How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016) | Hacker News Reader

How MSG Got a Bad Rap (2016)

fivethirtyeight.com

124 pointsmatt4077173 comments

IMHO the fact that Asians have been consuming it in huge amounts for over a century, and yet there hasn't been any common health problems linked to it, should be enough of a clue that it's not really harmful...

I've found that restaurants in China in general tend to use a lot more MSG and other glutamate products than North America, enough to give me a little bit of a "high". It would not surprise me that someone not used to it would probably not like the experience. I once went to a "no MSG" one (they exist over there too, because the "chemicals are bad" line of thought is just as prevalent) without being aware of it, and found the food rather bland --- only upon leaving did I notice the signage.

>IMHO the fact that Asians have been consuming it in huge amounts for over a century, and yet there hasn't been any common health problems linked to it, should be enough of a clue that it's not really harmful...

This isn't really a good argument. Western people use lactose in a variety of ways such as a drink additive (tea), for cooking (cheese, cream-based sauces), and even consuming by the glass (good ol' fashion milk). However, there's a high prevalence of lactose intolerance in Asian countries. There are just some sensitivities, diseases, and reactions that are more prevalent in some ethnicities than others including lactose intolerance, sickle-cell anemia, and Tay-Sachs disease.

For the record, I keep a bottle of MSG in my pantry. I love the stuff, and the only way you'll get me to stop using it is by prying it from my cold, dead hands.

Not to mention "Asian Glow." There are a number of health experiences that are personal.

Clumsy attempts to make across-the-board statements about healthy or not will necessarily fail in these circumstances.

Presuming all backgrounds of people who have had different evolutionary paths are the same or would react the same biologically to different chemicals doesn't make sense to me. For example, many Asians from my current understanding - and correct me if I'm wrong, can't process Alcohol the same way the rest of us can - which leads a higher percentage of them getting a red face.

I too would get a bit of a "high" - whether it's the same experience that we both have or not, for me it also would cause me ADD/focus problems for many hours afterward and give me a headache.

You're right that some people could become conditioned or accustomed to it if they eat it regularly, however I wonder then what the long-term impact is - and how easy it would be to measure more subtle impact.

By numbers (and likely volume and mass) it is non-asians are more properly labelled "the rest".

Pretty sure asian in this case is limited to east-asians, in which case you’re at a meager 1.7B humans

It's the first I hear about "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" but MSG is 12.28g per 100g sodium and so should be avoided by, or at the very least restricted in the diets of, people on a low-sodium diet, such as hypertensives, kidney patients and diabetics.

_________________

Source of the 12.28g per 100g claim:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5694874/

Which actually advocates for the use of MSG to reduce sodium, which I find very unreasonable. The point of MSG is to increase the umami taste- but you can get that from glutamate acid, without the sodium. The only extra thing you get from MSG is the extra sodium.

The article says that only a small amount of MSG is required to enhance taste, but just try asking workers in restaurants how much MSG is in the food they serve you. Try asking them how much salt is in it, even - I have a relative on a low sodium diet and I know it's pointless, people don't even understand the question. "How much salt? What do you mean?".

And of course, just because someone puts MSG in their food doesn't mean they don't also add extra salt to it. The result is that people like my relative can't eat food with MSG without getting about twice their safe daily intake from a single meal.

Another study on 1227 Chinese adults found that MSG increased blood pressure over a period of 5 years:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21372742

But I can't read the full text.

>But I can't read the full text.

append the link to sci-hub.tw/

https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21372...

When cooking with MSG you generally use a very small amount, so the sodium isn't going to be an issue - I've found any more than a small pinch can completely ruin a dish.

See this previous in-depth discussion that includes references and links to the original Harvard and USG research findings on the issues with MSG, aspartame and artificial sweeteners/flavors in general, like why it's banned in baby food: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6703802

I routinely sprinkle MSG onto my roast potatoes and into salads. Just a tiny bit and everyone is wondering how I make such amazingly tasty food.

