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How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

fivethirtyeight.com

31–40 of 190 posts

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#31
post #27

I grew up eating foods with MSG. I'm usually aware of it. It's one of cooks' favorite abused ingredients. Eating a lot of MSG is bad, just like eating a lot of anything, sugar, salt.

Would you drink a can of pop in which 30g of sugar were replaced with 30g of MSG?

That would taste terrible! More on point: ingesting 30g of MSG is probably less harmful than 30g of sugar.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

If it truly is a settled question that MSG causes headaches in humans, when the MSG is ingested (not injected) in amounts humans normally eat, then it should be easy to find studies in reputable journals to this effect. Do you have a link to such studies?

The injection/ingestion distinction is important, because when one ingests something, the entire quantity is not instantly dumped in to the bloodstream as it is when injected. The food MSG is ingested with might also have an effect on its rate of absorption and its effects. It might also undergo some changes in the digestive tract before it gets in to the blood stream.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#34
The MSG panic was one of a chain of food ingredient hysterias that have surfaced the last few decades. The government regulates food additives, in an effort to ensure that we can all trust our food supply. But food is the "think of the children" of personal choices where risk-averse preferences are difficult to criticize, science has vague answers about no observed adverse effects that don't satisfy choosy people, research is rife with conflicts of interest, and anyone can pretend to be an authority and dispense opinion. It also doesn't help that food regulations aren't the same in every country. This invites scrutiny into the reasons why some have banned a substance while others have not, or perhaps not yet.

MSG got caught up in an extended wave of unease against artificial preservatives, artificial colors, trans fats, and even high fructose corn syrup. Smart companies picked up on "changing consumer preference", and replaced these until a few years passed and the hysteria began to die down.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#36
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you drink a can of pop in which 30g of sugar were replaced with 30g of MSG?

That would taste terrible! More on point: ingesting 30g of MSG is probably less harmful than 30g of sugar.

That could be true even if the MSG happens to give you an awful headache in the short term.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You’d need to administer it in such a way that you can’t detect it by taste, and as pmoriarty says, to be double blind is a further challenge. You can however modify your protocol. Instead of chocolate buy some unfilled pill capsules (very cheap) and have a friend fill half with a pinch of salt, and half with a pinch of MSG. This friend makes a note of which caps are MSG, and without informing you or your SO which is…

I intended to write that s/he should just swallow the chocolate to not taste what's inside but I forgot. I mean if we are gonna give this dude headaches at the least let's make it chocolate?

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#38
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you drink a can of pop in which 30g of sugar were replaced with 30g of MSG?

Of course not. No one claimed it is comparable 1 to 1.

If we don't compare 1 to 1, even too much water is bad for you. You can die, and there will be a headache involved.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

If it truly is a settled question that MSG causes headaches in humans , when the MSG is ingested (not injected ) in amounts humans normally eat, then it should be easy to find studies in reputable journals to this effect. Do you have a link to such studies? The injection/ingestion distinction is important, because when one ingests something, the entire quantity is not instantly dumped in to the bloodstream as it is w…

Because this particular researcher is looking for very specific effects, that she's trying to measure accurately. She's shaved an area of the rat's skulls down to a thin window through which she's able to observe blood flow changes.

> Do you have a link to such studies?

This paper has a bunch of these types of references; for that alone it's useful. See section 2.4.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

If it truly is a settled question that MSG causes headaches in humans , when the MSG is ingested (not injected ) in amounts humans normally eat, then it should be easy to find studies in reputable journals to this effect. Do you have a link to such studies? The injection/ingestion distinction is important, because when one ingests something, the entire quantity is not instantly dumped in to the bloodstream as it is w…

By the way, injection would be a good way to double-blind an MSG experiment with humans properly: you can't taste an injection. Nobody can tell whether they are being injected saline or MSG.

And nobody is claiming that the effects of MSG are not dose-dependent; that there is no consumption threshold below which sufferers feel no ill effects. Those who believe that any amount of MSG, no matter how miniscule, can cause them discomfort are deranged. If it were so, they would get these effects from all sorts of common foods that naturally contain glutamate.

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