Post: #1

In my effort to approach previously maligned foods, I took a second look at umami, aka monosodium glutamate, aka MSG.

MSG was invented in 1908 by a Kikunae Ikeda, a Japanese food scientist who wanted to find out why certain vegetarian broths had a meaty flavor but contained no meat. He found a seaweed (Kombu) loaded with glutamate and made a fine salt that captured the flavor. He named it umami, the Japanese word for delicious, which is fitting because it has also been identified as the fifth flavor savory.

MSG has been used in Asian cooking for well over a century. For all of you guys that lust over Chinese street food, this is what makes it so good.

It made its American debut in the 1940s. Industrial food manufacturers and the government liked it because it made those otherwise unpalatable WW2 rations taste ok.

MSG got a bad wrap in the 70s when a doctor wrote a letter in a medical journal describing a strange headache he was having after eating Chinese food. A health hysteria surfaced as people came out of the woodwork to describe an odd set of health problems dubiously named "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome."

MSG was immediately blamed for this. Shoddy science mixed with boomer hypochondriacs have relegated MSG to the same demonization as Zyklon B which is far from the truth. The FDA and others have done countless double-blind studies to confirm that so-called "MSG sensitivity" is bullshit nocebo (people thinking they have a problem and thus it becomes one). Glutamate is a component of meat, cheeses, and is naturally occuring in a variety of vegetables. It's what makes that stuff good!

Most likely all of those that claim they have a sensitivity to MSG are really just chronically dehydrated and are consuming too salty a dish. If you're interested in its long history, wikipedia has a great write up on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate

I decided to give it a shot, because why not? Health food people think it's dangerous and it's apparently what makes junk food taste good. Time to give something another look.

What does MSG really taste like?
I bought a bottle of Accent at my local grocery store. This bottle will essentially be a lifetime supply because you don't need a lot of it. If you live in Asia or have an asian grocer nearby you can purchase a similar product for cheaper called Ajinomoto. It's the same thing.

I licked my thumb, opened the container, and put it in. It's a fine white powder, similar to salt. When I tasted it, it tasted like powdered beef broth. Very similar to beef flavored ramen (which it probably is a huge component of).

It imparts a savory element to food. Savory really isn't a good description of it. On its own, it's really weak. With other food, it envelops your mouth with a sort of swirl of taste, adding depth to whatever it is your cooking.

I first used it in a dry rub for some ribs that I was planning on smoking. I've used this rub before and it was ok. With MSG, it was incredible.

I'm making a pasta sauce from fresh tomatoes. It's been sitting for over 12 hours. I pre-spiced everything, but left out salt. I put in some MSG, stirred, and gave it a taste. Wow! There was an absolute explosion of tomatoes, garlic, onion, and all of the other spices I used.

I then added a little bit of salt to round out everything. Incredible, tastes amazing.

How Much Do I Need to Use?

Surprisingly, not a lot. I would add it first before adding salt. I recommend somewhere between a teaspoon to half a tablespoon depending on how big your dish is. MSG is known as a super salt. Meaning you can use less sodium, but retain the same amount of flavor. Be careful and go light on both, add more salt until the desired taste is achieved.

What Can I Use It With?
I would add it to anything that you want to impart a savory taste to. I've read great examples of people using it in water instead of salt for boiling vegetables and pasta.


I've read that you can substitute MSG with salt in pretty much every dish that calls for it. The above examples are just a small example. The only food I would never add MSG to are sweets like candies and baked goods.

Experiment and see what works for you. This was the missing ingredient that made my great cooking go to out of this world.

Post: #2

Good topic for discussion.

First off, I'd like to distinguish the difference between MSG and umami. MSG contributes umami to food, but MSG is not necessary to do so.

Parmigiano-Reggiano, Soy Sauce, Seaweed, Coffee, Cacao beans, Seared Meats, dehydrated meat and seafood, fish sauce, hoisin sauce, fermented black beans, anchovies, roasted vegetables....these all contribute umami. Umami is a deep sense of savory deliciousness.

Many processed foods contain MSG, you'll most likely see it labelled as other things like "Natural flavors". Some people have a sensitivity to MSG, but aside from them I'm firmly in the camp that it's generally safe to eat. If you eat a decent amount of Japanese, Thai, Chinese, or Korean food chances are you're already eating a good amount of it.

