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

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

#141

Post by michh »

andybak wrote: post #135
michh wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better analogy would be to say losing all your money due to corrupt and greedy bankers is "Jewish Banker Syndrome". Still not offensive?

A marvellous false analogy.

Really?

Evil bankers exist of lots of ethnicities and faiths but lots of people do (often but not always subconsciously) link greedy bankers and jewish people.

Just like using unhealthy or even dangerous additives is often linked to Chinese cuisine even though they're used just as much in tons of other cuisines as well.

Equating an existent stereotype with one which doesn't actually exist and saying "it's not that bad, I wouldn't be offended by that" is the false analogy. Because then it doesn't have the personal impact a prejudice or misconception you've actually been exposed to has.

A white person might say that if someone joked "all white people are lazy", they wouldn't be offended so a black or latino person shouldn't either. A black person is much more likely to be offended by "all black people are lazy" because that's something that's actually rooted in societal prejudices. Change it to "all white people are racist" and suddenly by their defensive tone, you'll note that you've hit a nerve and they're actually uncomfortable and/or offended.

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

#142

Post by ars »

tptacek wrote: post #137
ars wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I read some glutamate metabolism papers last night and I don't think this is likely to be true at all. I think it's a manifestation of the naturalist fallacy: you believe the "free glutamic acid" released by the dissolution of MSG to be artificial and are trying to rationalize a distinction for the glutamates that the body produces that doesn't exist. In reality, glutamic acid isn't simply an amino acid that happens…

> ... naturalist fallacy: you believe ... distinction ...that doesn't exist.

I believe no such thing.

I don't know what you read, but in the body glutamic acid doesn't just float around randomly, it's carefully stored near the nerves that need it. Excess glutamic acid where it doesn't belong causes nerve problems.

It's like the difference between sucrose and starch. Chemically they are the same, but the effects are very different because one needs more digestion than the other.

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

#143

Post by tptacek »

ars wrote: post #142
tptacek wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read some glutamate metabolism papers last night and I don't think this is likely to be true at all. I think it's a manifestation of the naturalist fallacy: you believe the "free glutamic acid" released by the dissolution of MSG to be artificial and are trying to rationalize a distinction for the glutamates that the body produces that doesn't exist. In reality, glutamic acid isn't simply an amino acid that happens…

> ... naturalist fallacy: you believe ... distinction ...that doesn't exist. I believe no such thing. I don't know what you read, but in the body glutamic acid doesn't just float around randomly, it's carefully stored near the nerves that need it. Excess glutamic acid where it doesn't belong causes nerve problems. It's like the difference between sucrose and starch. Chemically they are the same, but the effects are v…

Your body can't metabolize nitrogen without glutamic acid. It's part of how you, and I think maybe all the rest of your siblings in phylum chordata, build proteins. I don't see a lot of reason to believe that it causes "nerve problems" in the human body, but would welcome a citation to the literature that shows that.

It gets worse for your argument. Here's a paper that demonstrates that very large oral doses of MSG in both mice and humans don't even significantly raise the plasma concentration of glutamates.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136011/

This should probably be unsurprising. Your body is designed to deal with consumption of glutamates; in fact, even though it's so vital to your system that you produce it yourself, humans get most of their glutamic acid from dietary sources. Hypersensitivity to dietary glutamate would be maladaptive.

The idea that your body has carefully delineated locations where it's safe to have glutamic acid (probably not coincidentally in the nervous system, the most complex part of the body), and that ingesting "artificial" sources of glutamic acid throws that out of whack, is again I think a manifestation of the naturalistic fallacy.

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

#144

Post by tptacek »

elbii wrote: post #28

Different rates of uptake. That's the difference. That's why eating a box of cherry tomatoes and a bowl of ramen have drastically different effects on your sense of well-being. At the very least, people should be made aware whether it's in certain foods. Then they can choose what's best for them. Personally, MSG bedrocks me. I have to take a sick day off work in some cases after eating an MSG-laden meal. I've develop…

That notion has been studied and refuted. Give a mouse, or a person, a high oral dose of MSG, and their plasma levels of glutamate are not significantly changed.

