
How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016) - matt4077
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-msg-got-a-bad-rap-flawed-science-and-xenophobia/
======
userbinator
IMHO the fact that Asians have been consuming it in huge amounts for over a
century, and yet there hasn't been any common health problems linked to it,
should be enough of a clue that it's not really harmful...

I've found that restaurants in China in general tend to use a _lot_ more MSG
and other glutamate products than North America, enough to give me a little
bit of a "high". It would not surprise me that someone not used to it would
probably not like the experience. I once went to a "no MSG" one (they exist
over there too, because the "chemicals are bad" line of thought is just as
prevalent) without being aware of it, and found the food rather bland --- only
upon leaving did I notice the signage.

~~~
noxToken
> _IMHO the fact that Asians have been consuming it in huge amounts for over a
> century, and yet there hasn 't been any common health problems linked to it,
> should be enough of a clue that it's not really harmful..._

This isn't really a good argument. Western people use lactose in a variety of
ways such as a drink additive (tea), for cooking (cheese, cream-based sauces),
and even consuming by the glass (good ol' fashion milk). However, there's a
high prevalence of lactose intolerance in Asian countries. There are just some
sensitivities, diseases, and reactions that are more prevalent in some
ethnicities than others including lactose intolerance, sickle-cell anemia, and
Tay-Sachs disease.

For the record, I keep a bottle of MSG in my pantry. I love the stuff, and the
only way you'll get me to stop using it is by prying it from my cold, dead
hands.

~~~
alexandercrohde
Not to mention "Asian Glow." There are a number of health experiences that are
personal.

Clumsy attempts to make across-the-board statements about healthy or not will
necessarily fail in these circumstances.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
It's the first I hear about "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" but MSG is 12.28g
per 100g sodium and so should be avoided by, or at the very least restricted
in the diets of, people on a low-sodium diet, such as hypertensives, kidney
patients and diabetics.

_________________

Source of the 12.28g per 100g claim:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5694874/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5694874/)

Which actually advocates for the use of MSG to reduce sodium, which I find
very unreasonable. The point of MSG is to increase the umami taste- but you
can get that from glutamate acid, without the sodium. The only extra thing you
get from MSG is the extra sodium.

The article says that only a small amount of MSG is required to enhance taste,
but just try asking workers in restaurants how much MSG is in the food they
serve you. Try asking them how much salt is in it, even - I have a relative on
a low sodium diet and I know it's pointless, people don't even understand the
question. "How much salt? What do you mean?".

And of course, just because someone puts MSG in their food doesn't mean they
don't also add extra salt to it. The result is that people like my relative
can't eat food with MSG without getting about twice their safe daily intake
from a single meal.

Another study on 1227 Chinese adults found that MSG increased blood pressure
over a period of 5 years:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21372742](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21372742)

But I can't read the full text.

~~~
imjustsaying
>But I can't read the full text.

append the link to sci-hub.tw/

[https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21372...](https://sci-
hub.tw/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21372742)

------
ttul
I routinely sprinkle MSG onto my roast potatoes and into salads. Just a tiny
bit and everyone is wondering how I make such amazingly tasty food.

MSG won me over after I read about Nathan Myhrvold using it in his science
kitchen.

~~~
ramraj07
I am totally all for spewing MSG on everything, but it might not be best that
you're secretly adding msg to foods you serve a bunch of people without their
awareness. Not that I agree with their stupid world views but if someone wants
to believe that MSg is bad for them, then it's their choice. I think we should
not accidentally or deliberately serve something to someone they might not
prefer to eat.

~~~
hueving
What about secretly adding salt or pepper? How about olive oil?

If you're cooking food for people it's not common to get pre-approval of the
ingredients beyond asking for any dietary restrictions.

~~~
serf
>If you're cooking food for people it's not common to get pre-approval of the
ingredients beyond asking for any dietary restrictions.

you're a lucky chef. You'll get a real reality check when cooking for an
elderly bunch of diabetics who automatically presume the world is low-sodium.

I've found it's just easier to automatically presume that _everyone_ has
dietary restrictions, just some much more mild than most (some hate brocolli,
and some will _die_ if they are near peanuts, but it's the same scale.).

~~~
afarrell
> I’ve found it's just easier to automatically presume that everyone has
> dietary restrictions...

Could you explain more how you do this in practice? Do you list out all
ingredients in a menu? Or do you have a list of standard dietary restrictions
that most people have (pork, shellfish, dairy, beef, coconut, peanuts,
horseradish, salt, ...) and just remove all of them?

