What is miso - doenjiang, dajiang, taucheo...

It is important to understand what is miso - in its original form. Because only then will we enjoy the many health benefits of miso, by choosing good quality miso and using it correctly.

Thanks to the worldwide popularity of Japanese foods, many people today roughly know what miso is - the thing that makes Japanese miso soup.

But this is not a very useful or enlightening way of understanding what is miso and how to use it. Because miso today comes in many forms - as miso soup powder, as pasteurised miso sold in sealed plastic packets, and so on.

Some of these modern miso products may actually be more harmful than healthy. Their goodness would have been destroyed and they often come with chemical additives like monosodium glutamate or MSG, which is toxic to the brain.

Even if you take miso soup in a Japanese restaurant, especially if it is a cheap restaurant, you may not be getting the real thing. You have good chances of over-loading yourself with salt and MSG.

Understanding exactly what is miso will also open you to a whole new world of similar products. Miso is not just a Japanese food, but one of many similar foods eaten throughout East Asia.

The Koreans have a similar product called Doenjang. The Chinese have Dajiang, Huangjiang (yellow bean paste) and other similar products with various names. In Southern China and Southeast Asia, the paste is more watery and called taucheo or tauco. And so on.

Miso also belongs to the same class as other fermented soy products like soy sauce and natto - which are, again widely consumed throughout East Asia. These are all highly beneficial foods - provided you get good quality products made the traditional way and provided you use them correctly.

Health benefits of miso

Before we consider excatly what is miso in its traditional form, let's take a brief look at its health benefits. What is miso good for?

• ANTI CANCER: Miso is best known today for its role in combatting cancer. All fermented soy products, including soy sauce, natto and tempeh, have chemopreventive properties, meaning they can block, delay or even reverse the spread of cancer. But among them, miso is said to be most effective in this chemopreventive role.
  
  
• ANTI RADIATION: Miso, along with seaweed, which is routinely added to miso soup, also has anti-radiation properties. Even the Russians know about this and there was great demand for miso in Russia following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
  
  

Cancer and radiation, however, were not issues of concern when people in Japan and the rest of east Asia began eating miso and similar products thousands of years ago. They probably did so for more practical reasons, like nutrition and health, even though they might not have known the science behind it.

• NUTRITION: Overall, miso is a highly nutritious food, such that even small amounts of miso will meet a good part of the body's daily requirement for protein, vitamins and minerals. Miso is particularly rich in the B vitamins and the mineral zinc. However, claims that miso is a reliable source of vitamin B12 for vegans or pure vegetarians have not substantiated.
  
  
• FRIENDLY BACTERIA: Probably the key health benefit of miso and other fermented foods is that they are a rich source of probiotics or "friendly bacteria". Among other things, friendly bacteria help improve digestion and the body's absorption of nutrients. They further enhance immune function by destroying or at least crowding out harmful bacteria.
  

Many people associate friendly bacteria with milk products like yoghurt or cultured milk drinks like Yakult and Vitagen. But being milk products, they come with the many health problems associated with milk, particularly with pasteurised, homogenised and otherwise processed dairy foods. For more details, read The Harm of Milk.

If you know what is miso made of, however, you will appreciate a crucial difference. Miso and soy sauce are salt-fermented foods while natto, although fermented without salt, is normally eaten with soy sauce.

Some people may consider this a "bad" thing, since there is a common misperception that salt is harmful to health. But salt is healthy provided it is natural sea salt - and hence it is important to buy miso and soy sauce made with natural sea salt rather than refined salt.

Some health authorities warn that miso is high in salt / sodium and could cause high blood pressure. However, a study of people who follow a macrobiotic diet, conducted by a Harvard researcher during the 1980s, found that such people actually have healthy blood pressure levels - about 10 points below the national average - despite eating a rather salty diet flavoured with miso and soy sauce.

The reason could well be that macrobiotic people fully understand what is miso and how to use it correctly. They use only miso made with natural sea salt.

A superior salty seasoning

This brings us to another way of looking at what is miso and soy sauce. They are alternatives to salt. And as salty seasonings, they are excellent ways of bringing out the flavour of foods.

Followers of macrobiotics believe that using miso or soy sauce to flavour foods is better than using salt directly. Because in salt-fermented products like miso and soy sauce, the salt molecules are chelated or combined with food molecules. Taking salt this way is said to have a less harmful effect on the body than using salt on its own.

Also, less salt is ultimately consumed because less salt is needed to flavour foods. If you add, say, one or two tablespoonfuls of miso or soy sauce to a dish, most of it is soybeans or water anyway. Depending on the variety or miso, the salt content may range from about 5 percent to 15 percent. If you prepare your own miso soup, you are not supposed to make it overly salty anyway.

As a bonus, miso and soy sauce impart more complex flavours to food, compared with plain salt. They make your food taste more interesting.

So what is miso?

Our discussions about the health benefits of miso gives some vital clues about exactly what is miso, how to choose the real good stuff from modern fakes and how to use miso correctly.

Miso is a salt fermented food, made from soy and/or grains, that is rich in nutrients and friendly bacteria and will impart important health benefits.

With this understanding about what is miso we can conclude that:

• Miso should be made by natural fermentation, rather than by modern industrial methods that short-cut the fermentation process.
  
  
• The salt used in fermenting miso should be natural sea salt that contains a broad spectrum of minerals - not refined salt, which is pure sodium chloride.
  
  
• Soy beans and/or grains used in making miso should ideally be of organic quality, as organic foods have better content of nutrients. Miso should not be made from genetically modified (GMO) soy beans.
  
  
• Miso should not contain MSG and other chemical additives that are harmful to health.
  
  
• We should only buy unpasteurised miso, which have their friendly bacteria still alive and active. Such miso is usually sold in tubs or in loose form, and usually refrigerated. Miso that is packed in sealed plastic bags would no longer be "alive". Otherwise air would be released, causing the sealed bag to bloat and eventually explode.
  
  
• Miso should generally not be cooked as strong cooking destroys the beneficial "friendly" bacteria. In preparing miso soup, for example, miso should be added after the soup is cooked rather than at the start of cooking.
  
  
• Gentle simmering is okay as the friendly bacteria in miso are quite hardy and can withstand gentle simmering for about 3 minutes. Simmering is, in fact, recommended. It stops the fermentation process so that the miso will not continue to ferment - and generate gas - in your digestive tract.

The above are the basic guidelines for choosing and using miso. Part II of this article on what is miso will examine the different types of miso and how to use them in preparing miso soup and other dishes.

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