So while I'm down for eating MSG, I have mixed feelings about adding it to home cooking. Yes, it will add a dimension of flavor to your food that wasn't there before. But my gut instinct is it will make you a lazier cook. If you truly want to enhance your culinary skills, I recommend that you introduce umami into your cooking through more traditional ways.

This is like a discussion of using canned chicken broth versus making your own chicken stock. Both are acceptable, but homemade chicken stock (bone broth) is a vastly superior product. It all depends on your lifestyle and how much time you can dedicate to the kitchen. You can make your own dashi or you can buy powdered dashi. Both are acceptable, but homemade dashi will yield food with far greater authenticity and pure flavors. Dashi is an excellent source of umami, and it's only 3 ingredients; Kombu (seaweed) Katsuoboshi (dried fish flakes, also called bonito flakes) and water. The process takes 4 hours to do properly, but it's as difficult as making green tea.

Using msg is up to you, a quick and easy hack to make your food taste great, but it's not the only way. Try putting a dash of worcestershire or maggi sauce in your scrambled eggs or omelet, like they do in Thailand. Incidentally, both Worcestershire and Maggi sauce contain MSG, but there's more depth to the sauces than simply adding MSG.

Think about it this way: to make food delicious requires salt. Now, you can simply add pinches of salt to your food to season it, or you can do something interesting and use a salted product in place of table salt. This is what most good food traditions in the world do. Using salted ham, any salted pork product, using salt cod, fish sauce, anchovy sauce, crab paste, shrimp paste, salumi...these are all ways in different cultures to add salt to food. Salt used to be one of the most treasured commodities on Earth, and simply adding table salt to food was unheard of for much of history. The more common practice was to use salt to preserve various things, from meat to seafood to vegetables, and then use those preserved foods to add seasoning to food. It's a tradition that still yields the best results and the best cooks know how to use them.

Post: #3

(01-18-2018 12:32 AM)Veloce Wrote:  Good topic for discussion.

First off, I'd like to distinguish the difference between MSG and umami. MSG contributes umami to food, but MSG is not necessary to do so.

Parmigiano-Reggiano, Soy Sauce, Seaweed, Coffee, Cacao beans, Seared Meats, dehydrated meat and seafood, fish sauce, hoisin sauce, fermented black beans, anchovies, roasted vegetables....these all contribute umami. Umami is a deep sense of savory deliciousness.

The way I see it is this,

If I want to make a dish sweeter, I have a few options: sugar, honey, brown sugar, turbinado, fruit juices, syrup.

Sometimes, I just want a clean way to add sweetness without any other note. Plain white sugar will do this.

Same goes for umami. Sure I could add parm, soy sauce, some seaweed, or coffee. But then I'll have to put up with the extra flavors that each of those ingredients provides. If I want a clean, direct savory flavor MSG adds it without anything extra.

Post: #4

(01-18-2018 12:32 AM)Veloce Wrote:  Think about it this way: to make food delicious requires salt. Now, you can simply add pinches of salt to your food to season it, or you can do something interesting and use a salted product in place of table salt. This is what most good food traditions in the world do. Using salted ham, any salted pork product, using salt cod, fish sauce, anchovy sauce, crab paste, shrimp paste, salumi...these are all ways in different cultures to add salt to food. Salt used to be one of the most treasured commodities on Earth, and simply adding table salt to food was unheard of for much of history. The more common practice was to use salt to preserve various things, from meat to seafood to vegetables, and then use those preserved foods to add seasoning to food. It's a tradition that still yields the best results and the best cooks know how to use them.

Would there be an appetite for a 'chef's lounge'?

I've just finished reading Samin Nosrat's (of Chez Panisse) book, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and it has blown my culinary world right open.

I made lamb neck fillets the other night. I salted them 24 hours in advance, then marinated them in port for a couple of hours before cooking. I pan fried them quickly with rosmary and garlic on high heat to brown them off, then put them in the oven on low heat for 20 minutes, then leave them to rest for 40 minutes.

I served them with a butternut squash crumble, with a parmesan, thyme and walnut crust. I've really perfected this dish and it is seriously good.

I also served it with spring greens, with a kind of modified cumberland sauce on the side.

Post: #5

Have to check out that book H1N1.

Does Tomato and mushrooms possess this Umami characteristic? They both add a richness of flavor that is hard to describe to foods.

Post: #6

Yes, mushrooms and tomato paste.

Also cat food- cats love umami. It's a signifier of the presence of amino acids.

