Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

blogs.smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 164 posts

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

#111

Post by brianleb »

sk5t wrote: post #103
brianleb wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In short: your blood is mostly water. Your blood is surrounded by a selectively permeable membrane (your vascular tissue). Solutes increase osmotic pressure (see: biology 101). Sodium chloride (table salt) is highly soluble in water (see: chemistry). Therefore, sodium and chloride increase the osmolarity of your blood. Water passes through the semi-permeable membrane back into your blood to decrease osmotic pressure…

This explanation, while straightfoward and common-sensical, ignores the possibility that the body has some ability to eliminate excess solutes and/or excess fluids. Certainly the case is quite good that "more fluid in circulatory system yields higher blood pressure."

Indeed, and this possibility is called the kidney. Young people with 'healthy' kidneys are able to eat and drink almost anything they want and are much more likely to have well-regulated blood pressure. However, as we age, our kidneys perform more poorly (a simple explanation as to why older people are more likely to take blood pressure medications than younger people). As our physiology weakens, our diet (and exercise, among other things) become more important to our physiological health. This, in conjunction with the hardening of our arteries due to age and atherosclerosis, means that our diet (particularly our sodium intake) becomes exponentially more important in our older age than our younger age.

If this sounds unlikely, understand that the kidney is the direct or indirect target of many medications for blood pressure. Diuretics such as hydrochlorothiazide and loop diuretics such as furosemide act very directly on the kidney. Drugs such as ACE inhibitors (e.g. lisinopril), ARBs (e.g. losaratan), and renin inhibitors (aliskiren) act on the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, which directly involves the kidneys in a different manner. (I am a pharmacist).

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

#112

Post by chad_oliver »

philliphaydon wrote: post #110

In New Zealand we were always taught that MSG was bad, until they did an actual study on it and decided that 0.01% of the population has an allergic reaction to MSG that causes Migraines, Vomiting, etc. Ever since, no one in NZ gives a shit about MSG now. Seems Australia is still really anal about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate "Australia and New Zealand[edit] Food Standards Australia New Zeala…

Be careful about making your generalisations too broad. I live in New Zealand, and would have said that everyone in New Zealand thinks that MSG is ZOMG BAD FOR YOU. I suspect that each of us can only speak for our own social group.

That said, that you for your information about MSG. I wasn't aware that FSANZ had declared it to be effectively harmless.

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

#113

Post by brianleb »

jzwinck wrote: post #93
001sky wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take the sauce in a chinese stir fry. Its ingredients: water, corn starch, and msg. Maybe some other things (flavorings). That's not too much different than putting msg in fruit juice. In the sense that the msg is in a sugar solution with no natural chemistry mitigants or fiber. Because its ~suspended in solution, its not clear its uptake would be regulated by adjacet fiber. In research, the rats used as controls wer…

> Rats fed [msg laced] junk food chose alcohol to drink over water. Beer goes great with salty food. We know this already, but why?

A simplified explanation: Salty food causes you to retain fluid due to osmotic pressure (see one of my other comments in this link). Alcohol is a diuretic, which causes you to expel fluid. There are more reasons, but this is the easiest to understand.

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

#114

Post by ahoge »

coldcode wrote: post #89

If you think MSG is fine, try eating a tablespoon of it with nothing else. Then another time try eating a bunch of mushrooms or similar by themselves with a similar quantity. Likely not the same feeling. Digestion and absorption of food changes with how you consume it. Eating a sweet potato or a bunch of sugar doesn't hit the bloodstream the same way. In my teens and twenties I found I got migraine headaches after ea…

> If you think MSG is fine, try eating a tablespoon of it with nothing else.

If you think salt is fine, try eating 10 tablespoons of it with nothing else.