~~~
pjc50
Don't presume, ask; something like "do you have any dietary requirements?"
along with a dinner invitation. Covers everything from vegetarianism to highly
specific allergies. Also puts the ball in the other person's court to be clear
upfront before anything is cooked or purchased.

~~~
mlrtime
Nobody will mention MSG in this scenario unless they have a very acute allergy
to it.

~~~
hopler
Then everyone gets MSG if the chef wants it. Chef is not telepath.

------
TehCorwiz
It's present in large quantities in Doritos, most other packaged salty snack
foods, Kentucky Fried Chicken, soy extract, shiitake mushrooms, broccoli,
walnuts, etc.

I highly doubt MSG has any health risk associated with it due to its natural
presence in many foods.

It's more likely that it became a racist stand-in, considering there are other
false Chinese food tropes: Quality or source of meat (allusions to cats and
dogs), cleanliness of kitchens, MSG, etc.

~~~
alexandercrohde
The race thing is a complete red-herring. The only question that matters is
"How does it make me personally feel after I eat it?"

It really doesn't even matter how it makes the average statistical sample
psychology students feel.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
> The only question that matters is "How does it make me personally feel after
> I eat it?"

Even this question is problematic because of the nocebo effect.

------
rubyn00bie
FWIW I've always called MSG "Makes Stuff Good," because it does just that... I
realized it wasn't bad mostly because there was no seeming regularity to if I
felt bad after eating foods with it.

Eventually it dawned on me that perhaps overeating an abundance of oil in
foods with it probably makes me feel like shit, and... yep, it was the oil
(maybe others will have similar anecdotes).

~~~
soft_dev_person
I think it makes everything taste the same in an intense but uninteresting
way, to be honest. It gives it the bad Chinese restaurant quality. Quantity
matters, obviously.

~~~
hopler
I read a comment years ago about a chef who stays that msg makes water taste
like soup. So yeah, it improves the taste, but not in a good way. It's similar
to drinking tea with a cup of sugar mixed in. msg isn't as bad as sugar when
normalizing on how much people consume, but it's still used as a replacemment
for good food.

------
Rooster61
Though I am skeptical of the bad rep MSG gets, I find that I can get the same
umami flavor for the most part from using nutritional yeast. I like the fact
that it gives me control over the umami aspect of what I'm cooking without
altering the salt content. That let's me control the saltiness of the food
with actual salt rather than adding MSG and hoping I'm not oversalting for the
sake of having that "secret sauce" effect MSG imparts.

I have no idea if it's truly healthier than MSG (the claims on both substances
are many and varied, both heavily skewed by questionable research), but it's a
great ingredient to cook with.

(Full disclosure, I'm not a vegetarian/vegan, so no bias there. I know
nutritional yeast is usually tied to that group, but I'm just a person who
likes cooking with just about everything I can get my hands on.)

~~~
xutopia
I find nutritional yeast tastes cheesy. It's just not the same as MSG. I also
find that MSG goes a long way... just a dash in an entire casserole can
elevate the taste without going into salty territory.

~~~
Rooster61
By themselves, they definitely do not have a 1-1 taste. But if you put MSG and
yeast in a dish where they are well integrated (such as the casserole you
mentioned) and evened out the salt, I'd be hard pressed to tell you which is
which.

That's just me though. I see what you are saying.

------
fenwick67
On this topic, there's an excellent episode of This American Life where
someone looks into one of the origins of this idea, and it takes some
interesting turns:

[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/668/the-long-
fuse](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/668/the-long-fuse)

------
batbomb
Just use yeast extract and _magically_ nobody will get headaches.

~~~
gotocake
Something similar is done to placate “intelligent free thinkers” who think
nitrates and nitrites are the devil. If you go into a Whole Foods practically
every cured meat is labeled “Uncured! Nitrate free!” If you follow the
inevitable asterisk though, you see the the caveat “Except those derived from
natural sources, such as celery juice.”

 _facepalm_

Just... eat less bacon, and don’t kid yourself that it somehow matters how the
nitrates got there.

~~~
hopler
Nitrates are unhealthy, even if vendors are intentionally misleading about
celery.