Post: #7

I think a Chefs Lounge would be great, I for one specifically love Vietnamese food specialized in it during Culinary Arts school. Most cuisines are in my playbook, but Vietnamese & other Asian cuisines are my favorites to cook and blend into dishes more common in the west. I actually just made pork pot stickers yesterday for supper.

Post: #8

Anchovy paste is my go to to bump up umami notes in dishes. You can add it to almost anything that would warrant a savory flavour profile boost. I add it to homemade burgers, chutneys, and scrambled eggs to boost up flavour.

I believe it's best to work with natural occurring glutamate versus the lab created MSG. The glutamate that is added in naturally in dishes is always as a subtle accent. The MSG chemical adds way too much of punch to the chin. It's a shortcut but it shouldn't the natural ways which IMO won't kill your taste buds.

MSG is IMO part of the reason immigrant populations turn into fatties here in the West. Many ethnic food products such as Vegeta and Maggi are MSG packed as a way to cut costs for old school salt food products that Veloce mentioned. After a while your taste receptors get used to that punch packed MSG flavour and when they get access to cheap processed foods here in the West it's game over as these processed foods trigger many of the same flavour receptors (other factors such as costs and accessories as well, but that is a much greater discussion).

In saying all that. Learning more about MSG I won't avoid it now but use it sparingly as I used too. I've avoided it the best I can for about 5 years but now I will just rethink it and maybe get a Maggi cube or two to keep around to use sparingly in a blue moon.

Post: #9

I like savory food as much as anyone else, but I'd never put some processed powder in my meal just to give it a certain taste. What's wrong with just slicing a tomato or marinating a piece of meat?

Post: #10

(01-18-2018 09:11 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  I like savory food as much as anyone else, but I'd never put some processed powder in my meal just to give it a certain taste. What's wrong with just slicing a tomato or marinating a piece of meat?

Do you use table salt, white sugar, or any other number of other refined spices?

White table salts including kosher salt undergo a chemical bath to remove impurities that naturally occur in ocean saltwater or in mined salt. Sugar is an especially fun one. Ever wonder how sugar cane becomes turbinado, brown sugar, and then finally white refined sugar? It's an intense industrial process. Most of the spices in our pantries go through similar industrial processes and even irradiation.

MSG is made by the fermentation of sugar, sugar beets, molasses, and starch. It's identically similar to the way wine and beer are made.

Like I said above, you can put on tomatoes or anchovy paste but sometimes I just want to boost a small portion of the flavor profile without messing with anything else.

The MSG scare is silly. It seems no one noticed my line above: MSG has been used for over a century in asian cuisine. China and Taiwan are the two biggest consumers of it, yet we don't hear about any problems or sensitivity about it from those countries.

I'm making a vegetarian dish tonight for a friend of mine. She's a bit of a healthfood nut. The broth has some MSG in it, about a teaspoon. A little bit goes a very very long way. Too much MSG is like too much salt and it makes a dish taste metallic.

I'll let you all know how she handles it tonight

Post: #11

If you like Umami flavour then you would enjoy miso butter as a sauce or condiment.

It’s made with miso paste and butter. You just cream them together. Melt the butter a bit first if you need to. You can refrigerate it to make it solid again.

It goes really well on steamed green vegetables like broccoli, beans, peas, etc

Post: #12

(01-18-2018 09:07 AM)kosko Wrote:  Anchovy paste is my go to to bump up umami notes in dishes. You can add it to almost anything that would warrant a savory flavour profile boost. I add it to homemade burgers, chutneys, and scrambled eggs to boost up flavour.

There's a sort of irrational fear of anchovies, most likely due to the fact that those that have actually tried them, ate them raw. In which case yes, they are overwhelmingly fishy and strong.

But chop anchovies very finely until it's a paste (or use store bought paste) and fry them in butter and it's a whole other dimension of flavor. They go from being fishy to pure umami and nutty. One of my favorite pastas is simply some pasta, usually a thick noodle like bigoli or spaghetti, cooked al dente, and a sauce made from anchovy, garlic, and chile flake lightly fried in butter, toss the pasta in the pan with a little pasta water and finish with lots of chopped parsley.

Post: #13

MSG is a neurotoxin and affiliated with a multitude of problems - not only damaging the nervous system but certainly causing allergies of various sorts.

It is not a healthy thing. Yes - it is widely used in Asian cuisine, but it is not a plus.