MSG won me over after I read about Nathan Myhrvold using it in his science kitchen.

I ate MSG (Accent bottle) growing up in the 1980's but didn't think much of it. One day it went away and I also didn't notice since I was a kid.

At 33 years of age, a Dominican was sprinkling the same damn style of Accent bottle on his tacos. I asked him if that was MSG, and he said yes. I borrowed it, put some on my pasta with sausage, ate it, and I have great hatred towards the last two decades of taste augmentation stolen from me as a result of the MSG myth.

I am totally all for spewing MSG on everything, but it might not be best that you're secretly adding msg to foods you serve a bunch of people without their awareness. Not that I agree with their stupid world views but if someone wants to believe that MSg is bad for them, then it's their choice. I think we should not accidentally or deliberately serve something to someone they might not prefer to eat.

What about secretly adding salt or pepper? How about olive oil?

If you're cooking food for people it's not common to get pre-approval of the ingredients beyond asking for any dietary restrictions.

>If you're cooking food for people it's not common to get pre-approval of the ingredients beyond asking for any dietary restrictions.

you're a lucky chef. You'll get a real reality check when cooking for an elderly bunch of diabetics who automatically presume the world is low-sodium.

I've found it's just easier to automatically presume that everyone has dietary restrictions, just some much more mild than most (some hate brocolli, and some will die if they are near peanuts, but it's the same scale.).

>just some much more mild than most (some hate brocolli, and some will die if they are near peanuts, but it's the same scale.)

Did you just equate a preference/dislike of a food as being the same as a uncontrollable biological response to an allergen?

I wouldn't say that cooking for an elderly bunch of diabetics is the norm, so I'd say you're unlucky rather than the parent being lucky to not cook for people like you described. How exactly do you go about handling this, show them the ingredients while/before cooking?

If I'm cooking for you, I'm assuming you're not allergic to anything unless you tell me.

Beyond that, I expect people to cook what they think people will enjoy when they invite me over, and I do the same when I invite them over.

> I’ve found it's just easier to automatically presume that everyone has dietary restrictions...

Could you explain more how you do this in practice? Do you list out all ingredients in a menu? Or do you have a list of standard dietary restrictions that most people have (pork, shellfish, dairy, beef, coconut, peanuts, horseradish, salt, ...) and just remove all of them?

Don't presume, ask; something like "do you have any dietary requirements?" along with a dinner invitation. Covers everything from vegetarianism to highly specific allergies. Also puts the ball in the other person's court to be clear upfront before anything is cooked or purchased.

That is what I do. I’m curious what serf does.

Nobody will mention MSG in this scenario unless they have a very acute allergy to it.

Then everyone gets MSG if the chef wants it. Chef is not telepath.

Or they have an irrational fear of it. Same goes for GM etc.

If they don't want to consume something they need to say so.

Should I warn my diners of added glutamate via parmessan, tomatoes, sea weed, fish sauce, cured meats or other foods high in glutamate?

It's present in large quantities in Doritos, most other packaged salty snack foods, Kentucky Fried Chicken, soy extract, shiitake mushrooms, broccoli, walnuts, etc.

I highly doubt MSG has any health risk associated with it due to its natural presence in many foods.

It's more likely that it became a racist stand-in, considering there are other false Chinese food tropes: Quality or source of meat (allusions to cats and dogs), cleanliness of kitchens, MSG, etc.

The race thing is a complete red-herring. The only question that matters is "How does it make me personally feel after I eat it?"

It really doesn't even matter how it makes the average statistical sample psychology students feel.

> The only question that matters is "How does it make me personally feel after I eat it?"

Even this question is problematic because of the nocebo effect.

FWIW I've always called MSG "Makes Stuff Good," because it does just that... I realized it wasn't bad mostly because there was no seeming regularity to if I felt bad after eating foods with it.

