Glad this issue is coming to light. MSG is awesome.
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I love MSG 
It’s delicious.
David Chang does a funny experiment on his show Ugly delicious. He asked people who have horrible reactions to MSG to come talk about it and gives them some snacks while they’re talking. All of the snacks they’re eating had MSG and they were perfectly fine.
It’s really good show, definitely check it out. He exposes show interesting things like how Chinese dumplings are cheap food in the eyes of westerners and Raviolis are premium food.
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Obviously not true research and both inaccurate.
People think they’re having an allergic reaction but it’s only just a reaction. It’s not to MSG itself. It’s a reaction to the amount.
Use salt as an example. Salt is fine but if you have too much then you get thirsty or maybe have other reactions if extreme quantities like a couple tablespoons or more at one time.
Some Chinese places throw extraordinary amounts of MSG into their food and people have a reaction. But it’s not an allergic reaction. It’s a simple reaction to the quantity.
Hell in the Philippines they throw a whole package of MSG ( maybe he 3 or 4 tablespoons) into someone’s drink if the
waitress gets mad and then he has a terrible night. It’s not an allergic reaction, it’s just a reaction to extreme quantities.
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I get so frustrated with coworkers who tell me they are allergic or have a sensitivity.
I always offer to give them as blind test.
David Chang is great
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I have found Zero evidence of this. Please post any if you do. Feeling thirsty is a lot different than headaches and stufff
I think it can be generally accepted without examples that excessive amounts of anything can cause a reaction.
People may not have reaction to some MSG in some crackers, but when the cook uses a pour spout out of a bottle or pours from a plastic bag without measuring, dumping into a dish, wala.
The same could be said for salt or anything.
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The stigma against MSG started in the 1960s, when a white prankster bet his academic circle he could get a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine. So he adopted the racist persona of Dr Ho Man Kwok (“human quack”… get it?) and wrote the letter about “Chinese restaurant syndrome.” And dummy western cultures have believed it for over half a century despite multiple studies disproving the so-called effects of MSG, and even the original prankster coming forward about his letter being a fraud before he died.
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That’s interesting except that 99.9% of the people living today don’t know anything about that.
And they are not reading research. They’re just going with their feeling.
They aren’t getting the feeling from crackers. They’re getting the feeling from someone dumping too much into a dish, and they have two or three or five dishes.
That’s why I’m telling you guys. To get that number down to 99.8%.
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I got really really bad headaches from the Chinese food in the UK, I was told that was MSG. However, I love the Chinese food there more than the food here (going to get attacked to that ha). However I did personally find a link between the anglosized Chinese food in the UK and headaches I was told by non medical people it was MSG.
Shouldn’t that be a crime to knowingly give someone something they’ve expressly said they cannot have?
What if it was peanuts and someone had a reaction ended up in the hospital?
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It started when they called it MSG. It sounds like a drug not food.
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oh shit! ravioli EXPOSED! those damn racist italians with their expensive italian dumplings.
I stopped having Takeaway Chinese food in the UK, I have a raging thirst all night.
I think it’s all about quantity not MSG itself.
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I’ve tried fine dining attempts at Chinese cuisine and it’s never worked for me. I think it lends itself more to high quality rapid turnover food.
I have no problems with MSG and never have had. It’s just a quick and lazy way to add a savoury flavour to a dish.
the problem i have with MSG is that it makes every dish taste the same, it’s a cheap way to add umami to a dish. but it also makes your taste buds go numb. i don’t have anything against instant ramen or convenience food once in a while, i also use broth cubes from time to time. but if you’re serious about cooking and you want clean flavors, it’s easy to find other umami boosters. tomatos, mushrooms, parmesan, anchovies, they are all packed with glutamate.
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I don’t think it’s racism. I agree with people who say it’s the amount. There are restaurants near me where I will down 2-3 of those juice box tea things in one sitting and still feel thirsty after eating their food. I once watched the a-yi making the food and saw exorbitant amounts of MSG being dumped on each dish. If you added that much salt to a dish it would be inedible. But MSG doesn’t quite do the same thing as salt when it comes to flavor.
random thought: I have had quite a few people tell me that MSG is natural and salt is not. I mean, when we consider all the microplastics in our sea salt, I guess they’re not wrong. But really, has anyone been to a salt farm in this country?
As for Chinese dumplings vs. Ravioli aka “Italian dumplings”… Have you ever looked at the cost of the ingredients in a high quality dumpling from either location? Pork and green onions are not nearly as pricey as 5 different cheeses and spinach, even if you’re sourcing the highest quality ingredients from the cheapest places.
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Agree. I always thought MSG was for people who can’t cook.
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Even some of the best chefs in the world use it occasionally.
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It seems like it would be easily documented but I’ve yet to find anything that indicates what excessive is and how MSG at excessive doses can cause side effects like headaches.
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