[an_opabinia]

MSG aversion is relatively new. People’s attitudes about it change over the scale of decades. This is pretty consistent with most other food additives, like aspartame, certain preservatives and certain food colorings. While I agree there exists racism against Asian Americans in many places, it would behoove people who feel passionate about the elimination of prejudice around the world to fight for things not because of how they interface with ignorant people (ie because all ignorant people seem to like good Chinese food, like all other human beings) but because the goal is worthy. And personally, “greater acceptance of MSG as a food additive in Chinese food as opposed to Doritos” is better achieved by better marketing, clearly.

[aksss]

Yes, there’s a strong, recurring aversion to food additives that doesn’t require racism as an explanation. I think the MSG/Chinese connection was because the restaurants would add it to their dishes, which was at the time kind a unique thing - even though many processed foods contain MSG, having it added to your prepared food would be as strange as them adding Yellow #5 to your dish, and the reaction no different. There’s a quality of integrity to prepared dishes that most all but the modernist restaurants trade upon. Chemical additives, in the days Red Dye #2 scares and the rest hardly need a racist explanation to understand the aversion.

[Ensorceled]

> MSG aversion is relatively new.

I encountered the "MSG is Harmful" trope in university in the 1980's ... it's literally been around for generations now.