[Nathan Zachary]

MSG is a simple salt, used as a preservative. Any salt can be used as a preservative, except they tend to be too salty.

It's a good practice to NOT add salt when cooking. I've always cooked that was as well, and don't miss it at all. There is enough salt present naturally in foods to meet your bodies needs.

As far as cooking oil goes, even olive oil in excess isn't good for you, and can be just as bad as any other cooking oil if heated.

It is the over heating of cooking oils which turns them into saturated trans fats, so even though canola oil says it's trans fat acid free, soon as you turn your deep fryer on and heat it up to 375 to cook those fries or chicken, you begin changing it into a trans fatty acid chain. Change your deep fryer oil after every use if you really want to minimize your trans fat intake on those occasional deep fried foods. They more you use it, the higher in transfatty acid it becomes.

corn, vegetable and peanut oil is really the best oil to use in a deep fryer, but it's more expensive, especially if you change it after every use.

There's nothing tastier than a deep fried turkey in peanut oil, but it will cost you.

Everything in moderation, and you'll live a long time.

[SatinDoll]

Thanks for the information.

Must be doing something right - I’ve never owned a deep fat fryer, mainly because I don’t like fried food. My kid buys his fried burritos at Taco Time, near the local high school (naturally). It is his once-a-week treat!

[x_plus_one]

MSG is a simple salt, used as a preservative

Autolyzed, hydrolyzed, glutamate, glutamic acid, hydrolyzed, autolyzed HIDDEN SOURCES OF PROCESSED FREE GLUTAMIC ACID (MSG) NAMES OF INGREDIENTS THAT CONTAIN ENOUGH MSG TO SERVE AS COMMON MSG-REACTION TRIGGERS
The MSG-reaction is a reaction to free glutamic acid that occurs in food as a consequence of manufacture. MSG-sensitive people do not react to protein (which contains bound glutamic acid) or any of the minute amounts of free glutamic acid that might be found in unadulterated, unfermented, food.

[Ditter]

MSG maybe be a simple salt but it is a flavor enhancer used to make things taste better without being better. It is not the only flavor enhancer there are other more powerful and for me, more dangerous ones out there. I have seriously strange and dangerous reactions to disodium insonate and disodium gunaylate. Maltodextrin is another one that I carefully avoid.