Everybody has a different love for street momos, but not BJP legislator Ramesh Arora of Jammu and Kashmir as he says that they contain the carcinogenic monosodium glutamate or Ajinomoto.
The member of the legislative council wants the cheap street food to be banned and is campaigning for that. “Momos have been found to be the root cause of several life-threatening diseases, including cancer of the intestine,” Arora said on Wednesday.
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The lawmaker wants the “cancer-causing” Chinese cuisine which is laced with monosodium glutamate, sold under the brand name Ajinomoto, a chemical flavour enhancer, to be banned. “Ajinomoto, a kind of salt, causes serious diseases, including cancer. It is responsible for converting a minor headache into a migraine,” he said. He has been recently speaking on the ban on momos in every function he goes for the past five months.
He met health minister Bali Bhagat recently for the same to persuade him to prohibit the sale of momos and Chinese street food. Arora isn’t against food prepared hygienically and without harmful ingredients. His hostility is towards momos — steamed and fried — in slums across Jammu that are supplied to the region’s 10 districts. He takes pleasure in the fact that his campaign has crimped momo sales in Jammu by 35%.
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“Junk food has already taken a toll on our children. There is a need to awaken the people,” he said. The Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Cancer Research Institute concluded after a study in 2007 that Ajinomoto causes stomach cancer. The WHO declared it unsafe in 2004.