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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)

#71

Post by starkd »

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?

I don't think the point was whether or not it is unhealthy. It asserts most definitely that it is not. The story was about how the claim went viral. The story was introduced in 1968 by the New York Times picking up on the NEJM article.

It's an amusing tale, but rather unsettling how easily fooled we can be. I remember (growing up as late as the '80s) people legitimately wondering whether an MSG allergy was responsible for their loaginess and fatigue. A number of tv news programs like 20/20 ran cover stories about it. To hear it was all bunk is a sobering reminder to take what we read with a grain of salt. Even much of the hysteria surrounding coronavirus and the like.

I don't have an answer to this, but these publications take a serious long term credibility hit with stories like these. And rightfully so.

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

#72

Post by dotancohen »

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

So stop calling MSG sensitivity "chinese restaurant syndrome" and disconnect the phenomenon from the racism. Does hysteria does not exist because it is a sexist word?

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

#73

Post by runawaybottle »

fraudsyndrome wrote: post #60
runawaybottle wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bro, Asian on Asian racism is like way higher than western racism towards that region. I’m almost positive Koreans think they are better than Chinese, and the Chinese think they are better than Koreans, and they both low key hate Japan’s uppityness (Of course the Japanese consider them ‘less than’, we can certainly throw in some historical advantage taking to add flame to this). This is like a age old tale in almost…

What kind of (racist) actions are taken in the east due to this prejudice they have? And how does that compare (or how is it way higher) to how western racism is towards those minorities in the western countries? Thinking they are better doesn't really compare.

Sure, so the passive aggressive racism is a far cry from what would have been real manifestations of it that occurred in those regions historically. How does it manifest today? Maybe they hear a msg rumor and go ‘yeah, figures’. A better example might be that mainland Chinese people genuinely think Hong Kong people think they are ‘better than mainlanders’, and low key believe in and support the crackdown and integration of Hong Kong (put them in their place). Wild stuff, amongst your own you have this informed hatred.

Similar to Karens in America, we don’t have outright segregation, we have a diluted form of it, which of course is a far cry from what it was.

The water is not totally filtered yet, need a few more pass throughs (few more generations).

As to why I think it’s way higher, it’s simply because the West has strong shallow racism. But the East actually knows the nuances of their region and still find ways to be prejudiced. That just simply takes more bigotry imho, where as in the West they only need pure ignorance.

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

#74

Post by pbhjpbhj »

junyoon wrote: post #14

High blood pressure like eating too much table salt?

Well, I thought (assumed) that MSG caused raised blood pressure like salt would [salt acts immediately I gather, I thought it was the sodium??], but according to the this HN thread there are no adverse reactions other than extremely rare allergies?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21372742/ (first paper SERPs returned for me) suggests that MSG increases BP over the order of years. Not sure the "it's entirely healthy" claims pan out?

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

#75

Post by dotancohen »

jeromegv wrote: post #41
victor106 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There’s a long history of racism against Chinese immigrants in America. Among the only jobs they were allowed to have was having restaurants. Of course this led to rumours of Chinese restaurant being dirty and their MSG causing sickness. It’s a very long history and it’s well documented. While you’re at it, read on the Chinese exclusion act. And now you’re saying that people who call this racism for what is is are th…

So does COVID-19 not exist because someone called it Chinese Flu? The phenomenon can exist despite the racist connotations.

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

#76

Post by yongjik »

fraudsyndrome wrote: post #39
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?)

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.

> What is the reason Koreans think it's bad for health?

Pretty much the same reason why Americans think it's bad for health. It has a scary-sounding name (it's also called "MSG" in Korea), it sounds like a "chemical", and you can find it in ingredient lists of all popular junk foods - most notably instant ramen, which is basically an MSG+salt solution masquerading as noodles.

Give something in food an exotic name, and people will invent reason to fear it, like all those people demanding gluten-free bread.

Besides, if "racism" is the explanation behind it, how are you going to explain the immense popularity of Chinese food everywhere in America?

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

#77

Post by baby »

yongjik wrote: post #26
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…

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?)

I’m half Chinese and my whole family think MSG is bad lol.

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

#78

Post by zodiac2 »

yongjik wrote: post #26
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…

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?)

Koreans are generally racist against Chinese, especially Mainland Chinese.

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

#79

Post by xyst »

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.

This is partly why chic-fil-a is so popular in the United States.

https://www.chick-fil-a.com/menu-items/chick-fil-a-deluxe-sa... (expand the "Ingredients" sub-item and search for "monosodium glutamate")

I say partly because we the consumers have been tricked into thinking fried chicken is somehow healthy because it has all of the buzz words associated with it ("organic", "free range")

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

#80

Post by dotancohen »

rayiner wrote: post #55
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It’s not a “USA” thing. Different groups of people are skeptical of other groups of people, all over the world. The US is just unusual in having enormous amounts of people from different groups interacting with each other. The UK, for example, isn’t just 90% white. It’s 80% white British. Same thing for Germany and France. They’re borderline ethnostates. The US isn’t more than 15% of any ethnic group (with German Ame…

  > The UK, for example, isn’t just 90% white. It’s 80% white British.
Is that still the case? My then-13 year old daughter visited London two years ago, when she returned I asked her if the British are as polite as they are rumored to be. Her answer was that there are no British in London, it's a city of all immigrants and tourists.
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