Posted on 09/01/2014 10:31:37 AM PDT by blam
Kevin Loria
August. 26, 2014
Monosodium glutamate, more commonly known as MSG, gets a bad rap.
People claim that it's a toxin that causes headaches and sweating, and that it leaves you feeling lethargic and flushed. The thing is, most research shows that that's not true at normal dietary levels.
Despite its umami flavor boosting power, rumors have given MSG a reputation so bad that many Chinese restaurants frequently put up "No-MSG" signs to assuage customer's fear. Some customers then put soy sauce on their food, adding the missing MSG in after the fact. Because it's delicious.
The folks at the American Chemical Society decided to bust some MSG myths in their latest Reactions video.
What Is MSG And What Does It Do?
MSG's flavor enhancing properties were first discovered in 1908 by Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda, who wanted to understand how seaweed, which had been used by chefs for centuries, enhanced the flavor of foods.
Ikeda found that the key was a common amino acid — one of the building blocks for a protein — called L-Glutamate.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Excitotoxicity due to glutamate occurs as part of the ischemic cascade and is associated with stroke and diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, lathyrism, and Alzheimer’s disease. glutamic acid has been implicated in epileptic seizure
http://www.hmdb.ca/metabolites/HMDB00148
safe as milk...yep!!
a bit of “non scientific news:
My MOM who LOVED Chinese “fast food”.....heavily dosed with MSG...died from ALZHIEMERS btw
MSG doesn’t give me a headache but it makes my heart beat wildly and irregularly. After visiting a cardiologist and being told my heart was fine, the doctor told me to find out what was causing it and avoid it. The crazy heart beats could cause me to have a stroke. I only had to hear that once!
This article is BS.
Total BS. There are many people that don’t efficiently metabolize Glutamates due to an en enzyme deficiency. Glutamates build up in the brain and can cause all sorts of issues. These people should also avoid tomatoes in excess.
Yes, for SOME people MSG is fine, for others it is toxic. ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL.
Growing up, my mother flavored her food with Accent (MSG). When she was diagnosed with hypertension, she ditched the Accent because of its sodium content. In those days it appeared that MSG didn’t bother me.
Then some years later I had dinner with friends at a Chinese restaurant. Sometime during the night, I woke up with a massive headache. I tried to get to the bathroom, but I couldn’t walk. Felt like I was having a stroke.
Fortunately, the symptoms subsided, but they scared the tar our of me. No more Asian food and I scour ingredient labels looking for MSG. If MSG is listed, I put the product back.
We had a person die at a local restaurant a couple years ago due to too much MSG put on the food. The article is industry propaganda.
Try this sometime. Don't eat all day. Work outside in the cold doing a lot of physical activity. Come inside and have a big bowl of Chinese chicken soup.
I did that once. Thought I was going to die.
“What some people ascribe to MSG is just simply people responding to the greatly-increased salt and fat in restaurant food.”
Sorry, but I normally eat a high salt, high fat diet. It works well for me. But a visit to a Chinese restaurant can darn near level me...
My oldest son would get seizures a after eating this stuff.
Names of ingredients that contain processed free glutamic acid (MSG)
GOOD to know I’m not the only one that gets a THROBBING MIGRAINE after eating msg.
Thanks.
No. MSG sensitivity is a real thing.
It’s good in your first aid kit - rub it into athletes foot sores and it’ll kill the fungus.
Wow! Guess I have to stop eating. :)
Thank you.
My first intro to MSG was working in a kitchen in my HS days. We had a recipie that called for it. Had a #10 container of the stuff. Crystalline form. I put a small taste of it, like you might do with salt, on my tounge.
Big mistake. That stuff is nasty in raw undisputed form. Ever since then, I’ve never been able to handle the stuff. Headaches are the primary symptom. I avoid the stuff like the plague.
Since you probably won’t eat at a Chinese food restaurant if you have a peanut allergy, doesn’t it make sense not to eat there if you have an MSG allergy.
Did you read the article?
Face it, it’s a “I believe this because I believe it” kind of thing. “I get sick therefore it’s the MSG”. I worked for a lady who owned a Chinese restaurant. She told me “People who say No MSG get it anyway. It’s already in there. We just don’t add extra”.
MSG comes under many different names now. I avoid anything that is autolyzed or hydrolyzed. There are 2 other chemicals that have an even worse affect on me that MSG, they are disodium insolate and disodium guyanalate. (spelling??)
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