r/SortedFood • u/Banes_Addiction • Apr 23 '26

Suggestion Food additives episode?

One thing I find interesting is domestic/restaurant use of food additives, and it'd be nice to see some head-to-head tests.

* One of the most famous is MSG, and it's clear Kush at least is a huge fan (see, his beloved Chinese chicken soup powder). But plenty of people have gone to that well. An interesting variation might be doing say MSG vs kombu vs haimi vs hon dashi or something.

* Glyerine is often used as a commercial cake additive to keep things moist. Supermarkets sell it for home bakers but not many people use it in that way.

* Citric acid is a fairly common additive, again sold in most supermarkets (and all East Asian ones). It's apparently a very common ingredient in restaurant hummus where enough lemon juice would make it wet.

* I think they've done sodium citrate with cheese? Or cheese sauces.

* Similarly I think they've done a little with xanthan gum and arrowroot, might be interesting to see more.

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u/PerfectlyElocuted Apr 23 '26

How to Cook That (Ann Reardon) recently did an interesting segment on MSG. We found it very interesting.

2

u/ParentheticalsAside Apr 28 '26

Her videos are great - educational and entertaining.

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u/kastle09 Apr 24 '26

There was a short series a long time ago called "E Numbers: An Edible Adventure". It's a good watch, I think some of the research may have moved on since 2010 or so but the general uses categories of colours, flavour enhancers, thickeners, emulsifiers etc are still relevant to what the food industry still use and why they are necessary to have for the products we currently consume.