Friday, 25 May, 2012

It’s all about phospholipids, says John Moore, director of the Institute for Chemical Education at UW-Madison. Not a flavor guy himself, he poked around and learned that these oily, fatty materials affect receptors that sense the bitter flavor. Detergents in toothpaste, including sodium laurel sulfate, break up phospholipids that are normally on the tongue, Moore [...]

Amid a flood of contaminated Chinese imports, we ask: what is going on? How dangerous are these foods and medicines? Is this normal, expected? Or should we be doing something more to improve safety?