There are some folk - me one of them - who reversed huge allergies that they did not have by simply cutting out MSG and artificial sweeteners - and not much else. And that was sufficient to reverse allergies.

https://www.foodrenegade.com/msg-dangerous-science/

That stuff is far more dangerous than it seems - just brushing away all concerns and declaring it to be harmless is very shortsighted.

Post: #14

(01-18-2018 04:21 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  MSG is a neurotoxin and affiliated with a multitude of problems - not only damaging the nervous system but certainly causing allergies of various sorts.

It is not a healthy thing. Yes - it is widely used in Asian cuisine, but it is not a plus.





There are some folk - me one of them - who reversed huge allergies that they did not have by simply cutting out MSG and artificial sweeteners - and not much else. And that was sufficient to reverse allergies.

https://www.foodrenegade.com/msg-dangerous-science/

That stuff is far more dangerous than it seems - just brushing away all concerns and declaring it to be harmless is very shortsighted.

You do realize that glutamate (the G in MSG) is a neurotransmitter? How is a neurotransmitter a neurotoxin? Here's a citation from a medical journal claiming exactly that http://jn.nutrition.org/content/130/4/1007.full.pdf

Unlike aspartame, glutamate is in practically everything. It's a naturally occurring amino acid. Are you telling me that you have allergic reactions to matured cheeses (Parmesan and Roquefort), cured meats, fish sauce, soy sauce, mushrooms, ripe tomatoes, broccoli, peas, walnuts, grape juice, bone and meat broths, malted barley (used in bread or beer), gluten, or dairy? Do you have allergic reactions if you eat large amounts of these foods? I mean shoot, I consume pretty much everything on that list except fish sauce. Bone broths make a huge component of the bases of my recipes.

Here's a study done in 2000 with a 173 participants (largest ever) on MSG use and allergies. The abstract:

Quote:Monosodium glutamate (MSG) has a long history of use in foods as a flavor enhancer. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has classified MSG as generally recognized as safe (GRAS). Nevertheless, there is an ongoing debate exists concerning whether MSG causes any of the alleged reactions. A complex of symptoms after ingestion of a Chinese meal was first described in 1968. MSG was suggested to trigger these symptoms, which were referred to collectively as Chinese Restaurant Syndrome. Numerous reports, most of them anecdotal, were published after the original observation. Since then, clinical studies have been performed by many groups, with varying degrees of rigor in experimental design ranging from uncontrolled open challenges to double-blind, placebo controlled (DBPC) studies. Challenges in subjects who reported adverse reactions to MSG have included relatively few subjects and have failed to show significant reactions to MSG. Results of surveys and of clinical challenges with MSG in the general population reveal no evidence of untoward effects. We recently conducted a multicenter DBPC challenge study in 130 subjects (the largest to date) to analyze the response of subjects who report symptoms from ingesting MSG. The results suggest that large doses of MSG given without food may elicit more symptoms than a placebo in individuals who believe that they react adversely to MSG. However, the frequency of the responses was low and the responses reported were inconsistent and were not reproducible. The responses were not observed when MSG was given with food.

https://www.scholars.northwestern.edu/en...outcome-of

What's curious is they were doing these tests with just pure ingredients. The kicker here was nothing happened when participants ate MSG with their food.

Did you have an allergist confirm these findings or are they self-discovered? Have you had someone try and do a blind test on you to see if you actually have allergic symptoms? I'd be genuinely interested if these reactions actually occur. Nocebo is a real thing.

I'm happy to concede that anything in large doses is dangerous. The same argument could be levied at salt, sugar, or even nutmeg which in large doses will get you tripping.

This post is partially inspired by my anti-organic kick lately. I cook and eat food that comes from whole ingredients, but I don't think the organic foods really make a difference in taste or quality at all. I get far more bang for my buck purchasing my meats, vegies, and fruits at discount at Costco than I do paying stupid amounts of money at whole foods for what I taste as the same quality. The only time it's ever been tastier was when I grew it myself.

Even the half cow my wife and I bought tastes the same as the meat we get from the counter at our club store. The only reason to do this is it's surprisingly cheaper even though you get a ton of meat that has to be frozen.

If you've gone through the gambit with an allergist who confirmed the allergy, then do what works for you. Just like the low fat, carb craze of the mid to late 20th century, I'm of the firm belief that MSG's bad rap comes from the same place

Post: #15

MSG's bad rep comes from a ton of confirmed data and studies.

