They why do I feel like crap when I eat food with MSG added?
maybe because of the amount of sodium and water retention.
Back in the 70s a meal at a Chinese restaurant was a guarantee of a migraine for me.
Today the restaurants use much less MSG, or none.
Back in the 70s a meal at a Chinese restaurant was a guarantee of a migraine for me.
Today the restaurants use much less MSG, or none.
You’re allergic to it as am I.
Join the club. I do my best to avoid known headache generator food. It isn’t a perfect strategy though.
The last time I went to a Chinese restaurant, I had a brutal headache so bad within 30 minutes that my coworkers insisted I take the rest of the day off. In addition to the headache, my face turned beet red.
I eat eggs regularly. I eat salt in huge amounts. I don’t believe everything we eat is harmful regardless of who says it is bad.
But I’ve experienced what the article calls “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”, and I had it with no expectations in advance. It wasn’t a placebo effect.
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.
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.
I blow up like a bullfrog. I get a three day migraine that puts me completely out of commission, until I discovered a particular medication to combat this horror.
I went to a Chinese restaurant in 1986, ate something with MSG in it, and was in a dark room for three days after.
I made the connection much later when I repeated the pattern and discovered the situation.
I tried again in 1991, thinking people had gotten with it on this toxin, and the waiter said, no we don’t use MSG.
Next day hubby freaked out at how I had simply blown up like a balloon. THe headache was memorable.
It’s not like the much preferred natural childbirth, which is over in a mere 12 to 36 sleepless hours, and the ripping and repair work, which I have experienced.
It is much worse than that.
Restaurant food must be carefully chosen, and labels carefully perused.
Living in Germany fro four years was not a problem at all in this regard, as they don’t fool around with Chemicals. They eat food.
I did have an anchovy pizza there once and OOh I remember the days that followed.
It, like so many similarly processed meats, soups, sauces, and processed meals, must be avoided.
Never have I ever in the ensuing 20 years re entered a Chinese restaurant.
Names for it are hidden, and the FDA is fine with that, Autolysed protein, Natural flavor, and other things I have long forgotten as my food shopping has relegated me to the outer edges, and to Whole Foods.
That these people can write this trash, and I expect nothing of real value from the BI, is exactly why I don’t fool around with any substance that does not prove, nor seem to be safe.
They lie.
Headaches? It’s all in your head.
Same here. It took me a while to find the culprit.
They why do I feel like crap when I eat food with MSG added?
—==000==—
Hypochondria