I don't know. But I've been eating MSG since I was a kid with no after-effects. My family always had a jar of ajinomoto on the table to sprinkle on our food. Ajinomoto is the Japanese brand of msg. I still use it along with soy sauce on my food.
I believe the problem people suspect to be caused by msg is as you say, greatly-increased salt and fat in some restaurants, most notably some Chinese restaurants. I dislike the taste of Cantonese style food, while enjoying Szechuan, Mandarin and other styles. Seems to me that the Cantonese style uses more salt and fat, seems greasy and is harder to digest.
No. It is Monosodium Glutamate.
And it is bad, toxic, whether people react discernibly to it or not.
It is a chemical which is toxic.
And those, like me, who react to it can live in misery as far as those insensitive people are concerned, but I lived in Europe for four years, and never had a problem at all with it, or sulfites, so popular among fruit and vegetable producers here in the obesity plagued US, because they, regardless of their other shortcomings, eat food. Not the poison that we eat here in the Cancer, obesity, heart disease, pharmaceutical addicted US
So you have been eating MSG since you were a kid and it hasn’t bother you, so the rest of us are imagining it. No. It’s not fat and salt.
I too had eaten MSG occasionally and never noticed anything. I decided I was fat (I really wasn’t) so I went on Nurtisystems to lose 10 pounds.
After 3 weeks of eating that crap 3 X a day I felt horrible and threw the next weeks meals away. The next time I ate MSG I had a horrible reaction. I had sensitized myself to it in 3 weeks and it hasn’t gone away.
That doesn’t happen to everyone who eats Nutrisystems but the chemicals in that food are dangerous for some of us.
I'd characterize it as an allergic reaction. My Mother has horrific problems with MSG - nausea, headaches, sweating, elevated BP and pulse. All of the symptoms of a heart attack. She's miserable for a couple of hours, then it passes.
She went to the doc the first time it happened. Wound up feeling stupid, since by the time he saw her, all of the symptoms had blown over. That's when she found out about "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome"...this would have been 25-30 years ago.
As I've gotten older, I'm more susceptible to MSG, as well. Not to her extent, but I can tell when I've eaten it.... same symptoms, just not as drastic. She'll get laid out flat, whereas I'll just say *@%$#%#. I shouldn't have eaten that.".
I think it's mostly found in sauces, though I'm no chef. I *do* know that if I skip the "Sweet and Sour" this, and the "Spicy (whatever)" that, I can usually eat Chinese without issue.
However, the last place Mom and I both ran into a MSG reaction was at, of all things, an Italian restaurant. Go figure.