Mission: Vegetable Broth

Well, last night's stir fry included beef broth from a box. Now, I'm a big fan of broth. I use it in my cooking almost every day. I love gravies and soups, and it adds a little extra flavor to things like rice or mashed potatoes. It didn't really occur to me to check the ingredient label when I was at the grocery store. BIG mistake.

I grabbed the box from the cupboard last night and glanced at the ingredients. "Autolyzed Yeast Extract" was the second to the last ingredient. Now, I know that the ingredients are listed on the label according to quantity- the first item listed is the one that there's the most of, and the last one is the least. So I figured, "Well, there isn't much in it, so this is a good way to check the reaction."

The stir fry was really tasty, but a few hours after dinner I noticed my mental acuity was impaired. I was losing my train of thought and having trouble coming up with words to explain myself for the first time since we started the new diet. It was very distressing and disconcerting!

I checked all the boxed broths in the cupboard and they all contain it, even the organic stuff. Next step: internet search. Search results informed me that:

1) there's no broth reasily available that does not contain it and

2) It's a sneaky way to say MSG

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) causes some people problems because of the 'free glutamic acid' it turns into once inside the body. Food manufacturers have been using it to imitate the meaty flavor and mouth feel of real meat since the 1950's. These same food manufacturers are smart enough to know that when there's a lot of negative attention given to one of their ingredients, consumers may stop buying their products, so they've taken to "sanitizing" their ingredient lists. All that means is that they call it something else and hope that the consumers won't realize it's actually the same thing. Kind of like calling the color blue 'sapphire', or calling a sweater a 'knit top'.

So what my information search told me is:

MSG=free glutamic acid=autolyzed yeast extract=hydrolyzed soy protein= (something)-olyzed (insert protein source of your choice here) protein

And all pre-made broths have one of them.

And that, in turn, brings us to today's mission. I don't have the bones thawed for beef broth, but I do have the makings for a nice veggie broth. My large stock pot currently contains a couple of gallons of water, a couple of carrots, a few stalks of celery, a couple of potatoes, one tomato, a zucchini, some string beans and a couple of onions, each cut into a few chunks. I also added some frozen spinach, frozen mixed veggies that have been in the freezer a bit too long, and for flavor a couple of cloves of garlic, some crumbled home-dried basil leaves, a bit of thyme and a bit of sage. All of that is now sitting on the stove where it will be brought to a boil, then simmered for about 2 hours. It will then be brought down to room temperature, strained and about half will go into the freezer, while the other half will live in the fridge, to be used in the coming week.

When we manage to dig ourselves out of the snow, I will be purchasing a bunch of ice cube trays so I can freeze the broth in them. One ice cube equals about 1 tablespoon, so that will make it easier for me to make the occasional, random quick meal.

Next week I will tackle the beef broth.