Eventually it dawned on me that perhaps overeating an abundance of oil in foods with it probably makes me feel like shit, and... yep, it was the oil (maybe others will have similar anecdotes).

Same here. It’s especially bad if you normally eat a pretty balanced diet with a reasonable amount of fat and sugar, and then have anything from an American-Chinese meal or a fast food burger and fries. I can pretty much set a clock by the 3 hours until I um... well you get the picture. Maybe it’s not the same for everyone, but I suspect for people who don’t eat s ton of “high octane” food, a big meal of fat and sugar makes you feel a bit off at the very least.

MSG though? Love the stuff. It actually makes it easier to use less fat, sugar, and other things you want in moderation because it, as you say, makes stuff good.

I think it makes everything taste the same in an intense but uninteresting way, to be honest. It gives it the bad Chinese restaurant quality. Quantity matters, obviously.

I read a comment years ago about a chef who stays that msg makes water taste like soup. So yeah, it improves the taste, but not in a good way. It's similar to drinking tea with a cup of sugar mixed in. msg isn't as bad as sugar when normalizing on how much people consume, but it's still used as a replacemment for good food.

It's carbs for me, but yeah, it's never the actual MSG obviously.

Sugar and wheat are the worst combo for me... I'm very conscious about my food, and MSG isn't on my black list (I live in Asia)

Though I am skeptical of the bad rep MSG gets, I find that I can get the same umami flavor for the most part from using nutritional yeast. I like the fact that it gives me control over the umami aspect of what I'm cooking without altering the salt content. That let's me control the saltiness of the food with actual salt rather than adding MSG and hoping I'm not oversalting for the sake of having that "secret sauce" effect MSG imparts.

I have no idea if it's truly healthier than MSG (the claims on both substances are many and varied, both heavily skewed by questionable research), but it's a great ingredient to cook with.

(Full disclosure, I'm not a vegetarian/vegan, so no bias there. I know nutritional yeast is usually tied to that group, but I'm just a person who likes cooking with just about everything I can get my hands on.)

I find nutritional yeast tastes cheesy. It's just not the same as MSG. I also find that MSG goes a long way... just a dash in an entire casserole can elevate the taste without going into salty territory.

By themselves, they definitely do not have a 1-1 taste. But if you put MSG and yeast in a dish where they are well integrated (such as the casserole you mentioned) and evened out the salt, I'd be hard pressed to tell you which is which.

That's just me though. I see what you are saying.

I use a mix of porcini/shiitake/maitake powders, nutritional yeast, MSG, stock bases (with their hydrolized proteins), fish sauce, soy sauce, Vietnamese mushroom seasoning, and Worcestershire sauce to control my umami, and they all have their specific uses. Nutritional yeast and fish sauce are the most likely NOT to go with the flavors of whatever I'm cooking, and MSG can literally go into anything as long as I know I want to use it prior to doing the final salt edit.

On this topic, there's an excellent episode of This American Life where someone looks into one of the origins of this idea, and it takes some interesting turns:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/668/the-long-fuse

Just use yeast extract and magically nobody will get headaches.

Something similar is done to placate “intelligent free thinkers” who think nitrates and nitrites are the devil. If you go into a Whole Foods practically every cured meat is labeled “Uncured! Nitrate free!” If you follow the inevitable asterisk though, you see the the caveat “Except those derived from natural sources, such as celery juice.”

facepalm

Just... eat less bacon, and don’t kid yourself that it somehow matters how the nitrates got there.

Nitrates are unhealthy, even if vendors are intentionally misleading about celery.

The weird thing is, many vegetables are full of nitrates but people only seem to care when they are in meat.

That (probably) has some reality, because the issue is that nitrates and high heat cooking + proteins probably causes generation of Nitrosamine, which are carcinogenic.

Don't eat meat all the time and you will be fine.

