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The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

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Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#61

Post by Alex3917 »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #36
louisvgchi wrote: post #10

Dave Chang has a small scene in one of his Ugly Delicious (great show, by the way) episodes where he gets a group of non-Asian Americans, who claim to be MSG-allergic, to come and share their stories of MSG-related symptoms after eating at Chinese restaurants. He then hands out Doritos and American products that the participants claim they love and can eat all day. Hard to see where this is going... he says, all thes…

Yep! I remember being taught it was something "shifty" Chinese people do to their food to make it taste better as a sort of dishonest competitive trick, at the cost of the health of their customers. I was told so many ethnic groups were "shifty" like this compared to the "moral" white majority. I think growing up in the USA means being exposed to a lot of different kinds of racisms and "otherings." Its incredible how…

> I remember being taught it was something "shifty" Chinese people do to their food to make it taste better as a sort of dishonest competitive trick, at the cost of the health of their customers.

Yeah the MSG thing is clearly racism. But to be fair pretty much every Chinese takeout places uses white rice by default and charges an extra dollar for brown rice, which makes the food taste better at the cost of the health of their customers.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#62

Post by mc32 »

thereare5lights wrote: post #43
fraudsyndrome wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they for different reasons? What is the reason Koreans think it's bad for health? As I haven't read about that. Given that in the west it was also dubbed "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" I would think some form of prejudice played a part.

> Chinese Restaurant Syndrome you'd think the name would give it away, but people are so quick to dismiss racism that this blaring red flag is just glossed over

Ah but people didn’t make up that term. It was ‘popularized’ by the likes of the NYT. I’ve never heard a regular person refer to their perceived reaction to msg as Chinese restaurant syndrome. That comes from the press —the same ones now chastising people.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#63

Post by pmoriarty »

victor106 wrote: post #34
yongjik wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish people stopped invoking racism everywhere, when plain "being misinformed" explains things just fine. Millions of Koreans swear up and down that MSG is bad for health. Are we also being racist? (Against whom?)

This. Invoking racism and gender discrimination when it’s not the reason, causes more racism and it gives more than ample opportunity to actual racists within us to exploit it for their own nefarious needs.

"Invoking racism and gender discrimination when it’s not the reason, causes more racism"

So, wait, you're saying if someone who's not a racist gets called a racist that's going to be enough to turn him in to a racist?

If that's all it took they were probably racist to begin with.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#64

Post by leetrout »

alliao wrote: post #27

the trick to MSG is to double what naturally occurring rate. Chicken that tastes like nothing can taste wonderful with a tinest dash and it'd taste like the best damn chicken. doesn't work well with food already full of umami like parmesan cheese.. and don't keep adding if you're already adding food additives like stock from a can/carton. Those are usually already heavily "fortified" with msg by itself.

Do you have a source for ratios or such?

I have a 1 pound bag of msg and I add it to all kinds of stuff but it only has recommendations for soup on the bag. On other things I just sprinkle it (I dedicated an old salt shaker to dispensing MSG instead hehe)

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#65

Post by derekp7 »

bigbubba wrote: post #23
cube2222 wrote: post #2

This article is very long and having skimmed it I'm still not entirely sure: is monosodium glutamate unhealthy or not after all?

MSG is healthy because it causes no harm and makes food taste better. All else being equal, food tasting better will make you enjoy life more. Enjoying life is correlated with good health outcomes.

But MSG can make unhealthy food taste better also. Which leads to eating more unhealthy food.

Counter-tip -- if your children prefer to eat fast food, that may be due to the additives that make the fast food more enjoyable than home-cooked food. So learning how to incorporate some of their tricks into your own cooking can help your family enjoy the home-cooked foods more. In other words, learning how to enhance your cooking with MSG (Accent) can lead to more (healthy) meals consumed at home (assuming you are otherwise preparing healthy meals).

As for proportions -- I've used 1/4 teaspoon per pound of meet, or per 6 servings of stew/soups/vegetable dishes, etc.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#66

Post by riffraff »

ashtonkem wrote: post #46
umeshunni wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cyanide is also a naturally occurring chemical found in food items like Cassava and to a lesser extent, potatoes. That didn't make it harmless.

Humans already seek out foods rich in MSG, while we don’t necessarily search out Cyanide.

I do love bitter almond's flavour!

Sadly, almonds that taste of something have become much harder to find.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#67

Post by dotancohen »

thereare5lights wrote: post #35
yongjik wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish people stopped invoking racism everywhere, when plain "being misinformed" explains things just fine. Millions of Koreans swear up and down that MSG is bad for health. Are we also being racist? (Against whom?)

lmao, the history of racism behind the demonization of msg is well documented https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-msg-got-a-bad-rap-f... And funny enough there's another comment saying > If the only food they know to contain MSG is Chinese food then it’s a stretch to call that racism. and that's exactly where this hoax started after all, it doesn't take a genius to connect the dots when the vernacular for msg pr…

So stop calling MSG sensitivity "chinese restaurant syndrome". Do you suppose that hysteria does not exist because it is a sexist term?

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#68

Post by esrauch »

xyzelement wrote: post #54
thereare5lights wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chinese Restaurant Syndrome you'd think the name would give it away, but people are so quick to dismiss racism that this blaring red flag is just glossed over

Umm "red flag"? If you are going to chastise people please make sure your language does not rely on racist cliches...

What are you referring to? "Red flag" does not appear to have any racial etymology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_(idiom)

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#69

Post by cinntaile »

This is a rather interesting coincidence. A few days ago someone posted a video here of how Ajinomoto produces a certain polymer substrate commonly used in the electronics industry. This happens to be the same company that first started producing MSG and this year they started a campaign to combat the MSG myth as they call it and try to label it as a xenophobic myth. [0] I thought the issue with MSG was that it was addictive, but a quick search doesn't show any convincing evidence?

[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/18/asia/chinese-restaurant-s...

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