Dr. Kracker

Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, or HVP, has recently been the cause of a widespread and extended food recall, and we consumers are once again questioning the health and safety of our food supply. Before we get into the nuts and bolts (or “grains and beans”) of HVP, it’s important to clarify that, in this case, the danger to the public is fairly minimal. Salmonella bacteria (which is the contaminate at the center of the recall) can be killed by cooking, and there are not too many uses of HVP in an uncooked state. Eggs and chicken present a greater, more common risk; everyone should be aware that both eggs and chicken are often contaminated with Salmonella. (Hence the urging to always cook chicken well and the warnings never to eat a raw egg.) While our food system is generally safe (but “healthy” is another question), the HVP recall demonstrates once again that food processors are running unnecessary risks when they add ingredients whose origins they don’t always control. In this most recent incident, the flag was actually raised by a company whose testing of its purchased HVP showed contamination — they alerted the FDA, and not the other way around.

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about HVP: “Acid-hydrolyzed vegetable protein, or HVP, is produced by boiling cereals or legumes, such as soy, corn, or wheat in hydrochloric acid and then neutralizing the solution with sodium hydroxide. The acid hydrolyzes, or breaks down, the protein in vegetables into their component amino acids. The resulting dark-colored liquid contains, among other amino acids, glutamic acid, which consumers are more familiar with in the form of its sodium salt, monosodium glutamate, or MSG. It is used as a flavor enhancer in many processed foods, and circumvents the necessity to add the controversial monosodium glutamate on the label.”

Before panic or revulsion sets in, let’s look at what’s going on here and then examine why food manufacturers have made HVP ubiquitous. The first part of the equation is pretty simple. Acids are used to loosen protein bonds, and amino acids are freed. Because the solution is very acidic, sodium hydroxide, an alkaline solution, is used to neutralize the acids. Would we want HVP in our food if hydrochloric acid were listed as a sub-ingredient? Good question.

Note the use of sodium hydroxide. I am very familiar with sodium hydroxide. In my years twisting and baking pretzels in Germany, we used it every day. It’s the chemical equivalent of lye, a very corrosive base or alkaline solution. Pretzels are dipped in a sodium hydroxide bath, and the solution breaks down the proteins in the flour, creating the rich, dark color and the wonderful flavor I love. The heat of the oven reduces the sodium hydroxide to baking soda, which is why you never see sodium hydroxide on the ingredients panel. But sodium hydroxide has other uses. If you have ever used Drano and checked out the label, you’ll see that its primary ingredient is sodium hydroxide, and the cautionary symbols on the label warn that it is not something to fool around with. Without quoting the FDA, these chemicals do not need to be listed because they are used as part of a process, and no trace of them is found in the food. I still eat pretzels and enjoy their flavor, even with sodium hydroxide, but I wonder how many red flags would be raised if sodium hydroxide were listed as an ingredient. This is one of the facts of life of eating from the processed food chain: we don’t always know where our food has been, where it comes from and what processes it has been subjected to.

The second most eye-catching tidbit in Wikipedia’s definition is the MSG. MSG is controversial, and it is difficult to find on any labels these days because of its reputation as a food bad boy. I can’t say whether MSG is good or bad, and if it doesn’t affect me personally, it may be because my father brought empty cardboard shipping barrels that stored MSG home from the sausage factory for us to play in when we were kids. We’d roll around in them in the basement playroom and they smelled pretty good, if my memory serves me. On the other hand, I’ve known many people who swear they get MSG-induced headaches from merely walking into a Chinese restaurant where it’s used in the food. I would wager that many cooks who have banned MSG are using HVP, ignorant that it’s MSG under a different name.

Anyone who adds HVP to their food is looking for the glutamates. Glutamic acid is one of protein’s many amino acids. Recall that our tongue has 5 taste receptors: sweet, salt, bitter, sour and Umami. Umami is the receptor the glutamates tickle. Much of recipe development is about stimulating these flavor receptors either singly or together, like a sweet and sour soup, or the bitter and the sweet of dark chocolate. When the glutamates in particular are present, we greet savory food with enthusiasm and eat more. Successful recipes orchestrate the stimulation of these taste receptors and rivet our attention.

When the glutamates are bound up in the protein, they don’t react with the tongue’s glutamate receptor. Because glutamates are available from many protein sources, industrial processing looks for inexpensive sources rather than taking them from a sirloin steak. Indeed, the image or sound of the sizzling steak may still make my mouth water because my glutamate receptors are anticipating the yum-yum of the glutamates released by the action of heat during grilling. As noted by Wikipedia, the chemical crowd takes the inexpensive proteins in grains and legumes, treats them with the chemical bath and then sells them ready to go to the mass market and fast food industry. Shortcuts to flavor unfortunately become shortcuts to chronic disease, as we’ll see below, or to food recalls.