Only because the mainstream medical consters are now claiming it is safe, then does not mean it is in the form it is consumed and fabricated.

Here a link to a ton of articles - each articles has references to studies and studies.

http://search.mercola.com/results.aspx?q=msg

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic...ancer.aspx

The side-effects of this additive are going much more than headaches or allergies.

But hey - it's up to you what source you are believing. Though I would recommend taking a good look at the studies and listening to the presentation.

If the info does not convince you, then so be it - we see things differently. You believe your set of MDs and nutritionists and I will believe mine. But frankly - one of the side is correct.

Post: #16

(01-18-2018 06:40 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  MSG's bad rep comes from a ton of confirmed data and studies.

Only because the mainstream medical consters are now claiming it is safe, then does not mean it is in the form it is consumed and fabricated.

Here a link to a ton of articles - each articles has references to studies and studies.

http://search.mercola.com/results.aspx?q=msg

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic...ancer.aspx

The side-effects of this additive are going much more than headaches or allergies.

But hey - it's up to you what source you are believing. Though I would recommend taking a good look at the studies and listening to the presentation.

If the info does not convince you, then so be it - we see things differently. You believe your set of MDs and nutritionists and I will believe mine. But frankly - one of the side is correct.

Mercola? Seriously Zel? The same guy who believes AIDs isn't caused by HIV, mobile phones cause cancer, that microwaving food alters its chemistry, and that grilling steak is dangerous?

I'm not one to toss the baby out with the bathwater, but i'm pretty skeptical of his claims already. At least your food renegade blog above gave citations from semi-credible amongst its citations(excluding Russel Blaylock, doctor and chem trail believer).

All of the "msg is bad" sites would also have you believe that red meat is dangerous and vegetarian lifestyles are the way to live. I'll take the hundreds of millions of asians who consume it yearly for over a hundred years as proof that it's safe. You'd think someone over there like the Japanese would have jumped on this if it really did cause widespread cancer, allergies, headaches and the like.

Post: #17

As with many debates, I find the truth is usually somewhere in the middle.

For instance, grilled steak. We love it. I love it. I eat a lot of grilled meat. I also acknowledge it's not healthy in excess. Many food scientists have concluded that while charred foods taste great and trigger a sense of deliciousness in our palates, it's something that should probably be eaten in moderation. I feel the same way about MSG, naturally occurring or not. Hence the need for balanced nutrition and a very wide array of foods. The beautiful thing about humans is we have by far the most varied diet out of any animal; there are thousands of foods at our disposal and I think that variety is key to our health.

Post: #18

(01-18-2018 07:26 PM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

(01-18-2018 06:40 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  MSG's bad rep comes from a ton of confirmed data and studies.

Only because the mainstream medical consters are now claiming it is safe, then does not mean it is in the form it is consumed and fabricated.

Here a link to a ton of articles - each articles has references to studies and studies.

http://search.mercola.com/results.aspx?q=msg

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic...ancer.aspx

The side-effects of this additive are going much more than headaches or allergies.

But hey - it's up to you what source you are believing. Though I would recommend taking a good look at the studies and listening to the presentation.

If the info does not convince you, then so be it - we see things differently. You believe your set of MDs and nutritionists and I will believe mine. But frankly - one of the side is correct.

Mercola? Seriously Zel? The same guy who believes AIDs isn't caused by HIV, mobile phones cause cancer, that microwaving food alters its chemistry, and that grilling steak is dangerous?

I'm not one to toss the baby out with the bathwater, but i'm pretty skeptical of his claims already. At least your food renegade blog above gave citations from semi-credible amongst its citations(excluding Russel Blaylock, doctor and chem trail believer).

All of the "msg is bad" sites would also have you believe that red meat is dangerous and vegetarian lifestyles are the way to live. I'll take the hundreds of millions of asians who consume it yearly for over a hundred years as proof that it's safe. You'd think someone over there like the Japanese would have jumped on this if it really did cause widespread cancer, allergies, headaches and the like.

You can believe whatever the fuck you want - Mercola and co. are not some militant vegans/vegetarians. You are mixing here the SJW-dietary bandwagon with the actual alternative researchers and doctors.

Yes - Mercola - fuck that.

And the Japanese have the most healthy indigenous varied diet in the world. Also if you watch what they eat on top of the MSG laden food, then you will find that it is far more varied than Western diets.