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

#145

Post by wismer »

tptacek wrote: post #140
wismer wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm highly skeptical of Truthinlabeling.org. The person/group behind it seem to highlight a kindle book alleging a link between Alzheimer's and MSG? The information is also rather muddled and unclear. I would not consider this to be a reliable source. I'd also encourage anyone reading the above links to take a peek at this: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Excitotoxicity There are some notable discrepancies with t…

It's not complicated. It's been studied directly. It is an easy study to conduct. Give people MSG. Do they become symptomatic? The answer is no. This is the result you would expect, given the simple molecular structure of MSG and the fundamental role glutamic acid plays in the human body. If we had learned about table salt in the 1910s and knew it primarily by its formula name NaCl, people would believe all manner of…

I agree. My knowledge of the subject is little but the parent author of this thread came off as hyperbolic. I don't understand human biology well, so I left open the possibility that I may have an incorrect opinion, as it uneducated. My opinion is MSG is safe and delicious.

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

#146

Post by zeroonetwothree »

brianleb wrote: post #113
jzwinck wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Wine and many other alcoholic drinks don't go well with salty food. Clearly it just has to do with the flavor of beer specifically.

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

#147

Post by bookface »

michh wrote: post #134
bookface wrote: post #3

Sorry if I'm being insensitive, but how is Chinese Restaurant Syndrome "absurdly racist"? If people were having health problems as a consequence of eating corned beef, I would, as a Jew, have no problem with that condition being called "Jewish Deli Syndrome".

A better analogy would be to say losing all your money due to corrupt and greedy bankers is "Jewish Banker Syndrome". Still not offensive?

I think the main difference between the two is the intent that's being implied. "Jewish Banker Syndrome" is implying something about me as a person. It's saying that, as a Jew, I'm more likely to be greedy and corrupt. "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" isn't really blaming the Chinese for anything, it's just noting the correlation that was observed.

Maybe a better comparison would be "Jewish Bank Syndrome", which to me sounds a lot less harsh than "Jewish Banker Syndrome".

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

#148

Post by andybak »

michh wrote: post #141
andybak wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A marvellous false analogy.

Really? Evil bankers exist of lots of ethnicities and faiths but lots of people do (often but not always subconsciously) link greedy bankers and jewish people. Just like using unhealthy or even dangerous additives is often linked to Chinese cuisine even though they're used just as much in tons of other cuisines as well. Equating an existent stereotype with one which doesn't actually exist and saying "it's not that ba…

Your reading just seems wilfully tortuous and unnatural.

"Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" has nothing to do with Chinese food being bad or unhealthy or dangerous. It's just that is is (was?) fairly common for there to be more MSG in Chinese Food. So it was a natural shorthand. It hadn't even occurred to me that someone would think it was racist before today.

I'm torn between finding this funny and finding this irritating. There's enough genuine problems that people face based on race, nationality, gender or sexual orientation that debates like this just make it harder to get people to take us seriously on things that matter.

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

#149

Post by bookface »

michh wrote: post #141
andybak wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A marvellous false analogy.

Really? Evil bankers exist of lots of ethnicities and faiths but lots of people do (often but not always subconsciously) link greedy bankers and jewish people. Just like using unhealthy or even dangerous additives is often linked to Chinese cuisine even though they're used just as much in tons of other cuisines as well. Equating an existent stereotype with one which doesn't actually exist and saying "it's not that ba…

I didn't originally see the connection between MSG and Chinese food as coming from a place of racism, but you might be right. I'm still not so sure though. If somebody said to you "I got food poisoning from a Chinese restaurant last night", would you say "That's racist! An Italian restaurant could have just as easily given you food poisoning."?

It's pointless to try to tell people what is and isn't offensive. Normally, I err on the side of thinking that if somebody is offended, they must have reason to be and I should be sensitive to that, but in this case I had no idea what racism the author was referring to.

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

#150

Post by akingoffools »

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…

Another point worth considering is the chirality of the molecule. There is a strong bias in biological systems in favour of l-oriented amino acids; a bias often unreflected or different in synthesised chemicals. Biological systems often react differently to the different enantiomers of a chemical, sometimes being unresponsive to the enantiomer of a biologically active molecule, sometimes responding in a different but useful manner, and sometimes reacting adversely.
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