As traditionalists in the kitchen, we still want to stimulate those receptors but we want to do it naturally. Most of us don’t have the time or space for extensive fermentation, which is the natural way to break down protein bonds. But we can take advantage of the work of other artisans, adding foods rich in released glutamates such as Ume plum vinegar, soy sauce, or parmesan cheese. In a past newsletter, I noted nutritional yeast as another source of these glutamates. This reaffirms our family’s practice of liberally sprinkling nutritional yeast on much of our food, and explains, at least in part, the Australian love affair with Vegemite (Marmite in Great Britain), whose main ingredient is nutritional or brewer’s yeast. Last year, when Kraft Foods, the owner of Vegemite, attempted to introduce a new “improved” version of Vegemite to Australia, they met outrage and rebellion, which goes to show the power of Umami and its hold on a society.

Cooking and creating flavor combos in the kitchen is one thing. But being slaves to our taste receptors leads to all kinds of problems, especially when flavoring is surrendered to the food industry. With MSG rejected by consumers, HVP became the flavor lever of choice, but with it came loads of salt.

The April University of California, Berkeley Wellness Letter focuses on salt. According to the newsletter, most Americans overindulge in salt (is that a surprise to anyone?). Scarily, many consume as much as 100% above the acceptable range of 1,500 to 2,300 milligrams per day. The impact of too much salt is well documented: elevated blood pressure, hypertension, heart attacks, and strokes.

The ongoing trend toward convenience food makes it almost impossible to respect the daily recommended amounts of salt. Flavor profilers use salt to stimulate sales. According to the newsletter, “three quarters of the salt we consume comes from processed and convenience foods.” In a very useful table in the newsletter, I read that the Whopper with Cheese (does anyone order it without cheese?) packs 1,450 mgs of salt. One teaspoon of salt, by comparison, is 2,325 mgs. An order of fries with the Whopper would take the sodium even further off the chart. For those who have to reduce salt to improve their health — this group should be around 1,500 mgs per day — the message is plain: you cannot eat fast food!

As my awareness of salt has increased, I’ve also been trying to cook more with aroma to stimulate enjoyment of food than thinking only in terms of manipulating the five basic flavors. I like the very sour notes (hence my devotion to Ume vinegar with the added salt), and to that end, I find adding lemon peel to dishes for a basic flavor and then adding the lemon juice at the time of serving brings some very strong lemon fragrance to the meal. There is a lot that can be done with more herbs, since our nose can detect thousands of different aromas compared to the 5 receptors on the tongue.

Yet, I have mixed thoughts about this new focus on salt. Is it salt or death? My doubts creep in from my interest in Japan and its food culture. As we read in The China Study, Japan has one of the healthiest and longest-lived populations. At the same time, the Japanese are the masters of pickled and salty foods, all so pleasing to the palate. The Japanese named the Umami flavor. MSG is not a dirty word in Japanese, and a traditional vegetarian-based diet is high in salt. In fact, regions of Japan have some of the highest salt consumption of any populations in the world. While their salt intake has been a cause for concern to Japanese health practitioners, it has not been a death sentence. The reason may well be that so many other aspects of the Japanese diet and lifestyle — low saturated fat consumption, less animal protein, more seafood, and a much less sedentary life than that of the average American — creates enough balance and counterbalance to forgive the Japanese their salty sins.

The focus on salt definitely affects me as a baker, since bread is a processed food. I look at these lower limits of 1,500 and wonder if bread, flatbread or crackers can fit into this type of diet. In the case of most breads and Dr. Kracker, one slice contains 200 mgs, which means 13 percent of this lower daily limit. Two slices to make a sandwich (forget a 3 ounce hamburger bun) mean one-fourth of the daily dose, and this without putting anything between the bread or spreading it on the crackers. All of us in the Dr. Kracker/baker community are examining whether we truly need to add as much salt as we do (we’d been taught to add 2% of the flour amount to optimize baking performance), and if there are other ways to maintain dough strength. Taking the leap to no-salt baking is not something I want to think about — the Tuscan region of Italy is well-known for its no-salt breads that came about as a rebellion to salt taxes, and I find them bland and insipid.

The salt question, I suspect, is much more complicated than what’s being presented to us. Hypertension and strokes are very real, and the main culprits are convenience and snack foods that are high in salt, sugars, and fats. Addressing the problem of salt in isolation is not going to cure us, when the causes are convenience foods like Whoppers, snack foods, and foods prepared outside the home. If the definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over and expecting a different outcome, then for our society in general, our approach to diet and food is insane. We keep eating more and more junk, excersizing less and less, and can’t understand why we are getting sicker and fatter. It’s pretty simple: Stop the excess. Eat fresh foods. Eat whole grains. Cook more. And get outside and move your body.