Either way - there are scores and scores of other data out there, but I guess you prefer to throw everyone the tin-foil hat and then simply don't care when cancer exploded from the 1950s-2000 by thousands of precent, even our fucking animals are getting cancer. In the 1960s the average Golden Retriever lived 18 years - now it is 9 and cancer is the second most common cause of their deaths.

Humans go the same way.

Does not matter - posted my stuff - do what you want with it. As I noted before - one side is closer to the truth. Hope you will be doing fine believing 100% in everything the for-sale-pharma-medical-complex tells you.

Post: #19

I'm with Zel, having gotten MSG headaches and felt the effects of aspartame. Approved =\= safe. Historically, the FDA has proven to NOT your friend, or is that somehow unclear if you watch the video Zel linked? Over excite your neutrotransmitters at your own risk but don't laud it like its some red pill bullshit. The studies and facts are there for anyone willing to discard toxic taste in favor of truth.

Post: #20

(01-19-2018 02:45 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  

(01-18-2018 07:26 PM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

(01-18-2018 06:40 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  MSG's bad rep comes from a ton of confirmed data and studies.

Only because the mainstream medical consters are now claiming it is safe, then does not mean it is in the form it is consumed and fabricated.

Here a link to a ton of articles - each articles has references to studies and studies.

http://search.mercola.com/results.aspx?q=msg

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic...ancer.aspx

The side-effects of this additive are going much more than headaches or allergies.

But hey - it's up to you what source you are believing. Though I would recommend taking a good look at the studies and listening to the presentation.

If the info does not convince you, then so be it - we see things differently. You believe your set of MDs and nutritionists and I will believe mine. But frankly - one of the side is correct.

Mercola? Seriously Zel? The same guy who believes AIDs isn't caused by HIV, mobile phones cause cancer, that microwaving food alters its chemistry, and that grilling steak is dangerous?

I'm not one to toss the baby out with the bathwater, but i'm pretty skeptical of his claims already. At least your food renegade blog above gave citations from semi-credible amongst its citations(excluding Russel Blaylock, doctor and chem trail believer).

All of the "msg is bad" sites would also have you believe that red meat is dangerous and vegetarian lifestyles are the way to live. I'll take the hundreds of millions of asians who consume it yearly for over a hundred years as proof that it's safe. You'd think someone over there like the Japanese would have jumped on this if it really did cause widespread cancer, allergies, headaches and the like.

You can believe whatever the fuck you want - Mercola and co. are not some militant vegans/vegetarians. You are mixing here the SJW-dietary bandwagon with the actual alternative researchers and doctors.

Yes - Mercola - fuck that.

And the Japanese have the most healthy indigenous varied diet in the world. Also if you watch what they eat on top of the MSG laden food, then you will find that it is far more varied than Western diets.

Either way - there are scores and scores of other data out there, but I guess you prefer to throw everyone the tin-foil hat and then simply don't care when cancer exploded from the 1950s-2000 by thousands of precent, even our fucking animals are getting cancer. In the 1960s the average Golden Retriever lived 18 years - now it is 9 and cancer is the second most common cause of their deaths.

Humans go the same way.

Does not matter - posted my stuff - do what you want with it. As I noted before - one side is closer to the truth. Hope you will be doing fine believing 100% in everything the for-sale-pharma-medical-complex tells you.

Yup that Mercola, the same anti vaxxer nutjob that's encouraging parents to let their kids die of curable diseases. That's all I need to know.

Conveniently also left out the Chinese, the largest consumers of MSG, whose lifespans have been continuously increasing year by year. It also sounds like you're admitting that a varied and healthy diet combined with modest amounts of MSG mean you'll live for years on end. So what is it? Cancer causing additive or is there more to bad western diets than just a simple food additive?

Cancer rates exploded because of better reporting and longer lifespans. Take a look at what these guys say is the cause for all of this cancer: http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/...ncreasing/

Quote:But our latest estimate, which uses the most accurate calculation method to date, now puts our chances of developing the disease at 1 in 2.

Let’s be clear – this isn’t a sudden increase in risk. The different numbers are down to a change in the method used to make the calculation. But they reveal a gradual increase in risk, that’s taken place over decades.

So this begs the obvious question: just why is our risk increasing?

The simple answer is, as the animation above shows: most of us are living longer.

I bet if you killed everyone by the age of 50 and stopped yearly doctor check ups you'd see cancer rates would drop too.