~~~
amanaplanacanal
The weird thing is, many vegetables are full of nitrates but people only seem
to care when they are in meat.

~~~
NikolaeVarius
That (probably) has some reality, because the issue is that nitrates and high
heat cooking + proteins probably causes generation of Nitrosamine, which are
carcinogenic.

Don't eat meat all the time and you will be fine.

------
temp-dude-87844
The MSG panic was one of a chain of food ingredient hysterias that have
surfaced the last few decades. The government regulates food additives, in an
effort to ensure that we can all trust our food supply. But food is the "think
of the children" of personal choices where risk-averse preferences are
difficult to criticize, science has vague answers about no observed adverse
effects that don't satisfy choosy people, research is rife with conflicts of
interest, and anyone can pretend to be an authority and dispense opinion. It
also doesn't help that food regulations aren't the same in every country. This
invites scrutiny into the reasons why some have banned a substance while
others have not, or perhaps not yet.

MSG got caught up in an extended wave of unease against artificial
preservatives, artificial colors, trans fats, and even high fructose corn
syrup. Smart companies picked up on "changing consumer preference", and
replaced these until a few years passed and the hysteria began to die down.

------
js2
Better (from a science perspective) and more recent article on the topic:

[https://www.seriouseats.com/2019/01/ask-the-food-lab-the-
tru...](https://www.seriouseats.com/2019/01/ask-the-food-lab-the-truth-about-
msg.html)

------
UIZealot
MSG is most likely safe to eat, judging by the copious amount poured into each
and every dish ever, in each and every Chinese restaurant that I've been to.

It tasted great when I was only eating in restaurants once in a while. I soon
got pretty sick of it after eating out a few times a week for a few months.

There's probably a judicious amount that could enliven a dish without
overpowering the food. Alas, the amounts Chinese restaurants are using just
make everything taste the same sickeningly savory taste.

~~~
gatherhunterer
From the article:

> As my colleague Christie Aschwanden has explained, once we reach false
> conclusions, our brains prevent us from accepting new information that can
> correct those mistaken assumptions.

------
JoeAltmaier
Can't find any science in that article or its links? Just pop culture
references.

Best I can find say "Further study needed" or "Effect is uncommon". Neither of
which deny there can be a link between MSG and headaches at least for some
people.

~~~
js2
If you want anything approaching science when discussing food, serious eats is
the place to go:

[https://www.seriouseats.com/2019/01/ask-the-food-lab-the-
tru...](https://www.seriouseats.com/2019/01/ask-the-food-lab-the-truth-about-
msg.html)

------
TACIXAT
I've isolated MSG as a cause of sinus headaches for me, along with a handful
of other foods. It is in some flavored chips, and the first few times when
going back and trying to figure out what caused my headache I was surprised to
see it in the ingredient list since it has such a stigma. I also run into it
at kbbq places mixed in with the salt.

Not saying it is bad for everyone, but it is a consistent issue for me.

~~~
ramraj07
Not sure you've "proven" it's MSG though. Warm up some chocolate cubes,
sprinkle msg and sandwich the cubes so it's in the middle. Then ask an SO to
randomize and give you chocolate with or without msg every few days without
telling you and note when you get headaches. My initial guess is that doing
this 6-9 times you should get sufficient signal (if it's indeed true that MSG
absolutely gives you headaches Everytime ) to fairly conclusively prove it.

~~~
gotocake
You’d need to administer it in such a way that you can’t detect it by taste,
and as pmoriarty says, to be double blind is a further challenge. You can
however modify your protocol. Instead of chocolate buy some unfilled pill
capsules (very cheap) and have a friend fill half with a pinch of salt, and
half with a pinch of MSG. This friend makes a note of which caps are MSG, and
without informing you or your SO which is which. The friend can simply assign
each cap a day, and keep the key to which day is MSG in a notebook and be
revealed later. From there, follow your protocol. It’s now double-blind, and
you won’t taste what it is you’re taking and have some subconscious reaction.

~~~
ramraj07
I intended to write that s/he should just swallow the chocolate to not taste
what's inside but I forgot. I mean if we are gonna give this dude headaches at
the least let's make it chocolate?

~~~
djmips
Bad science. Chocolate has a lot of confounding components such as Tyramine
which is said to trigger migraines in the sensitive.

~~~
lugg
Which would show join the test put forward.

Agree with your point but the way you got there doesn't add up.

------
p1necone
Sliced tomatoes sprinkled with salt, pepper and msg on toast are very good.

Although I imagine if you can get decent vine ripened heirloom tomatoes where
you are the msg would probably be unnecessary.

~~~
icelancer
> decent vine ripened heirloom tomatoes where you are

If this is in America, not grown in your own garden, I'd love to hear where
this is, because tomatoes in Seattle are absolutely terrible.

