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How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

fivethirtyeight.com

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Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#61

Post by edejong »

ramraj07 wrote: post #16
ttul wrote: 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.

Should I warn my diners of added glutamate via parmessan, tomatoes, sea weed, fish sauce, cured meats or other foods high in glutamate?

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#62

Post by SiVal »

fivethirtyeight.com: "That MSG causes health problems may have thrived on racially charged biases from the outset."

Yeah, sure. Couldn't have just been the usual, nonsensical intellectual fashion of the sophisticates ("ooh, chemicals are so bad!"). No, today's nonsensical intellectual fashion of sophisticates ("oooh, racism explains everything!") has finally figured out what was wrong with yesterday's nonsensical intellectual fashion....

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#63

Post by pjc50 »

afarrell wrote: post #57
serf wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you're cooking food for people it's not common to get pre-approval of the ingredients beyond asking for any dietary restrictions. you're a lucky chef. You'll get a real reality check when cooking for an elderly bunch of diabetics who automatically presume the world is low-sodium. I've found it's just easier to automatically presume that everyone has dietary restrictions, just some much more mild than most (some h…

> I’ve found it's just easier to automatically presume that everyone has dietary restrictions... Could you explain more how you do this in practice? Do you list out all ingredients in a menu? Or do you have a list of standard dietary restrictions that most people have (pork, shellfish, dairy, beef, coconut, peanuts, horseradish, salt, ...) and just remove all of them?

Don't presume, ask; something like "do you have any dietary requirements?" along with a dinner invitation. Covers everything from vegetarianism to highly specific allergies. Also puts the ball in the other person's court to be clear upfront before anything is cooked or purchased.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#64

Post by MertsA »

kazinator wrote: post #55
MertsA wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All you've isolated is the placebo effect unless you react that same way to all glutamate containing foods. Chicken broth has tons of glutamate in it, if chicken broth doesn't cause your headaches then neither does MSG. And if you're thinking that the glutamate in chicken broth or other foods could be reacting differently because it's not monosodium glutamate, that's not possible because the instant MSG is dissolved…

So if someone gets drunk from a few beers, is that a placebo effect? I mean, sauerkraut has a bit of alcohol in it, and look, they aren't getting drunk from that! It can't be the alcohol. Maybe it's the hops? > Glutamate is present in everything from tomatoes, to mushrooms, to parmesan cheese. Well, glutamic acid, an amino acid found in proteins, is abundant; that is not the same as free glutamate.

I get what you're saying but that's why I used chicken broth as an example as that has tons of free glutamate as well as sodium to go with it. As for free vs. bound glutamate, if it's bound glutamate it's not going to contribute to taste, if you can taste that umami flavor then it's free glutamate you're tasting. (side note, glutamic acid on it's own will dissociate in water just like any other ionic bond, but I get what you mean) And while glutamine or glutamic acid in a protein isn't digested as quickly as free glutamate, it still gets hydrolyzed and given that "MSG syndrome" supposedly lasts for a while it stands to reason that even a slow release over the period of a day should still trigger symptomes given that there's generally a lot more bound glutamate than free glutamate.

But a little free glutamate goes a long way, there's no chinese restaurants just dumping MSG in by the cup, that would be way too over seasoned. I use MSG on a lot of dishes myself and I'll use amounts that have less free glutamate in them than in some other common foods.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#65

Post by kryogen1c »

kazinator wrote: post #38
bjoli wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If we don't compare 1 to 1

This is a false dichotomy. You can meaningfully compare effects when there are differing dose dependencies. Its just another variable to consider and in no way makes it impossible or meaningless.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#67

Post by jnty »

SiVal wrote: post #62

fivethirtyeight.com: "That MSG causes health problems may have thrived on racially charged biases from the outset." Yeah, sure. Couldn't have just been the usual, nonsensical intellectual fashion of the sophisticates ("ooh, chemicals are so bad!"). No, today's nonsensical intellectual fashion of sophisticates ("oooh, racism explains everything!") has finally figured out what was wrong with yesterday's nonsensical int…

No, a significant part of it (in the UK) has definitely been stereotypes around Chinese food being somehow 'dodgy'.

Clearly racism doesn't 'explain everything' and the forces you mention played a part, but you're the only one who brought up that strawman. (You should think carefully about why you're so desperate to disingenuously downplay the effects of racism on modern attitudes.)

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#68

Post by ginko »

batbomb wrote: post #13

Just use yeast extract and magically nobody will get headaches.

I wish people would stop using yeast extract and just stick to MSG. Yeast extract always leaves a weird taste in my mouth that won't go away for hours. It's even worse that almost all kinds of chips available in my country that aren't just plain salt use yeast extract these days.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#69

Post by krageon »

kazinator wrote: post #42
bobthepanda wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MSG naturally occurs in naturally ripened tomatoes and some cheeses. Do you also have issues with those?

Reactions to MSG are not allergic. It's not like eating something cooked in a pot that previously had shrimp type of thing. A fairly macroscopically large dose of the stuff does something with the blood flow in veins around the head or sensitivity of nerves or something. It's not a serious medical condition, like an allergic attack; just a nuisance.

Can you provide some studies that prove the effects you are describing? I have definitely looked, but the only credible studies I've found conclude there is absolutely no way to get an adverse response unless you are eating multiple grams of pure MSG on a completely empty stomach with no other food. That is the "best case" scenario, there's plenty of studies concluding they can't find any evidence at all.

Re: How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

#70

Post by MertsA »

kazinator wrote: post #53
MertsA wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to be crazy to add 2.5 grams worth of MSG to a single meal. Accent calls for using like 1/10th that amount in soup. That's no different than using 10x as much salt as a recipe calls for, it's not going to turn out so great.

In the paper I cited there is a reference to another one by Shimada, et al. 2013. Those researchers estimate the daily intake of MSG in industrialized countries to be between 50 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg. (That reference is given in section 2.4.1, p. 76). So you're saying that MSG doesn't cause headaches, because nobody would be crazy enough to put 2.5 grams of it into the meal consumed by a 50 kg person? Or what is the lo…

The paper you cited references three other papers. The first paper just throws out an estimate with no source or data for it, just a figure. That figure is also not in mg/kg just total dietary intake. Honestly the figure itself is believable as it claims 0.3g to 1.0g per day which works out to 4.3mg/kg to 14.3 mg/kg for a 70 kg person.

The second paper isn't listing MSG or even just free glutamate, it's listing all glutamate content which as you pointed out in another comment, is not comparable.

The third paper cited appears to be where they got their wildly wrong claim of 50 mg/kg to 200 mg/kg from but this literally just cites the first two papers. I'm assuming they just converted the glutamate figures in the second paper and assumed all of that was MSG.

Either way the claim that average daily intake of MSG is between 50 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg is just flat out unfounded and wrong. The very first source they cite lists a figure less than 1/10th that amount and obviously does not support their claim. And keep in mind, a 150 mg/kg dose for an average person is 10.5 g, that's over 20x the recommended serving size.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/130/4/1058S/4686672

[2] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9f51/b5f34954560f02b0c01eb9...

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3606962/

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