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It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

blogs.smithsonianmag.com

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Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#31

Post by eliteraspberrie »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #10

My qualm with MSG doesn't involve its health effects, but the fact that MSG makes telling the difference between good food and crap far more difficult. If you'd like to see a demonstration of what I mean, boil a pound of dried beans, and add some MSG. I find you'll eat the otherwise unflavored, bland beans with the same mechanical compulsion as a bag of potato chips. In that way MSG spoils the sport of preparing deli…

My thoughts exactly. Additives like MSG are inevitably used to cover up bad food. I avoid MSG because I would rather know if what I'm served is bad after the first bite, than an hour later with indigestion.

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#32

Post by DanBC »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #10

My qualm with MSG doesn't involve its health effects, but the fact that MSG makes telling the difference between good food and crap far more difficult. If you'd like to see a demonstration of what I mean, boil a pound of dried beans, and add some MSG. I find you'll eat the otherwise unflavored, bland beans with the same mechanical compulsion as a bag of potato chips. In that way MSG spoils the sport of preparing deli…

Do you add salt? How about pepper?

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#33

Post by mbreese »

Brakenshire wrote: post #20
hristov wrote: post #16

I really do not like these articles that say "science says not to worry, you must be a very stupid and uneducated person to be worried about this." Any honest scientist will tell you that science does not know exactly how the human body processes food and there is no model which will exactly predict the effects of the human body ingesting a certain food. Saying that the experimental results are mixed does not make me…

This is, I think, the same reason why we should be sceptical of genetically modified foods - not because the process is unnatural, or is inherently damaging - but for a more banal reason, because it is similar to eating foods with a lot of additives. In both cases you fundamentally lose control over the building blocks of your diet. If you can only choose between different highly processed foods, that means you need…

The only way your body would know or care if it was consuming a genetically modified food was if that modification produced something toxic (poisonous). Barring than that, to your body, it's all proteins, carbohydrates, fats, etc... If you are concerned about genetically modified foods, you should probably also be concerned with domesticated foods, since those have been selected by their farmers for many generations to produce specific things - bigger fruits, better tasting meats. We've been doing genetic modification since we started farming. It's only been the past generation or so that we started hacking the DNA directly.

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#34

Post by hristov »

mahranch wrote: post #24
hristov wrote: post #16

I really do not like these articles that say "science says not to worry, you must be a very stupid and uneducated person to be worried about this." Any honest scientist will tell you that science does not know exactly how the human body processes food and there is no model which will exactly predict the effects of the human body ingesting a certain food. Saying that the experimental results are mixed does not make me…

" MSG is especially worrying because there are some studies that show negative effects of MSG " Have you read the actual studies? There are no "mixed" studies, they're all conclusive. One of the biggest studies done was a decade long and found absolutely nothing . Sources: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2222.2009.... http://www.livestrong.com/article/408512-neurological-effect... http://www.highbea…

Did you read the article this discussion is attached to? It said in part:

"Initially, researchers had success proving both the short-term and long-term dangers of MSG: mice injected with the additive showed signs of brain lesions, and humans fed 3 grams of MSG per 200 ml of soup presented symptoms congruent with “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.” "

If you believe the original article is wrong, then you should perhaps make a comment in the main thread explaining why it is wrong instead of contradicting me. I merely assumed what the article said about the studies was more or less correct.

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#35

Post by mbreese »

etler wrote: post #18
r0h1n wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You neglected to mention the very next line after the one you quote: >> Therefore, the intake of MSG as a food additive and the natural level of glutamic acid in foods do not represent a toxicological concern in humans.

I didn't think it was relevant, as my assertion was just that it was easier on your body than salt, but thanks for pulling that out if you think it will help.

Differences in LD50 does not directly imply that one is easier on your body to absorb than the other... It says that one will kill you faster, by eating absurdly large amounts.

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#36

Post by goatslacker »

baak wrote: post #21
hristov wrote: post #16

I really do not like these articles that say "science says not to worry, you must be a very stupid and uneducated person to be worried about this." Any honest scientist will tell you that science does not know exactly how the human body processes food and there is no model which will exactly predict the effects of the human body ingesting a certain food. Saying that the experimental results are mixed does not make me…

Cubans consume a ton of MSG (sazón) and live notoriously long lives despite very poor living conditions. Your last sentence is very troubling: You feel the negative effects when eating certain foods that you 'suspect' contain MSG. To me, that really sounds like you may psyche yourself out. ie. that you worry about MSG so much that it starts to cause you stress about it, and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy/placebo eff…

The Goya brands definitely do as a flavor additive, but there are other brands of Sazon that don't include any glutamate. Then again, Goya has always been the cheap/crap brand of Spanish food.

