I noticed something unexpected at lunch yesterday: my Kimlan Taiwanese light soy sauce contains licorice extract.
This brings back childhood memories - when I was younger, the black jelly beans were my grandfather and I’s favorites. Brach’s used to make packages of just black jelly beans, and at Easter my grandmother would buy multiple bags for us to snack on over the rest of the year.
I’m with Snoopy and Snoop Dogg on this one.
“Bleah!”
I live in Licorice Land. From an early age, salted licorice, the strongest kind, with pepper powder inside (Tyrkisk Peber etc.)., was my go-to candy. At age 12, I could eat half a pound of the stuff at one go (and literally feel my blood pressure soar).
Given the mounting evidence of licorice not being that good for you (especially blood pressure-wise), I’ve all but given up on the stuff. But stuffing my mouth with the strongest black salted licorice used to be one of my great weekend joys. Things felt more real, in a way, with ammonium chloride in my veins.
The devil is in the dosing.
Yes in some chronic consumption can contribute to raising blood pressure. But it also can help with metabolic syndrome, has anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties, and can even help treat peptic ulcers. Licorice root tea has enough topical anti-inflammatory action to make it more effective for sore throats than plain tea.
But yeah too much too often, of the root or of the ammonium salt, can be bad.
My mother always said licorice reminded her of liquid medicines.
The 1930’s pharmacists used to mix medicines in liquid form and disguised the bitter taste with licorice.
Today capsules are more common.
People from the depression era unfortunately connected licorice with nasty tasting medicine.
I love black licorice, my dad always had it and his dad was Italian and would buy these anise flavored cookies that I liked. (I also love those German cookies, (Springele) the hard ones that are rolled in powdered sugar and cut out with designs, I have made many of these, and have the rolling pin to make the designs). As someone else said, no one bothers my black licorice and I get to eat it all myself!!
When Jägermeister became a big thing here, it was one of my girlfriend’s favorite shots. When guys would buy us shots she had me try one. Once. Yuck! I took a sip and gave her the rest. Never had another. Tasted like cough syrup.
Now I know why I never liked it. The secret recipe has 56 botanicals, featuring prominent notes of star anise (licorice) as its first ingredient.
It doesn’t take much, and the kick is in the glycyrrhizine, not in the ammonium chloride. This is kind of a hot topic these days.
Wouldn’t it have to be antibacterial, in that case?
I had an H. pylori infection when I was a kid, that flared up when I was 12, but that I probably got at age 10, when I was in the USSR for a year.
Had several endoscopies and even surgery for it.
Subsided by the time I was 16, the thinking being that it was unknowingly treated when I was 15 and had a terrible UTI/bladder infection. For the UTI, I was prescribed a double course of antibiotics, followed by six weeks on a low dose of one of them.
Licorice would have helped?
I know you know your business, and that gastritis, polyps, & ulcers were caused by a bacterium in the first place was a paradigm shifter, but licorice just seems too easy.
First, see higher in the thread, the ammonium salt is an independent concern over certain levels.
But as to the dose dependence bit - your cite characterizes that dose as “low” but the amount used is, per the meat of the article, in the top 5% of consumption in Sweden, a licorice loving nation. I don’t think it is reasonable to call that low.
The impact reported was with daily consumption. Not occasional.
The impact was 3 mm systolic and 2 mm systolic, with p values of 0.078, not even statistically significant.
The study was not blinded - they instead chose to use two very different sweets with very different profiles.
The “heart strain” claim is a huge stretch from an increase in N-terminal prohormone of brain natriuretic peptide.
Not a study that raises any concern to me. Other than how it got published.
No. Helping treatment, if it does, is not adequate treatment as a standalone. The suggestive study was as an adjunct to standard treatment with a presumed mechanism being its anti inflammatory effects.
I’ve been using this sauce for decades* and never noticed. Even taking microsips all week and really tasting it, I can’t detect licorice, just salty glutumami wheaty soy. I checked a new bottle in the pantry last night and it’s been there all along.
*since learning Kimlan was used at Panda Express in the 90s. The yellow label light has been my staple ever since.
I’ve always loved it. The local dairy had an ice-cream shop when I was a kid (apparently they have since sold it, and it’s now just a restaurant); they usually had either tiger-stripe (orange sherbet with a licorice swirl) or plain licorice ice cream.
Seemed odd not buying the usual three or four bags of assorted licorice for my father-in-law last month…
Is it there for the sweetness, the depth it may add as a low amount ingredient, or just as a natural coloring agent?
I’m guessing for the color but don’t know.