[IYAS9YAS]

You realize, don’t you, that you get ten times more glutamate from naturally occurring sources than you do from added sources? You could stop eating and totally avoid it but dying ain’t much of a living.

MSG or glutamates in general? Is there a difference?

[Mase]

MSG is the sodium salt of glutamic acid. Basically, it's glutamic acid with sodium attached. The important thing to understand in all of this is that glutamic acid is the same whether you get it from some guy throwing it in a wok in a Chinese restaurant or from eating a tomato. People who claim they react to MSG from added sources should also react to it from natural sources. The average American gets about ten times more glutamate from natural sources than they do from added sources so the whole idea of removing MSG from your diet, or claiming you react to it from added sources (but not from natural sources), is silly.