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

#115

Post by brianleb »

anonymous wrote: post #29
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…

"Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" is real though. Or rather I personally can't eat most things at chinese restaurants and this article was the first time I heard that this is actually a named thing, i.e. this is the first time I hear of CRS. Though I think it's more to do with the fat they use to fry rice in -- there is one place around here which serves chinese-style stir-fried noodles, but eating there reliably does no…

If you read the original New England Journal of Medicine article on which this is based (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM196804042781419), you will find that is it in fact an anecdote where quite literally a physician ate Chinese food and wrote a letter about it. There is no research, no evidence, no null hypothesis.

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

#116

Post by ahoge »

ars wrote: post #88
eropple wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MSG has something like a third of the sodium content of an equivalent volume of salt.

Is volume the right way to measure this? To provide equivalent flavor you use equal volume of salt or MSG?

You only need a tiny dash of MSG. If you got a pound of that stuff, it will last you ages.

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

#117

Post by brianleb »

ars wrote: post #76
ricardobeat wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is said that the human body itself produces up to 50g of glutamate every day ; an allergy to it should result in much more terrible effects than superficial numbness. Someone already posted a longer explanation: http://www.metafilter.com/131105/Dorito-Powder#5147903

> produces up to 50g of glutamate every day But not as free glutamic acid, and that makes a HUGE difference.

Really? Please observe the differences between https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:L-Glutamate_Structural_Fo... and https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Glutamin... . The only difference is the relocation of hydrogen ions, which is a normal and expected occurrence of all molecules in the presence of other molecules. The equilibrium of these different forms of the same molecule is mediated by pH, among other things. They are in fact the same molecule. The word "acid" only means that it likes to give up a hydrogen ion when given the opportunity.

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

#118

Post by mililani »

philliphaydon wrote: post #110

In New Zealand we were always taught that MSG was bad, until they did an actual study on it and decided that 0.01% of the population has an allergic reaction to MSG that causes Migraines, Vomiting, etc. Ever since, no one in NZ gives a shit about MSG now. Seems Australia is still really anal about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate "Australia and New Zealand[edit] Food Standards Australia New Zeala…

I concur. I went to both countries, and I'm a damn foodie. I remember my cousin coming back from NZ 10 years ago saying it was awesome but the food sucked. I went there, and I was like, WHAT THE HELL WAS HE EVEN TALKING ABOUT?!?!

New Zealand has some of the BEST food I've ever had. It was way better than Australia. And, yeah, this is anecdotal and definitely subjective, but once you've tried something like Ferg Burger in Queenstown, you may have to rethink NZ on the culinary map.

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

#119

Post by ars »

brianleb wrote: post #117
ars wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> produces up to 50g of glutamate every day But not as free glutamic acid, and that makes a HUGE difference.

Really? Please observe the differences between https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:L-Glutamate_Structural_Fo... and https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Glutamin... . The only difference is the relocation of hydrogen ions, which is a normal and expected occurrence of all molecules in the presence of other molecules. The equilibrium of these different forms of the same molecule is mediated by pH, among o…

You understood me in reverse.

In the body the glutamate (acid or not) is bound up with other things, i.e. not free.

I said acid because my understanding was the MSG disassociates from the sodium once ingested.

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

#120

Post by tptacek »

hristov wrote: post #62
mahranch wrote: post #8

The MSG allergy is a myth, plain and simple. There have been plenty of scientific research studies done on the substance, and they found absolutely nothing. I don't know why this myth has persisted so long in popular culture. I compare it to people who rave about homeopathy. Any (perceived) effect is either anecdotal or placebo in nature. What most people don't know, is that MSG occurs naturally in many foods. Beef,…

MSG is not in beef chicken spinach or tomatoes. There is a difference between the glutamic acid that is in these foods and the salt that is msg. Furthermore, MSG is manufactured using chemical processes which means that there are plenty of trace elements from the manufacturing processes in the end product. It is very much possible to be allergic to MSG. Even the present article, despite being very much pro-MSG, allow…

MSG isn't manufactured using "chemical processes"; Ajinomoto manufactures it through bacterial fermentation.
Post reply on HN