And golden retrievers, ha! What do you think will happen when you continuously breed animals with similar traits? Heck take a look at the islamic world for what inbreeding does to health. No wonder their lifespans collapsed. All of their health problems are genetic. Get a mutt if you want a dog to live for 20 years.

On an unrelated note, we had the vegetarian girl over last night. We got on the topic of food additives and she went on and on about her msg sensitivity . The misses and I both looked at each other ready to laugh as she told us this after had she consumed her two large bowls of msg spiked soup.

She stayed over for a couple of extra hours as we watched a screener. I asked her about an hour after eating how she felt. Her words, "I feel great! My stuffy nose is less stuffy!"



I'll continue cooking with it for the foreseeable future. Enjoy your alternative medicine quacks

(01-19-2018 03:36 AM)Truth Tiger Wrote:  I'm with Zel, having gotten MSG headaches and felt the effects of aspartame. Approved =\= safe. Historically, the FDA has proven to NOT your friend, or is that somehow unclear if you watch the video Zel linked? Over excite your neutrotransmitters at your own risk but don't laud it like its some red pill bullshit. The studies and facts are there for anyone willing to discard toxic taste in favor of truth.

Here's a list of food additives that contain glutamate, the "death toxin". Take a tour of your pantry and let me know how many foods contain these items.

http://www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html

Quote:Names of ingredients that always contain processed free glutamic acid:


Glutamic acid (E 620)2
Glutamate (E 620)
Monosodium glutamate (E 621)

Monopotassium glutamate (E 622)

Calcium glutamate (E 623)

Monoammonium glutamate (E 624)

Magnesium glutamate (E 625)

Natrium glutamate

Anything “hydrolyzed”

Any “hydrolyzed protein”

Calcium caseinate, Sodium caseinate

Yeast extract, Torula yeast

Yeast food, Yeast nutrient

Autolyzed yeast

Gelatin

Textured protein

Whey protein

Whey protein concentrate

Whey protein isolate

Soy protein

Soy protein concentrate

Soy protein isolate

Anything “protein”

Anything “protein fortified”

Soy sauce

Soy sauce extract

Anything “enzyme modified”

Anything containing “enzymes”

Anything “fermented”

Anything containing “protease”

Vetsin

Ajinomoto

Umami

Names of ingredients that often contain or produce processed free glutamic acid during processing:

Carrageenan (E 407)

Bouillon and broth

Stock

Any “flavors” or “flavoring”

Natural flavor

Maltodextrin

Oligodextrin

Citric acid, Citrate (E 330)

Anything “ultra-pasteurized”

Barley malt

Malted barley

Brewer’s yeast

Pectin (E 440)

Malt extract

Seasonings

(1) Glutamic acid found in unadulterated protein does not cause adverse reactions. To cause adverse reactions, the glutamic acid must have been processed/manufactured or come from protein that has been fermented.

(2) E numbers are use in Europe in place of food additive names.



The following are ingredients suspected of containing or creating sufficient processed free glutamic acid to serve as MSG-reaction triggers in HIGHLY SENSITIVE people:



Corn starch
Corn syrup
Modified food starch
Lipolyzed butter fat
Dextrose

Rice syrup

Brown rice syrup
Milk powder
Reduced fat milk (skim; 1%; 2%)
most things “low fat” or “no fat”
anything “enriched”

anything “vitamin enriched”

anything “pasteurized”

Annatto

Vinegar

Balsamic vinegar

certain amino acid chelates (Citrate, aspartate, and glutamate are used as chelating agents with mineral supplements.)

You trying to tell me you don't consume anything that has these items in its ingredients? That's almost the entire grocery store right there!

Let's not forget we have a whole thread on here dedicated to fermenting foods, tons of guys consuming whey protein, and even more taking shots of apple cider vinegar every single day. Y'all trying to tell me kimchi is dangerous?

I'm sorry, but this "sensitivity" is utter crap. I'm willing to bet almost three quarters of all the food in your pantry has one or more of these items in them. How's that sensitivity working out for you?

Glutamate isn't dangerous. Bad science and the nocebo effect, however, are.

Post: #21

I get a nasty headache if dishes use too much msg. Im sensitive to it if i overload on it (easy to do for Chinese food).

Post: #22

Nice song with actual scientific data.

And no - the glutamate contained in cheese is not identical to the monosodium glutamate - the reaction is highly different.