I saw a TV program which claimed to be disproving MSG allergies/reactions. The science in it was terrible, though - they served one of two meals to a bunch of people claiming allergies, one of which had artificial MSG added and the other, 'placebo' meal had a seaweed extract added which contained naturally occurring MSG. Then they proceeded to deride the people who showed allergic reactions to the "placebo" as fakers, despite it containing the exact chemical that they'd claimed a sensitivity to.

I wish people would stop using yeast extract and just stick to MSG. Yeast extract always leaves a weird taste in my mouth that won't go away for hours. It's even worse that almost all kinds of chips available in my country that aren't just plain salt use yeast extract these days.

Stop eating chips? Your body will thank you.

does calling MSG "yeast extract" work too?

No, one contains a potential allergen.

Yeah, the yeast extract.

The MSG panic was one of a chain of food ingredient hysterias that have surfaced the last few decades. The government regulates food additives, in an effort to ensure that we can all trust our food supply. But food is the "think of the children" of personal choices where risk-averse preferences are difficult to criticize, science has vague answers about no observed adverse effects that don't satisfy choosy people, research is rife with conflicts of interest, and anyone can pretend to be an authority and dispense opinion. It also doesn't help that food regulations aren't the same in every country. This invites scrutiny into the reasons why some have banned a substance while others have not, or perhaps not yet.

MSG got caught up in an extended wave of unease against artificial preservatives, artificial colors, trans fats, and even high fructose corn syrup. Smart companies picked up on "changing consumer preference", and replaced these until a few years passed and the hysteria began to die down.

Better (from a science perspective) and more recent article on the topic:

https://www.seriouseats.com/2019/01/ask-the-food-lab-the-tru...

MSG is most likely safe to eat, judging by the copious amount poured into each and every dish ever, in each and every Chinese restaurant that I've been to.

It tasted great when I was only eating in restaurants once in a while. I soon got pretty sick of it after eating out a few times a week for a few months.

There's probably a judicious amount that could enliven a dish without overpowering the food. Alas, the amounts Chinese restaurants are using just make everything taste the same sickeningly savory taste.

From the article:

> As my colleague Christie Aschwanden has explained, once we reach false conclusions, our brains prevent us from accepting new information that can correct those mistaken assumptions.

Can't find any science in that article or its links? Just pop culture references.

Best I can find say "Further study needed" or "Effect is uncommon". Neither of which deny there can be a link between MSG and headaches at least for some people.

If you want anything approaching science when discussing food, serious eats is the place to go:

https://www.seriouseats.com/2019/01/ask-the-food-lab-the-tru...

I've isolated MSG as a cause of sinus headaches for me, along with a handful of other foods. It is in some flavored chips, and the first few times when going back and trying to figure out what caused my headache I was surprised to see it in the ingredient list since it has such a stigma. I also run into it at kbbq places mixed in with the salt.

Not saying it is bad for everyone, but it is a consistent issue for me.

Not sure you've "proven" it's MSG though. Warm up some chocolate cubes, sprinkle msg and sandwich the cubes so it's in the middle. Then ask an SO to randomize and give you chocolate with or without msg every few days without telling you and note when you get headaches. My initial guess is that doing this 6-9 times you should get sufficient signal (if it's indeed true that MSG absolutely gives you headaches Everytime ) to fairly conclusively prove it.

You’d need to administer it in such a way that you can’t detect it by taste, and as pmoriarty says, to be double blind is a further challenge. You can however modify your protocol. Instead of chocolate buy some unfilled pill capsules (very cheap) and have a friend fill half with a pinch of salt, and half with a pinch of MSG. This friend makes a note of which caps are MSG, and without informing you or your SO which is which. The friend can simply assign each cap a day, and keep the key to which day is MSG in a notebook and be revealed later. From there, follow your protocol. It’s now double-blind, and you won’t taste what it is you’re taking and have some subconscious reaction.

I intended to write that s/he should just swallow the chocolate to not taste what's inside but I forgot. I mean if we are gonna give this dude headaches at the least let's make it chocolate?

