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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)

#121
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may've seen my comment before I edited in the second excerpt. We've pretty clear evidence of harm from certain doses of cyanide. We don't have it for MSG, despite a whole lot of trying.

Actually we do have a lower bound for the MSG dose that will negatively affect 50% of the population. But that dose is about six times higher than the normally-served dose. The fine article mentions that. Some people have a lower tolerance than "most people", for any given chemical, MSG included.

Interesting. Six times is in the same order of magnitude, so it’s entirely plausible that a significant number of people would be affect by MSG with its normal dose. And it’s entirely plausible that some restaurants would put six times the normal dose in some meals, especially fast food restaurants that don’t use standardized measurements like Chinese restaurants.

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

#122
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

London is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in world. I walked down the main streets, not even the white people were speaking English! I’m sure many turists but still It’s a great city!

I also went to Birmingham and it’s much different. I talked to taxi cab driver and he said he ever left his city even though it’s very small. So maybe less mixing in smaller places in UK.

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

#123

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…

  > Dave proposes, “do you think racism plays a part?”
So does COVID-19 not exist, because somebody called it Chinese Flu? A thing can exist, independent of racism, even if somebody uses it to promote their racism.

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

#124
post #42

The thing is, I have personal experience with CRS (specifically headaches), and have since I was a small child when I had never even heard of it or MSG. Obviously it isn't MSG (I use it as a seasoning more than salt and pepper), but am thoroughly convinced that there is something to it.

Racist. /s

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

#125
post #108
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Koreans are generally racist against Chinese, especially Mainland Chinese.

MSG comes from seaweed that Koreans eat with absolutely everything. They probably east more MSG than China.

Yap. My mom had a big bottle of MSG she used to make kimchi and on other foods. It wasn’t even thought of as bad.

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

#126

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…

Or maybe they have a bad reaction to a different ingredient common in Chinese restaurant food, and simply mis-identified it as an MSG allergy? And why exclude Asians who believe they have an MSG allergy? They should have an equal opportunity to be told they are racist, even if against their own ethnicity...

Why do so many people allow political correctness make them insane? Is it racist against Italians any time someone says eating pizza made them feel sick? Chinese food is just as Americanized as pizza, anyhow.

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

#127
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty frustrating article. There is a specific section titled "The truth about MSG" .... which ... doesn't tell you the truth about MSG. Instead, the "truth about MSG" is buried half way through the next voluminous section titled "A cautionary tale". Which appears to be ... no evidence has conclusively shown its harmful in the quantities used in food, and in fact, randomized blinded studies found no effect at…

> randomized blinded studies found no effect at all. And other randomized blinded studies have found an effect. Hence, the controversy. Not to mention that the American food industry is very dependent upon the availability of an inexpensive, effective flavour enhancer.

The studies I've seen that show an MSG reaction allow respondents to taste the MSG. In studies in which respondents cannot taste the MSG (by putting it in a capsule), there's no effect demonstrated.

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

#128
post #77
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?)

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

My wife and her family immigrated to the US from China -- they all believe that MSG is bad, too.

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

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

London is a massive outlier in basically every way compared to the rest of the UK, but London is still like 45% white British (according to the wiki page). In 2011 roughly 35% of the population of London was born outside the UK. In terms of population the biggest groups are from India, Poland, the Republic of Ireland, Bangladesh and Nigeria (in that order). Our last census was 2011 so the data is pretty close to as o…

Interesting, thank you!

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

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

London is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in world. I walked down the main streets, not even the white people were speaking English! I’m sure many turists but still It’s a great city! I also went to Birmingham and it’s much different. I talked to taxi cab driver and he said he ever left his city even though it’s very small. So maybe less mixing in smaller places in UK.

Good to know. She is extremely observant, so I'm glad to see this confirmation.
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