This American Life did a great story on the history of why and how MSG was vilified. I won't post any spoilers because it is a fantastic listen.
this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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That was a fantastic cast!
Theoretically speaking you could be oversensitive to the substance, so in small amounts it should be fine for your body, and in larger amounts you'd get all those alleged symptoms.
However in practice that means that a lot more things than just crystalline MSG would trigger those symptoms - like mushrooms, tomato paste, soy sauce, Parmesan cheese, meat broth, etc.
Babies are also ingesting large amounts of glutamate when being breastfed. Which is why I believe 99.99...% of glutamate "intolerance" / "allergies" are caused by the nocebo-effect.
It probably comes down to eating a lot of very salty foods and not recognizing that you've had too much salt. Common symptoms include temporary high blood pressure and headaches, the same issue that people claim they have with MSG.
As someone who is sensitive to MSG, tomatoes, parmesan etc. ALSO affect me in similar ways, albeit usually less severely.
Just because it's a neurotransmitter in your brain, doesn't mean it can't have adverse affects elsewhere in the body (conversely, there are many drugs that have an effect on the body, but no effect on the brain due to the blood brain barrier), i.e. the body is complex.
That said, it's generally recognized as safe and may potentially cause side effects in some people but there isn't much evidence for it, and MSG is one of the most studied food additives in the world.
~~True. I guess nicotine is a good example of this. When delivered directly into the bloodstream (via inhalation or a nicotine patch) it is an addictive stimulant. When ingested orally it is poisonous.~~
Itβs poisonous, anyway, and we donβt really know how the inhalation of chemical additives (at least idk) May compound the nicotine poisoning.
Back to being poisonous anyway, thatβs why a lot of first time users feel nauseated and vomit.
You are right. All it took was 10 seconds for me to google. I am an idiot. What is true however is that it is much more dangerous when ingested orally. All my nicotine shots (for ecigs) carry the typical "skull" warning symbol, with the advice to call a doctor if you accidentally swallow some.
Youβre not an idiot; misinformation abounds and it just gets tedious looking up everything, all the time.
Interesting side note: it wasnβt unusual on family farms, for a long time, to give horses a couple of plugs of chewing tobacco, as a deworming agent.
Allergy doesn't mean instant death. I have a pollen allergy but the symptoms are sneezing and itchy eyes. I have a nut allergy but the only symptom is an itchy mouth and throat. I still live even though I'm often enough in contact with the chemicals that make my body go "no".
So if MSG allergy was a thing (which it doesn't seem to be, based on my quick Google search) then it would not cause people to die necessarily.
I think it makes a difference whether it it is in your lungs temporarily, or constantly interacting with tiny neurons in your brain. I honestly don't know for sure, though, so take this with a grain of salt.
Glad I am not allergic. I keep a small jar in the kitchen and it is easily the most interesting seasoning to experiment with.
Meanwhile, my sister claims to be severely allergic. It's crazy given the number of items in her regular diet containing MSG if you read the label. Sadly, she is full of excuses like this she uses to rationalize an insanely high fat diet and is obese.
I have also used MSG to reduce both fat and salt in the meals I cook. A big reason I asked this question is that I wanted to know if there is a legitimate reason I should tell people that the food I cooked for them contains glutamate. Because the reaction is often similar to your sisters. And guess what, if I don't tell them, nobody is experiencing any form of side effects.
Since the "S" in MSG is salt, yeah, they would all die. I might be wrong, but, I'm pretty I read a paper years ago that said an allergy to salt was impossible. It's one of those base elements that don't seem that important until it is. It would be the same as allergic to hydrogen.
No, the "S" is sodium. MSG (monosodium glutamate) is a sodium compound like salt, but the anion is different - for salt it's chloride, for MSG it's glutamate.
It could be theoretically possible that only the anion caused you some hard. For example, sodium cyanide is extremely poisonous, but also a sodium salt. In practice however glutamate is just some aminoacid.
Sodium, not salt is a part of MSG. This is also like saying that the Hydrogen in Hydrogen Cyanide kills ya.
The S is sodium, which is a component of salt.