Bad science. Chocolate has a lot of confounding components such as Tyramine which is said to trigger migraines in the sensitive.

Which would show join the test put forward.

Agree with your point but the way you got there doesn't add up.

Just to be clear: to be double-blind, both of you would need to not know which cubes are which until after the experiment.

If the experimenter knows which are which and the subject doesn't, it's only single-blind. The disadvantage of this is that the experimenter might inadvertently reveal some clue to the subject as to which is which. That would make the experiment's conclusions more suspect than double-blind.

I get where you're coming from but my diet is simple enough at this point that the stuff is isolated. I had sinus headaches for 23 years. I slowly cut out foods over a period of 5 years to find triggers. I eat the same thing everyday now that I know what not to eat.

I do check the ingredients first now, but previously it was all reverse engineering from getting a headache to going back and seeing what I ate. I'd happily do a study in a lab, if it meant published research was going to be put out. The sinus headaches are miserable enough that I'll never be doing it just for interest.

Chocolate is a no go because I've cut out sugar and caffeine as well. I mostly eat meat, non-gluten carbs, and broccoli.

For MSG, I don't know about it ahead of time. If I do, I don't eat the food. For example, went to kbbq, ate some plain meat, rice, and egg, got a headache after leaving. Next time I was there I asked about MSG because it was the most likely trigger to be used. Turns out it was in the steamed egg and the salt and pepper mix. Avoided those and felt fine for multiple visits after.

I think this is a blind way of discovery because I didn't have assumptions about the triggers when I started trying to figure what they were.

All you've isolated is the placebo effect unless you react that same way to all glutamate containing foods. Chicken broth has tons of glutamate in it, if chicken broth doesn't cause your headaches then neither does MSG. And if you're thinking that the glutamate in chicken broth or other foods could be reacting differently because it's not monosodium glutamate, that's not possible because the instant MSG is dissolved you no longer have MSG, you have sodium ions and glutamate ions. That's chemically the same as the sodium ions and glutamate ions in chicken broth. Glutamate is present in everything from tomatoes, to mushrooms, to parmesan cheese.

Anecdotes are not evidence, and the evidence is clear.

Yea, tomatoes give me sinus headaches too. I don't do broth because of sodium nitrites in the celery have also been a consistent issue. Where does the glutamate come from in broth? I hadn't heard that before.

Good point on the rest but it sounds like in this dudes case the evidence is not clear, which makes your conclusion sound ranty compared to the suggestion of a double blind trial.

MSG naturally occurs in naturally ripened tomatoes and some cheeses. Do you also have issues with those?

Reactions to MSG are not allergic.

It's not like eating something cooked in a pot that previously had shrimp type of thing.

A fairly macroscopically large dose of the stuff does something with the blood flow in veins around the head or sensitivity of nerves or something. It's not a serious medical condition, like an allergic attack; just a nuisance.

Can you provide some studies that prove the effects you are describing? I have definitely looked, but the only credible studies I've found conclude there is absolutely no way to get an adverse response unless you are eating multiple grams of pure MSG on a completely empty stomach with no other food. That is the "best case" scenario, there's plenty of studies concluding they can't find any evidence at all.

Unfortunately not everything has been studied. For my case, there are a lot of celiacs that report sinus headaches [1], but I can't find a single paper on it. Is it a real problem? Definitely, I would love to be able to eat whatever. Can I point to research? Nope.

1. https://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/coeliac-disease-sinusit...

You want a credible study? Eat a teaspoon of MSG & try not to have a migraine.

That would be approximately the same as trying to eat only a tablespoon of salt. Which would definitely cause headaches, at least from dehydration.

You're only supposed to use a half teaspoon to flavor six whole servings of soup. It's an incredibly strong flavor enhancer, and is really not recommended for solo consumption.

> Which would definitely cause headaches, at least from dehydration.

