It sounds like a nasty chemical and people have been worrying about it for year. MSG. Monosodium glutamate. But the monosdium, that’s just sodium ions from common salt and the glutamate is just the soluble form of the essential protein-making amino acid, glutamic acid.
The question of its safety arose in a Facebook discussion but it seems that much of the research into alleged negative effects of MSG refer to ingesting around 4 milligrams per kilogram of body mass. For a big bloke that’s still less than half a gram. Whereas we naturally ingest several grams of glutamate from proteins we eat daily.
So, once again deceived wisdom leads to chemophobia. I’m pretty sure all the negative stuff about this flavour enhancer is just a red herring…which, of course would be even tastier with a dash of MSG…