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How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

fivethirtyeight.com

11–20 of 190 posts

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#11
post #6

Sliced tomatoes sprinkled with salt, pepper and msg on toast are very good. Although I imagine if you can get decent vine ripened heirloom tomatoes where you are the msg would probably be unnecessary.

> decent vine ripened heirloom tomatoes where you are

If this is in America, not grown in your own garden, I'd love to hear where this is, because tomatoes in Seattle are absolutely terrible.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#12
post #6

Sliced tomatoes sprinkled with salt, pepper and msg on toast are very good. Although I imagine if you can get decent vine ripened heirloom tomatoes where you are the msg would probably be unnecessary.

> decent vine ripened heirloom tomatoes where you are If this is in America, not grown in your own garden, I'd love to hear where this is, because tomatoes in Seattle are absolutely terrible.

PCC has a good slicing tomato variety that tastes great and stores great.

I saved seeds, plan to plant them in my garden.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#14

Actual science: The role of monosodium glutamate in headache https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/...

This seems:

1 - not to have been published in any peer-reviewed journals

2 - a study on rats

3 - the rats were injected with MSG intravenously

4 - the amount of MSG injected intravenously was 50mg/kg, which would be equivalent to 2.5 grams of MSG for a 50kg person

Because of all of the above, it's not clear whether it's good science, and not clear if any of this research applies to humans, who normally don't inject gigantic amounts of MSG in to their veins.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#15

Actual science: The role of monosodium glutamate in headache https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/...

This seems: 1 - not to have been published in any peer-reviewed journals 2 - a study on rats 3 - the rats were injected with MSG intravenously 4 - the amount of MSG injected intravenously was 50mg/kg, which would be equivalent to 2.5 grams of MSG for a 50kg person Because of all of the above, it's not clear whether it's good science, and not clear if any of this research applies to humans, who normally don't inject g…

> 2.5 grams of msg for a 50kg person

MSG is slightly more dense than sugar, with a specific gravity of 1.6 and comes in a crystalline form that resembles sugar.

4 grams of sugar is about a teaspoon, and the same can be expected of MSG. They can easily dump half a teaspoon of the stuff into your soup or sauce in a restaurant, treating it like salt or sugar.

This amazing paper is valuable not just for its work on rats, but for its references.

It's also noteworthy that the researcher basically considers it a settled question that MSG causes headaches.

In this work, she isn't trying to answer the question "do rats get a headache from MSG".

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#16
post #4

I routinely sprinkle MSG onto my roast potatoes and into salads. Just a tiny bit and everyone is wondering how I make such amazingly tasty food. MSG won me over after I read about Nathan Myhrvold using it in his science kitchen.

I am totally all for spewing MSG on everything, but it might not be best that you're secretly adding msg to foods you serve a bunch of people without their awareness. Not that I agree with their stupid world views but if someone wants to believe that MSg is bad for them, then it's their choice. I think we should not accidentally or deliberately serve something to someone they might not prefer to eat.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#17

FWIW I've always called MSG "Makes Stuff Good," because it does just that... I realized it wasn't bad mostly because there was no seeming regularity to if I felt bad after eating foods with it. Eventually it dawned on me that perhaps overeating an abundance of oil in foods with it probably makes me feel like shit, and... yep, it was the oil (maybe others will have similar anecdotes).

It's carbs for me, but yeah, it's never the actual MSG obviously.

Sugar and wheat are the worst combo for me... I'm very conscious about my food, and MSG isn't on my black list (I live in Asia)

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#19
post #4

I routinely sprinkle MSG onto my roast potatoes and into salads. Just a tiny bit and everyone is wondering how I make such amazingly tasty food. MSG won me over after I read about Nathan Myhrvold using it in his science kitchen.

I am totally all for spewing MSG on everything, but it might not be best that you're secretly adding msg to foods you serve a bunch of people without their awareness. Not that I agree with their stupid world views but if someone wants to believe that MSg is bad for them, then it's their choice. I think we should not accidentally or deliberately serve something to someone they might not prefer to eat.

What about secretly adding salt or pepper? How about olive oil?

If you're cooking food for people it's not common to get pre-approval of the ingredients beyond asking for any dietary restrictions.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#20
post #7

I've isolated MSG as a cause of sinus headaches for me, along with a handful of other foods. It is in some flavored chips, and the first few times when going back and trying to figure out what caused my headache I was surprised to see it in the ingredient list since it has such a stigma. I also run into it at kbbq places mixed in with the salt. Not saying it is bad for everyone, but it is a consistent issue for me.

Not sure you've "proven" it's MSG though. Warm up some chocolate cubes, sprinkle msg and sandwich the cubes so it's in the middle. Then ask an SO to randomize and give you chocolate with or without msg every few days without telling you and note when you get headaches. My initial guess is that doing this 6-9 times you should get sufficient signal (if it's indeed true that MSG absolutely gives you headaches Everytime ) to fairly conclusively prove it.
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