In the summers, when I sweat a lot due to running and cycling, I dump that much salt into a bowl of soup. I don't have any ill effects. In fact, beefing up the salt intake wards off muscle cramps and lethargy.

Japan's allowance for daily salt intake for men sets an upper bound of 12 grams (salt, not sodium).

You have it backwards, by the way. MSG has a rather large molecular weight compared to NaCL. A given mass of MSG has less sodium than the same mass of salt. This is very easy to get in precise numbers: the molecular weight of MSG 169.111 g/mol is and of salt 58.44 g/mol. A mole of MSG has the same amount of sodium as a mole of salt: one weighs 169g. the other 54g: close to triple. Secondly, MSG is less dense than salt: the same mass of MSG takes 33% more space than a given mass of salt. This magnifies the difference. Basically if we have equal sized heaps of salt and MSG, the MSG has about 1/4 of the sodium compared to the salt.

In a restaurant, they can easily dump a teaspoon of MSG (about 4g) into your mapotofu or noodle soup or whatever. Manufactured products of good brands are going to be reasonable. Someone holding a shaker MSG over a pot isn't going to be that much. Not consistently so, day in, day out. Consider that some of the ingredients already have MSG (e.g. marinated or processed meats), then there is natural glutamate in some of it, and then they add some half teaspoon (about 2g) of MSG crystals. Things add up.

> In a restaurant, they can easily dump a teaspoon of MSG (about 4g) into your mapotofu or noodle soup

That seems unlikely to me - that is a lot of MSG. I occasionally use MSG when cooking at home, and quickly realised that any more than a small pinch per serving completely ruins a dish.

Also, do you seriously put a tablespoon of salt in a single bowl of soup? I can't understand how that could be palatable!

Most restaurants will also oversalt the food.

If the problem with the ingredient is that it's being overused, the problem is not the ingredient, it's the cook.

The MS in MSG is for sodium, so yeah a large dose hurts. "MSG good or bad?" isn't the main question. "MSG vs salt" is.

Tomatoes yes. Haven't isolated types of cheese but it's good to know. Had some soft brie last week without issue. I keep my diet really simple to not get headaches, so cheese isn't a huge part of my life.

MSG is frequently used despite it's bad rap because the people who dislike it are a vocal minority. Most people say that food prepared with MSG tastes great, unaware that MSG is in it or that some people think they should object to that.

I will say I've noticed I get a headache after Korean bbq but I'm pretty sure its the beer and salt.

Sliced tomatoes sprinkled with salt, pepper and msg on toast are very good.

Although I imagine if you can get decent vine ripened heirloom tomatoes where you are the msg would probably be unnecessary.

> decent vine ripened heirloom tomatoes where you are

If this is in America, not grown in your own garden, I'd love to hear where this is, because tomatoes in Seattle are absolutely terrible.

Try a non-Kroger/non-Safeway owned green grocer like Rainer Farmers Market, they generally have tastier veggies and fruit (along with stuff you don't get at chain stores) as that is all they deal in.

Limes are way cheaper at green grocers too, I swear its a Seattle thing where the large grocery stores know your only buying limes to go with your liquor, and thus charge obscene prices :c

I live in the valley and have been to a few of the fruit stands; Columbia City Farmer's Market can be OK too. Still, not much luck. I am aware tomatoes are hard as hell to grow consistently well and I should accept some variance, but man, outside of Red Roma Tomatoes (had had good luck with them generally for caprese salad), it's been tough.

PCC has a good slicing tomato variety that tastes great and stores great.

I saved seeds, plan to plant them in my garden.

The south east has amazing tomatoes. I do miss them as I'm currently in Colorado and it's hard to find good full flavored tomatoes.

No doubt. Midwest too during the right seasons.

in the Bay Area Monterey Market (berkeley) and Berkeley Bowl both have amazing tomatoes most of the year.

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10866115

I grew up eating foods with MSG. I'm usually aware of it. It's one of cooks' favorite abused ingredients. Eating a lot of MSG is bad, just like eating a lot of anything, sugar, salt.