~~~
StudentStuff
Try a non-Kroger/non-Safeway owned green grocer like Rainer Farmers Market,
they generally have tastier veggies and fruit (along with stuff you don't get
at chain stores) as that is all they deal in.

Limes are way cheaper at green grocers too, I swear its a Seattle thing where
the large grocery stores know your only buying limes to go with your liquor,
and thus charge obscene prices :c

~~~
icelancer
I live in the valley and have been to a few of the fruit stands; Columbia City
Farmer's Market can be OK too. Still, not much luck. I am aware tomatoes are
hard as hell to grow consistently well and I should accept some variance, but
man, outside of Red Roma Tomatoes (had had good luck with them generally for
caprese salad), it's been tough.

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10866115](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10866115)

------
dnprock
I grew up eating foods with MSG. I'm usually aware of it. It's one of cooks'
favorite abused ingredients. Eating a lot of MSG is bad, just like eating a
lot of anything, sugar, salt.

~~~
kazinator
Would you drink a can of pop in which 30g of sugar were replaced with 30g of
MSG?

~~~
yoz-y
That would taste terrible! More on point: ingesting 30g of MSG is probably
less harmful than 30g of sugar.

~~~
kazinator
That could be true even if the MSG happens to give you an awful headache in
the short term.

~~~
Uberphallus
No[0], it won't [1], that's the point of the article.

[0]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4870486](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4870486)

[1] [https://academic.oup.com/jn/article-
abstract/125/11/2891S/47...](https://academic.oup.com/jn/article-
abstract/125/11/2891S/4730581?redirectedFrom=fulltext)

~~~
kazinator
[0] is shill work by researchers working for a MSG manufacturer. I have seen
this before. One even has an "ajiusa.com" e-mail address right there,
/palmface/. Can't comment on on [1]: the entire paper is paywalled as far as I
can see, not even a hint at the results.

Let's try something else:

Graham TE, Sgro V, Friars D, Gibala MJ. 2000. _Glutamate ingestion: the plasma
and muscle free amino acid pools of resting humans._ American Journal of
Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism 278:E83–89.

These researchers provided single 150mg/kg oral doses of MSG to 9 healthy
volunteers (8 males, 1 female) to determine the plasma and muscle
concentrations of glutamate following ingestion. All volunteers reported
transient headaches.

Shimada A, Cairns BE, Vad N, Ulriksen K, Pedersen AML, Svensson P, Baad-Hansen
L. 2013. _Headache and mechanical sensitization of human pericranial muscles
after repeated intake of monosodium glutamate (MSG)_. Journal of Headache and
Pain 14:2

More than 50% of healthy, male subjects given 150mg/kg daily doses developed
headaches.

~~~
loeg
> Let's try something else

N=8 or 9 (low power), 150 mg/kg(!) doses.

That's like ingesting 11 g of the stuff for a 75 kg adult.

------
psiops
I have no antipathy towards MSG. I can taste that it tastes good. The thing is
really: _It messes with my sleep_. I don't know how, but sometimes I get a
high dose in me and I just cannot get to sleep, like at all. Elevated heart
rate, mind racing, all night long. _That_ I do not like. I don't believe it's
an evil chemical, it's naturally occurring after all. But yeah, if someone
knows a hack to cure the occassional insomnia... that'd be great.

~~~
maaaats
See comment from tptacek from an earlier discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10866718](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10866718)

~~~
lugg
Could the intense short lived headaches be caused by something other than
glutamate? I consume a lot of msg and aren't bothered by it but I do get
severe acute head pain when I eat McDonald's spicy buffalo sauce. Kind of
freaked me out the two bites I had before quitting.

------
glup
I inferred it was probably basically fine when my Swiss relatives served a
(relatively fancy, celebratory) dinner and provided it in a labeled shaker
alongside salt and pepper.

------
sneakernets
MSG was a godsend to me because I am one of the few people on the planet
allergic to yeast. Then everyone decided MSG was bad and put allergens all in
their foods again.

------
iheartpotatoes
Caldo de Tomato!!!

[https://www.amazon.com/Knorr-Granulated-Bouillon-Tomato-
Chic...](https://www.amazon.com/Knorr-Granulated-Bouillon-Tomato-
Chicken/dp/B008OFGXEK)

This stuff is essential for good Mexican cooking. Funny that only Chinese food
gets a bad rap for MSG when it is far more pervasive.

------
kazinator
Actual science:

 _The role of monosodium glutamate in headache_

[https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/...](https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0224000)

~~~
pmoriarty
This seems:

