I've talked to many otherwise perfectly rational folks who get worked up about avoiding MSG when it comes to Asian food — but still go out and buy liquid aminos or eat foods that are caked in it.
Many people don't know that tomatoes, cheeses and other foods naturally have MSG. And:
> FDA considers the addition of MSG to foods to be “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS). Although many people identify themselves as sensitive to MSG, in studies with such individuals given MSG or a placebo, scientists have not been able to consistently trigger reactions. [1]
Not really. It only "works" for subjective measurements. As an asthma patient how well they can breathe after taking medicine, and you can get a placebo effect. Measure the volume of airflow in and out of their lungs and you don't.
Scientists have been doing challenge studies with MSG for 4 decades, and no study that presented subjects with MSGs and detected any adverse reactions significantly different than placebo has ever reproduced.
Even the (rebutted, non-reproducing) studies that showed adverse reactions to MSG (in the 80s and early 90s) showed headache as one of the symptoms not associated with MSG (tingling and numbness were more closely associated).
I don't doubt you're able to give yourself a migraine, but I do doubt that you're controlling for MSG.
This might be one of the best-studied food safety questions in the literature.
I think it’s very likely that something with MSG on the label often includes things like anti-caking agents or nitrates that may actually be the culprit. I kept a food diary for a year and the common headache trigger seemed to be “MSG”. Changing my diet to avoid it eliminated the headaches. So it really doesn’t matter to me if someone on the internet says it can’t be MSG. The practical result in my case was close enough. I have sympathy for anyone that suffers from migraines.
You can't do a double-blind expepriment on yourself, but you can simulate one.
Double refers to the fact that not only do the test subject not know what treatment they are getting (e.g. real or placebo), but also the staff who administer that treatment do not know: both are blind, hence double. This is important because if the administrators know, then something in their behavior such as body language could leak the information to the test subjects.
If administrator and test subject are the same person, it cannot be double. However, you can take steps to prevent yourself from knowing what you're taking, like preparing identical containers which are randomized and whatnot. If there is no second human there serving to you who could leak clues then it may be as good as double blind.
Prepare your two samples. Put them in identical containers. Attach sealed envelopes that record which one is which. Mix them up in such a way that you can't tell them apart anymore. Randomly mark one A and one B. Perform your experiment on A and B. Once you have the results, open the envelopes to find out which one was which.
I just checked the ingredients on my liquid aminos and it doesn't say msg. Their website says they don't add it, but there may be "very small amounts" that naturally occur from the soybeans. Please explain.
P.S. I have no reaction to MSG I just don't understand why you would think someone is being irrational.
Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) is an amino acid bound to a sodium molecule to make it into a shelf stable powder. Much like table salt (NaCl) is a sodium molecule bound to a chloride molecule to achieve the same. When they contact the water in food they both dissolve into the component molecules.
So really what you're talking about is glutamate which is a very widely occuring amino acid. It's "non-essential" which means that your body produces it. Almost all fermented foods contain it (including liquid aminos). Cheeses, meats, vegetables, etc contain it. It's very likely that you eat several times as much naturally occurring glutamate in your diet as you would if you used MSG in your cooking.
Basically if someone says they are allergic to MSG, but not allergic to all of the other foods that contain glutamate, is like someone saying they're allergic to table salt, but not allergic to all of the other foods that contain sodium, which is not medically plausible.
The flip side is that very high blood concentration of sodium can cause medical issues, and people worried about glutamate argue that a similar effect is going on when you eat MSG, but research so far indicates that at normal dietary levels, you're fine to sprinkle a little of either molecule on your food.
Your chemistry is scarily bad, are you trolling? When elements combine into molecules the result often behaves very differently from the components.
> Basically if someone says they are allergic to MSG, but not allergic to all of the other foods that contain glutamate, is like someone saying they're allergic to table salt, but not allergic to all of the other foods that contain sodium, which is not medically plausible.
OK, so how come I can eat table salt but chlorine alone will kill me?
Indeed consuming protein molecules which contain glutamate is different from consuming free glutamate in the form of MSG.
We can draw a ready analogy to saccharides. It is like denying the effects of sugar because indigestible complex carbohydrates are made of sugar and do not produce those effects. "A blood sugar spike doesn't exist because cellulose is made of sugars, and I've eaten a large bowl of moistened sawdust without experiencing such a spike. It's probably an imagined effect or maybe caused by something else, such as a response to anti-caking agents in the sugar."
Why is MSG used in the first place on foods which already contain glutamate? For instance, why is it used in Vietnamese lemon grass chicken recipes, given that chicken protein has tons of glutamate? It's because the glutamate that is locked up in protein doesn't produce the taste effect of MSG.
So why don't these naysayers deny the existence of the taste effect of MSG also?
As in: "Gee, I don't believe that MSG can possibly be a flavor enhancer, because boiled chicken breast contains copious glutamate and yet tastes bland. People who say that flavor is enhanced by MSG are just imagining it due to confirmation bias fueled by mass hysteria."
> Because nobody has a reaction to MSG. It's ill effects are entirely fictional.
It has not been proven, and will not be proven, that every single person in the world has no reaction to MSG. All I'm advocating is a little bit of doubt. The human body is complex and not every person is the same and not every biological process is completely understood. We can make statements as a whole, like that most people that think they're sensitive to MSG aren't. But we shouldn't excitedly immediately dismiss a person claiming that something is happening to them.