I recommend someone to cut off MSG out of the diet - it is not that difficult to do frankly. Then after a month or 2 you can start again and you will quickly see whenever you eat it, because there is a distinct reaction fo the body to it. I get even sniffles and something in my skin - and quite a few people I know experienced something similar.

Of course - if you eat it constantly, then it's very well possible for your body to get used to it - or even crave it, but it is not healthy.

Post: #23

(01-27-2018 05:38 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  And no - the glutamate contained in cheese is not identical to the monosodium glutamate - the reaction is highly different.

Really Zel? You're beating this thread back up again?

This is basic high school chemistry. They're exactly the same, minus the addition of a single ion of sodium. Has it ever occurred to you that you may have a sensitivity to things that are heavily salted?

That's like saying the h2o in your cheese isn't the same as the h2o in your tap water.

It's the reason why all these hoity-toity double blind studies can't seem to find a reason for this self reported reaction.

Shoot, not even rags like the Guardian agree with you and they peddle the whole all organics all the time mumbo: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...drome-myth

Quote:In May this year, the medical journal Clinical & Experimental Allergy published a review of more than a decade of scientific research into "the possible role of MSG in the so-called 'Chinese restaurant syndrome'".

Chinese restaurant syndrome is the popular slang for allergies or adverse reactions that some people claim they get after eating food containing the flavour-enhancer monsodium glutamate, or MSG, that is widely used in many processed foods and also added to many Asian dishes.

What is amazing about the publication of this research is not that it concludes MSG allergy is a myth, but that a scientific journal still needs to bother debunking such pseudoscience at all. As the New York Times put it in an article by Julia Moskin published last year, "'Chinese restaurant syndrome' has been thoroughly debunked (virtually all studies since then confirm that monosodium glutamate in normal concentrations has no effect on the overwhelming majority of people)".

This newspaper published an article in 2005 by Alex Renton that says "at no time has any official body, governmental or academic, ever found it necessary to warn humans against consuming MSG".

Renton also writes about experimenting on a friend of his named Nic, who claimed to have adverse reactions to MSG: Renton feeds him a meal full of the MSG and closely related naturally occurring glutamates that are found in a huge range of foods including tomatoes, cheese, Marmite, seaweed and Worcester sauce. But Nic feels no pain or adverse reaction after his glutamate-stuffed meal.

That's because he did not know he was eating MSG and other glutamates: like everyone else who complains of allergy or adverse reactions to MSG, Nic has psyched himself into believing that the benign substance makes him feel bad.

In China, where I live, you don't hear many complaints about MSG allergy. They're too busy gorging themselves on the stuff. Chinese people consume 1.6m to 1.8m tonnes of MSG crystals every year, according to China's "MSG King" Li Xuechun, chairman of the Fufeng Group – a company that grew big enough to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange thanks to sales of MSG.

Most restaurants and home kitchens in China have a big bag of MSG crystals, known in Chinese as weijing, or "flavour essence", and they toss it liberally into all kinds of savoury dishes. Even chefs who don't use glutamate crystals use soy sauce in most recipes, and soy sauce tastes good precisely because it's chock full of glutamates.

[Snip]

The persistence of the Chinese restaurant syndrome myth is a symptom of the hypochondria that has become fashionable in contemporary Anglo-American culture, and the failure of our educational systems to teach people the difference between quackery and hard science.

Glutamate is not going to do you any harm. If a dish has its salt reduced with the addition of msg, you wouldn't notice a thing.

Outside of for profit hack doctors, the scientifically ignorant, and hypochondriacs the allergy doesn't exist. Take a 100 grams spoonful of sugar, salt, or better yet nutmeg and put that in your mouth.

Tell me how are you going to feel after that? Probably like crap!

Post: #24

I personally do not mind "umami" naturally occurring in foods, but chemical monosodium glutamate does hurt my nerves and that nervous irritation tends to stay in my system for two weeks at the most, after a one-time consumption.

Addendum: the last time this happened to me, it was Christmas Day 2017, as I recalled eating nachos. It must had been the additive from the nachos.

Post: #25

Heh - there is a study out there that shows mice getting blind from MSG. Try replicating that by feeding them massive amounts of cheese.

But hey - if you honestly think that millions of people in the world are just guilty of mass-psychosis and the alternative studies out there are just crazy hippie-vegans, then so be it.

We disagree on this. That's fine. I don't beef with men who I agree with on almost anything that truly matters.