1 - not to have been published in any peer-reviewed journals

2 - a study on rats

3 - the rats were injected with MSG intravenously

4 - the amount of MSG injected intravenously was 50mg/kg, which would be
equivalent to 2.5 grams of MSG for a 50kg person

Because of all of the above, it's not clear whether it's good science, and not
clear if any of this research applies to humans, who normally don't inject
gigantic amounts of MSG in to their veins.

~~~
kazinator
> _2.5 grams of msg for a 50kg person_

MSG is slightly more dense than sugar, with a specific gravity of 1.6 and
comes in a crystalline form that resembles sugar.

4 grams of sugar is about a teaspoon, and the same can be expected of MSG.
They can easily dump half a teaspoon of the stuff into your soup or sauce in a
restaurant, treating it like salt or sugar.

This amazing paper is valuable not just for its work on rats, but for its
references.

It's also noteworthy that the researcher basically considers it a settled
question that MSG causes headaches.

In this work, she isn't trying to answer the question "do rats get a headache
from MSG".

~~~
MertsA
You'd have to be crazy to add 2.5 grams worth of MSG to a single meal. Accent
calls for using like 1/10th that amount in soup. That's no different than
using 10x as much salt as a recipe calls for, it's not going to turn out so
great.

~~~
equalunique
I work in restaurants and have seen chefs add two heaping table spoons of it
to a pot of soup without hesitating.

~~~
kazinator
That's something like 40 to 50 grams. Say it's an 8 liter pot, serving 16.
That's like 2.5g to 3.1g per person, ouch! Then there is glutamate in that pot
already from natural sources as well as possibly ingredients like processed
meats and whatnot.

~~~
MertsA
No, it's actually more like 24g to ~30g depending on how "heaping" the
tablespoons were, you might be thinking of the specific gravity and using that
to estimate the weight but an important consideration is that it's in a small
crystalline form. 1/4 tsp of MSG is 1.0g which puts a tbsp at 12g. An estimate
of only 16 servings is probably a bit on the low side as well. Even assuming
all of that, that still only amounts to 24 mg/kg for a 70kg person whereas the
paper you referenced indicated there was a threshold effect and used doses of
150 mg/kg.

~~~
kazinator
> _might be thinking of the specific gravity and using that to estimate the
> weight but an important consideration is that it 's in a small crystalline
> form_

I'm relying on the density of MSG being similar to that of sugar, and both
being in crystalline form, then working from information around the web about
the mass of heaped tablespoons of sugar.

(I know that not all crystals are of the same shape and not all pack the same.
Something with needle-like crystals will end up fairly fluffy, unless
mechanically crushed.)

------
thorwasdfasdf
MSG is well known by scientists to lead to obesity. In fact, they know it so
well, that they've created a very reliable and reproducible procedure for it.
Whenever they need to experiment on Rats, they put them under a procedure
called: MSG induced Obesity. And just like that their appetites shoot through
the roof and the rats reliably get really fat, every time.

Anecdotally, I eat asian food on a regular basis and I can tell whenever it's
got MSG in it just by the taste. It gives you a sort of High and really drives
your appetite making you feel you can't get enough of the dish. For someone
like me, there's a huge noticeable difference between a dish with MSG and one
without.

------
waynecochran
MSG will give me a headache every frickin' time. Guaranteed.

~~~
bjl
Unless tomatoes, Parmesan cheese, and aged beef also give you headaches every
time, then its guaranteed not to be the MSG.

~~~
equalunique
Eat a teaspoon of MSG. Remember, "its guaranteed not to be the MSG."

~~~
waynecochran
I might be willing to try this, but I am afraid of the outcome. The headaches
are violent. I have had these headaches decades and I know my triggers. MSG is
the king of triggers.

------
lugg
[https://www.thedailymeal.com/eat/foods-you-didnt-know-
contai...](https://www.thedailymeal.com/eat/foods-you-didnt-know-contain-msg)

Doritos, Pringles, KFC, campbells soup among others.

MSG fear is mostly about racism at this point.

This video is pretty relevant and more recent with some good information /
background on things.

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=Sm8Yx-gWlMs](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Sm8Yx-
gWlMs)

------
AtlasBarfed
MSG unquestioningly is a headache trigger for me. I've done multiple A/B tests
with MSG with/without spices.

~~~
dymk
Were the tests blinded? Did you do an additional test with just salt?

~~~
alexandercrohde
Does he need to? It's his own body.

If I burn my hand on a stove, am I obligated to to do a blinded A/B test with
N=15 before I decide, for my own personal case, that the hot stove caused the
burn mark?

I don't get why you're putting people on trial for noticing their own
individual reactions to food. The article itself admits some people are
sensitive to MSG.