You might just as well raise concerns about adverse effects from dill, or alliums, or fava beans. In fact, all three of those are more likely to be associated with ill effects, because they're more allergenic.
The reason MSG gets such harsh pushback is that the idea of "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" or "MSG sensitivity" has been rebutted pretty comprehensively both from an empirical perspective --- decades of studies have never established a link, which according to the narrative of MSG sensitivity should be very easy to do! --- and from a theoretical perspective. In fact, the theoretical basis for the safety of MSG is pretty plain just from the molecule, which makes you wonder how people could be spinning stories about the dangers of chemical MSG at all.
I'm not trying to raise concerns. And actually, I agree with everything that you said. There is obviously a lot of misinformation and most of people's reactions and stories are factually incorrect and part of a fad. We can say that for sure because we've studied it.
What I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't take that knowledge and then proceed to tell an individual, who you haven't studied, that they are wrong about what is happening to their bodies. People have weird and rare reactions to things all the time. You should have a healthy amount of doubt and realize that maybe you don't have complete knowledge of their bodies. Why is everyone here so certain? Who proved that no person on the planet has any reaction to MSG?
I agree with your sentimate. It's also important to remember that we continually learn new things about how previously considered inert components actually have effect when ingestested in combination with active ingredients. I love glutamate. When isolating them from other components and changing chemical structure, then dumping that in high volumes into other food (where the Chinese Food Syndrome part comes from), it does not seem unreasonable to me that it may cause irritation to some peoples digestive system. So I guess it's important to express that a whole is not only a sum of its parts, and both biology and chemistry are fluid evolving disciplines.
I'm constantly worried about that teapot orbiting Mars that nobody can disprove. Imagine how much it must be worth! What color might it be? Endless fascination.
You think the probability that someone on the planet has a sensitivity to a certain food/molecule is about the same as there being a teapot orbiting Mars? Everything a person consumes has a vast variety of effects in different people. We're discovering new reactions all the time.
I'll tell you why I care. I'm coming from the perspective of someone that DOES have a rare and strange immune system reaction to a common food. I've seen doctor after doctor for years and no one can tell me what it is. I've tested it over and over and over and my doctors all agree with my assessment. But for some reason, I have to deal with a lot of people that tell me I'm wrong because read something on the internet about it being a fad. Why is everyone so damn certain they have complete knowledge of someone's digestive system and immune system?
My partner has IBS, so I'm also frustrated with unidentified food reactions/digestive issues. But I can't help her by ignoring the best tool for discerning reality we have, which remains scientific research. The results on MSG, glutamates, is very, very clear.
"You think the probability that someone on the planet has a sensitivity to a certain food/molecule is about the same as there being a teapot orbiting Mars?"
No, I KNOW people have food sensitivities. But not to MSG or its metabolites. I have as much evidence for the teapot as the MSG sensitivity, so I couldn't really guess which is more likely. I'd be happy to change my mind on either if presented with plausible research!
Sure, and you could say the same about tomatoes. But, generally speaking, people don't have reactions to tomatoes. The oddity/absurdity is spending extraneous resources/time arguing whether being allergic to MSG is actually a thing, just as it would be to devote resources into whether being allergic to tomatoes is a thing (hell, it's borderline as absurd as studying if being allergic to salt is a thing, at which point you would just be dead).
If you're allergic to tomatoes or salt, then it's a personal thing, not a general property of tomatoes or salt.
> It has not been proven, and will not be proven, that every single person in the world has no reaction to MSG.
And you have an example of a food anywhere that meets that standard? Literally nothing meets this ideal of "safety", so I don't understand why you're OK with peanuts or shrimp when those are clearly shown to be death sentences for some people.
MSG is, chemically, just a specific salt of glutamic acid. When dissolved (in food, or in the mouth) it forms free glutamate, which triggers the umami sensation on the tongue. Liquid aminos, cheeses, tomatoes, and many other foods are naturally high in free glutamates — and thus the savory, umami flavor that comes with it — even if MSG or other compounds aren't specifically added.
I agree with bvinc in this debate: those claiming to be scientific and saying MSG can't cause any reaction are rudely dismissing the real experiences of strangers. There are many reasons for the perceived MSG reactions: other additives in the MSG (like melamine milk in China), other foods at Chinese restaurants (and possible additives in those), all the way to psychosomatic and culture-bound syndromes [1].
There are a lot of "sensitivity" syndromes, and some are associated with genetic issues, some with toxicity, and others with mental health. And then there are questionable diseases [2]. Yes, the sufferers are sometimes vocal and unscientific. Those claiming to follow science shouldn't be.
So because I called out people who misuse science to sneer at weak people, I must be an anti-vaxer.
I don't doubt there are lots of studies showing no MSG effects (not that anyone bothered to link to them). I even believe them, just that there may be other factors at play. Plus they only studied MSG, I doubt they studied the people who claim to be affected by it.
Did you miss the part where I brought up psychosomatic effects, culture-bound syndrome, mental illness, and questionable diseases? Do you want to contribute any hypotheses or just make fun of people?
> FDA considers the addition of MSG to foods to be “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS). Although many people identify themselves as sensitive to MSG, in studies with such individuals given MSG or a placebo, scientists have not been able to consistently trigger reactions. [1]
[1]: https://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/FoodAd...