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Glad you found it interesting Neil. We used to make real gravy but then somehow got hoodwinked into gravy granules and didn't realise the connection until a few months ago, and even then remained sceptical until the last episode completely confirmed that Bisto was the culpret.I have noted your concerns that others might not exhibit the same symptoms and agree with you entirely, but the very fact that something as simple as gravy granules has 4 E numbers in it, one of which is expanded upon must speak volumes about whether we should be putting this stuff in our shopping trolly
I have had a similar problem and this occurred a lot with instant coffee.Some of these granulated products contain emulsifiers to make them dissolve quicker and I notice that any product with emulsifiers in seems to gives me stomach cramps and bowl problems. Needless to say I rarely drink instant coffee.
The food additives on the ingredients list given "Potato Starch, Maltodextrin, Salt, Falvourings (contain milk, soya) vegetable oil, Colour (E150c or Ammonia caramel) Flavour Enhancers (E621 or Monosodiumglutamate, E635 Sodium ribonucleotides) Beef Extract, Emulsifier (E322 Lecithin) (Soya), Spice & herb Extracts, Onion Extract."are, in fact, all natural components of food.I do know someone who suffers from similar symptoms to those mentioned when she eats onions (or garlic, leeks etc).The E number designation means that the product has been tested and is generally safe (there are, of course, some people who are hypersensitive to all sorts of things; at least the e numbers give them a consistent label to watch out for).
So my suggestion that it is onion and potato that is causing the problem seems to be confirmed by this, Bored Chem.
"These chemicals may begin life as being natural but when they are modified the body reacts quite differently to them. "They aren't generally modified.What's the difference between a glutamate ion produced by the natural digestion of protein and one included in the recipe?How about the glutamate present in parmesan cheese or soy sauce? (they are both loaded with the stuff)? Does it somehow get modified when the label on the bottle says E621 rather than soy sauce?Even potatoes have more of the stuff than most meat.http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/13574179"Its like comparing a cotton shirt to a nylon shirt. "No, it's not, one is made of cotton and the other of nylon.They are entirely different chemicals and they have different physical properties too.On the other hand, the glutamate from parmesan is exactly the same as the glutamate from the chemical supplier.There is no "magic" way to tell "natural" from "artificial" chemicals so there's no way the body can react differently to them.
Gravy = stock, flour, meat juices, salt pepper, red wine (if you want), water from the spuds or the veg.Cook it in the meat pan whilst the meat is 'resting' and don't add anything else. It tastes great and looks as dark brown as you want to caramelise the meat.Faggotts are really easy to make from scratch.There is an E number for virtually every chemical so they're not all bad!Cooking your own food from scratch avoids the additives; you may need to be a bit more clever if you want to avoid lumps and curdling but it is just a matter of stirring and choosing your cooking temperature.Deliah's latest offering is just dollop!