, which has really good vegetables. Mert's is similar but also good. For casual stuff, that's a drive but still fun, There's Pinkys, The Diamond and The Penguin. Fun atmospheres and laid back.

  14. You wrote you haven't seen a single person here say the Fojol deal isn't fucked up. Lots of people here are saying, if you want to get into a tizzy over something generally harmless, it's your prerogative but taking your logic to the extreme means we can only portray minorities in a good light in movies or television. So only straight while male can be bad guys in the movies, or aliens who speak with no accent.

    I also wrote "No one is organizing a march, No one is looking to persecute them for hate crimes." which would imply that I was talking about the people that have a problem with it. Since you apprearenty didn't understand me, I'll rephrase it for you. The people who are upset, are just saying it's fucked up. Does that help you? The point being that no one is making this into more than it is, a food truck that chose a stupid marketing theme. Do you enjoy marganlizing the feelings of others? It's cool that it doesn't bother you. It does me and other people. Pointing out other things that are also fucked up but that exist doesn't really help anyone or anything.Hey let's shift attention from this fucked up thing we're talking about right now, to this similar but completely unrelated thing that is also fucked up. To actually adress your point and to make it an actual pertentant to this, straight white men shouldn't be playing minorities in movies. Aliens shouldn't be given accents that play up existing stereotypes. You're chinese, are you happy when you see portrayals of culture/race being filled of bad drivers, small penises but being really good at math? If you are cool, then be totally happy when people look at you and think that. But in the mean time it'll still be fucked up to the rest of us.

  15. But when you take it as something endemic that infects everyone, regardless of race, it gives you much more room not to take it personally but to look at it in a larger perspective--as something that in its more pernicious manifestations is somewhere between the revulsion of the self-proclaimed white supremacists and the more benign but obnoxious behavior of folks in costume, like the Fojols, and to deal with it in its larger perspective.

    this is to the point and gets to the heart of it. Everything exists on degrees and in terms of "isms" tends to not be black and white. Making bold statements about what people should and shouldn't care about, especially when it's coming from those in the majority doesn't help matters. People are saying that the Fojol deal is fucked up. I haven't seen a single person here, or in other conversations about this say anything other than that. No one is organizing a march, No one is looking to persecute them for hate crimes. But dismissing people being upset about it and telling them they should just get over it isn't how we move into an actual post racial society.

  16. My experience yesterday with the ribs mirrored CC and rockcreek's experience - it was really bad. My ribs were tough! At least the top part was very rough - I ended up throwing a lot of my half-rack out. My only consolation was that it was $11, which is a bit cheaper than some other places, but the meat's toughness resembled what I got at my last outing at Famous Dave's. Even little man gave it a thumbs down.

    Not to pile on the badness, but was it an inferior cut of meat that made it so tough? I couldn't tell. The rub wasn't so bad, if that is any bright side.

    tough bbq is usually a better indicator of incorrect technique than the quality of the meat.

  17. I think the suggestion that whether or not you dress up is based on whether you're rich or poor is a pretty condescending view of matters.

    It is, but my statement was actually that peoples dress is being used to generate class based judgement and reinforcing class rifts. Sophisticated big city folks looking down on the poor rubes in their fanny packs and flip flops.
  18. That's some wonky logic. Some chefs do care and they do have dress codes, but they're not willing to strictly enforce them because that means lost revenue. It doesn't mean they don't care.

    I also think people are discussing different sets of facts. I'm referring to situations where a restaurant has a dress code and some patrons aren't complying. I'm not talking about going to some place with no dress code. I know my first post is about style but the topic here is about dress code compliance.

    no, if you care about something, you enforce it. if money and patronage mean more than a dress code, then it's the most explicit way to demonstrate that it's not a priority to the restaurant so why should it be to you, just another customer?
  19. Some chefs probably care, and some diners care, in fact, several diners are telling you that they care. If no one cares, then we wouldn't be talking about it.

    Next, how could you possibly know what all the performers care about? Are all actors liberals? Are all lawyers conservatives? When some lady is belting out an aria, is she thinking - I just hope the audience is comfortable? Or is she thinking about how mnay roses will be tossed at her feet by tuxedoed gentlemen after the performance?

    if chefs care, then they'd set a strict dress code and enforce it, because they don't, then it's pretty clear that they don't.

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