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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)

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this repeated so many times but I don't actually understand what that means - can you elaborate? Mentioning racism causes more racism? Doesn't that make sense? Sort of sounds like the same thing as "the more you test for COVID the more cases there will be" I've read your sentence like 10 times and it makes no sense to me. How would one exploit someone calling out (false by your definition) racism to cause…

I think the actual argument should be that if one cries wolf so many times it is hard to take it seriously when there really is a wolf. Hence people don't take it seriously... Racism fatigue. Kinda like quarantine fatigue when particular mitigations don't make scientific sense. Edit: take my own advice and change "you" to "one."

It's like crying wolf, except: there is indeed a wolf and you just don't care about the sheep.

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

#162
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Via a large-scale, peer-reviewed, double-blind study?

Is a posting board not an appropriate place for sharing personal experiences?

This could be a good place for that, but it would bolster your case if you were to add some more details. For example, did you conclude that it increased your blood sugar because you wear a continuous glucose monitor and did a self-blinded home experiment with MSG? Then absolutely yes, your info is incredibly valuable. If on the other hand your data is at the level of "I often feel tired after going to Chinese restaurants", then it's probably not very useful to others. Probably you are somewhere in between these extremes, but in any case offering more background would help others to assess how much weight to put on your observation.

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

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not familiar with those studies, but here are just a few ideas (made up now, on the spot). 1. MSG in a capsule is not how MSG in food is delivered. So perhaps the delivery mechanism has something to do with it. Perhaps the capsule allows the MSG to pass the tongue, or esophagous, or stomach, with far less reactivity than free MSG does. Maybe the interaction of MSG with other chemicals is necessary for the effects…

Or, instead of buying into a pharmacokinetic hypothesis someone on a message board just made up to avoid losing an argument, it could be the case that all the studies are simply right, suggesting as they do that the body doesn't discriminate between forms of glutamate, nor is there significant uptake in the bloodstream from glutamates ingested orally, nor does MSG sensitivity square with the very large amounts we get relatively from natural food sources, and so MSG simply isn't a problematic food additive.

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

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was 1882. If that's the most recent example, I'd call it an "ancient history of racism", not a "long history of racism".

You probably should look at more than just the start date for that act. > Exclusion was repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943, which allowed 105 Chinese to enter per year. Chinese immigration later increased [to 2000/year from the "Asiatic barred zone"] with the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which abolished direct racial barriers, and later by the Immigration and Nationality Act…

Fair enough. That's still over half a century ago.

Everyone involved in setting these barriers are dead.

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

#165
post #138
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 mean I kind of get your point but just replace "racism" with "prejudice" and it doesn't hold water any longer.

Yeah, especially when you consider that people will complain about MSG in Chinese food all day while, as mentioned, eating Doritos by the bagful.

Prejudice is probably a more accurate term than racism.

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

#166
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, an…

You might be onto something with the name theory. In JP it’s commonly called “flavor salt”, and there is no sign of anti-MSG anywhere

The silly thing about this is that in Korea (as in Japan) seaweed/kelp based stock is incredibly common, and that's the historical origin of MSG as we know it today.

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

#168
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.

Well, its 'total' 60% white (20% more white than NYC), which is pretty white, nor is that whiteness distributed evenly. I was just in Chelsea, which is pretty pricey, and it was near exclusively white outside of people who worked in the service industry. Depending where in London she went and what she did, she ran into different groups of people, much like if you went to Chicago and stayed exclusively on either its south or north sides.

More than likely, as a tourist, she saw mostly other tourists and the largely immigrant dominated low-paying service industry jobs. I was also recently in Iceland and while in pure 'tourist mode' saw few native Icelanders due to so few working in the tourist and service industry. When we ventured out to the neighborhood store areas, boutique shops, non-tourist bars, higher-end restaurants, etc it was almost 100% white.

>tourists.

You may want to remind her that when she's in traffic, she's also traffic. Of course its full of tourists, she's there isn't she? Its beautiful and historic and should be full of tourists - the same way Athens, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, etc are full of tourists. This is a feature, not a bug.

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

#169
post #90

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…

I agree that there are unfortunately too much hate among different East Asians, but it doesn't seem relevant here. I mean, if you think Koreans' fear of MSG is somehow related to our prejudice against Chinese/Japanese cuisine, then clearly you haven't seen many Korean dishes.

I think that just reinforces the point. If your culture eats tons of food that’s packed to the brim with glutamate but you’re vocal about the MSG in Chinese food… what should the takeaway be?

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

#170

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.

"Cyanide is also a naturally occurring chemical found in food items like Cassava and to a lesser extent, potatoes" Where did you hear that potatoes contained cyanide?

They probably confused it with solanine, the toxin in green potatoes and potato plants.
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