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#37

Post by djeikyb »

scarmig wrote: post #25
gwern wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've heard that the sickness associated with MSG is more likely due to ingesting old rice. Yes, I remember there being a British, I think, study in 2011 or 2012 that bought samples of cooked rice from various oriental food sellers and found that some were contaminated (moist warm food left out for hours); the reasoning is that when people report sickness or allergy to the MSG that oriental food in the West is notor…

Huh, is this bad? I typically cook enough rice in a rice cooker for two days and leave it out and haven't had any adverse symptoms...

It's considered a dangerous practice. The general rule is food has four hours outside of its proper storage environment before it must be thrown away. Eg, leave the milk on the counter for an hour, put it back in the fridge, leave it out another three hours, and now you should throw it out. I don't have a link, but I'm citing ServSafe, a program that nationally certifies people for food safety (targeted to federal and state requirements for food service).

You might also consider the ambient temp of your kitchen. Pro kitchens run several hours a day, staying fairly warm the whole time (might have several ovens, tens of burners, and other hot equipment running throughout the day). Your kitchen, even with the rice cooker going, might stay fairly cool, and so bad bacteria has less time to grow.

Food safety is also talked about in terms of risk to different groups. Young children, pregnant mothers, and old adults are at higher risk than younger adults.

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#38

Post by jules »

etler wrote: post #9
r0h1n wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your body is actually better at processing MSG than salt A citation or source would be much appreciated.

Sorry about that, from the wikipedia page on MSG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate#Safety The oral lethal dose to 50% of subjects (LD50) is between 15 to 18 g/kg body weight in rats and mice respectively, five times greater than the LD50 of salt (3 g/kg in rats). Which references: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10736380

This is only one half of the story. To make an apples-to-apples comparison you also have to consider how much you need for the same effect on taste. Hypothetically, if you need 10 times as much glutamate as salt to achieve an equally tasty food, then salt would be a better option. Also LD50 only takes into account short term effects.

This is the same story with aspartame vs sugar. Aspartame has an LD50 of around 5 g/kg, sugar 29.7 g/kg. You can say "wow, aspartame is 6 times as toxic as sugar!", but you have to take into account that it is 200 times sweeter than sugar.

Of course in reality you can't really compare salt with glutamate since they stimulate different receptors. In the end we can probably conclude that neither salt not glutamate pose any real danger to a healthy person in doses that are not completely ridiculous, so add both to your food!

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#39

Post by DanBC »

scarmig wrote: post #25
gwern wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've heard that the sickness associated with MSG is more likely due to ingesting old rice. Yes, I remember there being a British, I think, study in 2011 or 2012 that bought samples of cooked rice from various oriental food sellers and found that some were contaminated (moist warm food left out for hours); the reasoning is that when people report sickness or allergy to the MSG that oriental food in the West is notor…

Huh, is this bad? I typically cook enough rice in a rice cooker for two days and leave it out and haven't had any adverse symptoms...

Rice is a major cause of food poisoning.

http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/Can-reheating-rice-cause-food-po...

> You can get food poisoning from eating reheated rice. However, it's not the reheating that causes the problem but the way the rice has been stored before it was reheated.

> Uncooked rice can contain spores of Bacillus cereus, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning. When the rice is cooked, the spores can survive.

> If the rice is left standing at room temperature, the spores can grow into bacteria. These bacteria will multiply and may produce toxins (poisons) that cause vomiting or diarrhoea.

> The longer cooked rice is left at room temperature, the more likely it is that the bacteria or toxins could make the rice unsafe to eat.

Reheating the rice does kill the bacteria, but does nothing to the toxins.

Re: It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow

#40

Post by Figs »

dsrguru wrote: post #7

This article is both accurate and highly misleading. The author is correct that there is very little reliable evidence that links glutamic acid and/or glutamate to health problems. The backlash against MSG as a result of the "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" craze, was not rooted in scientific inquiry. However, MSG is not just a source for glutamate like seaweed and tomatoes are. MSG is the sodium salt of glutamic acid a…

Has anyone conducted a study to test if the headaches are actually just dehydration?
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