~~~
__david__
Because people are notoriously terrible at this kind of self diagnosis.

I'm going to answer an anecdote with an anecdote here, but I was getting
headaches that were completely correlated with food containing MSG. I
"researched it" (cursorily google searched) and found that MSG was totally
safe so I didn't want to believe it, but the correlation was there. Later I
found out I had high blood pressure—the high MSG foods were also high sodium
and the sodium was kicking my blood pressure up really high and causing
headaches. When I got my blood pressure under control I tried MSG again and no
headaches at all.

The body is complicated and things aren't always what they seem to be to our
pattern seeking brains.

------
5oksuuhm
I hereby title this post "Ingesting supplemental levels of glutamate — the
single most important endogenous neurochemical — invariably does various stuff
to the nervous system, the single most complicated system we study. Spending
decades debating between black/white positions of 'it's always bad for
everyone' and 'it's always fine for everyone' is ridiculous."

I've never met anyone in real life, or had a proper 1-on-1 online with anyone
(with basic biology/neuroscience knowledge) who denied MSG's health/biological
effects.

It's frickin glutamate. That's it. GABA is the main inhibitory
neurotransmitter. Glutamate is the main excitatory neurotransmitter. Ingest
various/increasing doses of the former, and you will be relaxed verging on
sedating. Ingest increasing doses of the latter and you (and your whole
nervous system) will be stimulated verging on seizure-y (for various reasons
it wouldn't be possible to _orally ingest_ enough glutamate to actually
seize).

It's all a matter of doses. But seriously, grab some size 0 capsules, put
500mg of GABA or Glutamate (sodium glutamate aka MSG being the most readily
available) in each, mix 'em up and have a party. You'll easily be able to tell
which one you've taken after 15-30 mins. This is basic stuff.

Individual traits (species, morphology, and brain chemistry/epigenetics) all
play a part, the same way they do for sensitivity/tolerance to any other
ingested food constituent, herb, supplement, or drug. But for Glutamate at
least, these factors mostly equate to differences in tolerated doses, because
in the end there isn't anybody (or any species that I know of) for which
Glutamate doesn't play the vital nervous system role we know it to play.

So, that's basic biology. Supplementing Glutamate/MSG generally isn't
needed/wanted/pleasant. But is it so much of a problem in the amounts found in
food? That's what the whole debate is about after all.

The answer is there is no answer. It's a nearly meaningless question. It's the
kind of meaningless question/debate that comes out of the relationship between
regulatory agencies and business/industry, because the former is tasked with
the impossible task of making conservative black/white/one-sized-fit-all
health decisions for the public, and the latter is tasked with making
addictively-tasty things regardless of health impact as long as it's legal.
They NEED the answer, and the answer they've come up with is SAFE.

The real answer, like any real answer to any biological/health question, is
it's complicated. Or at least variable. It's a matter of how much you ingest
until you experience/feel something you don't like. Maybe it's 500mg, maybe
it's a gram or two. It doesn't really matter. "Consumers" should simply be
able to know in advance the same way they do for salt and sugar content.

Please no one jump on this post for lack of sources. I'm not going to
copy/paste 5 decades worth of research on Glutamate in humans/mammals for the
sake of winning what is basically a nonsensical political/conspiracy-hunting-
mob debate.

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mikorym
TL;DR I can eat MSG?

~~~
astura
Yes.

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bengale
Makes my friend go blind for a while after he eats it.

~~~
Matticus_Rex
He should donate himself to science, and should also avoid... most food.

~~~
bengale
Yeah he's super careful with processed food.

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alexandercrohde
This is a garbage non-article.

It admits some people have sensitivity to MSG.

It doesn't offer evidence against some other additive in chinese food is
making people experience racing heart.

It doesn't even _consider_ the possibility that in the past MSG had some
impurity that caused a health issue that may not be reproducible now.

It doesn't even _consider_ how detached the long-term effects of food are
(think how long it takes to put on weight).

It likens the situation to anti-vaccine, which is basically the new Godwin's
Law.

It has an obnoxious air of "Science knows everything right now and anybody who
doesn't believe me is anti-science."

(The problem is that studies take decades to come to a consensus. The initial
studies about leaded gasoline said it was totally safe, for example. But in
this case the author doesn't bother to cite a single study that supports his
case! Rather he just relies on name-value and a tone of superiority)