You're never eating "a lot" of MSG, though. Even the most abusive chef is adding it at the level of well under half a gram per serving, whereas you're eating minimum 5x that in salt and likely 10-20x that in sugar if you're not optimizing for minimal sugar intake.

Would you drink a can of pop in which 30g of sugar were replaced with 30g of MSG?

Would you drink a can of pop in which 30g of sugar where replaced with 30g of salt?

Of course not. No one claimed it is comparable 1 to 1.

If we don't compare 1 to 1, even too much water is bad for you. You can die, and there will be a headache involved.

> If we don't compare 1 to 1

This is a false dichotomy. You can meaningfully compare effects when there are differing dose dependencies. Its just another variable to consider and in no way makes it impossible or meaningless.

That would taste terrible! More on point: ingesting 30g of MSG is probably less harmful than 30g of sugar.

That's an awful lot of sodium to throw out the potassium sodium balance, even after considering the mass of the glutamate ion. I don't think it could actually be better than the same mass of sugar.

That could be true even if the MSG happens to give you an awful headache in the short term.

No[0], it won't [1], that's the point of the article.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4870486

[1] https://academic.oup.com/jn/article-abstract/125/11/2891S/47...

[0] is shill work by researchers working for a MSG manufacturer. I have seen this before. One even has an "ajiusa.com" e-mail address right there, /palmface/. Can't comment on on [1]: the entire paper is paywalled as far as I can see, not even a hint at the results.

Let's try something else:

Graham TE, Sgro V, Friars D, Gibala MJ. 2000. Glutamate ingestion: the plasma and muscle free amino acid pools of resting humans. American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism 278:E83–89.

These researchers provided single 150mg/kg oral doses of MSG to 9 healthy volunteers (8 males, 1 female) to determine the plasma and muscle concentrations of glutamate following ingestion. All volunteers reported transient headaches.

Shimada A, Cairns BE, Vad N, Ulriksen K, Pedersen AML, Svensson P, Baad-Hansen L. 2013. Headache and mechanical sensitization of human pericranial muscles after repeated intake of monosodium glutamate (MSG). Journal of Headache and Pain 14:2

More than 50% of healthy, male subjects given 150mg/kg daily doses developed headaches.

> Let's try something else

N=8 or 9 (low power), 150 mg/kg(!) doses.

That's like ingesting 11 g of the stuff for a 75 kg adult.

from [0]:

>Because of the absence of proper blinding, and the inconsistency of the findings, we conclude that further studies are required to evaluate whether or not a causal relationship exists between MSG ingestion and headache.

And that's from people paid by their boss to show that there is no such effect.

I have no antipathy towards MSG. I can taste that it tastes good. The thing is really: It messes with my sleep. I don't know how, but sometimes I get a high dose in me and I just cannot get to sleep, like at all. Elevated heart rate, mind racing, all night long. _That_ I do not like. I don't believe it's an evil chemical, it's naturally occurring after all. But yeah, if someone knows a hack to cure the occassional insomnia... that'd be great.

See comment from tptacek from an earlier discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10866718

Could the intense short lived headaches be caused by something other than glutamate? I consume a lot of msg and aren't bothered by it but I do get severe acute head pain when I eat McDonald's spicy buffalo sauce. Kind of freaked me out the two bites I had before quitting.

Wanted to give you a separate reply for an insomnia hack. The best thing I ever did was find someone who did cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Ultimately insomnia is self perpetuating because we start to have anxiety about not being able to sleep, which fires up our fight or flight responses. Our body then starts to automatically associate bedtime with anxiety.

If you can find someone who treats anxiety with CBT they should be able to cure you of the insomnia.

If you can’t, then the best advice I ever got was to simply repeat to yourself, it’s not a big deal. “Maybe I’ll stay awake all night. Who cares. It won’t kill me. Even laying with my eyes closed is recuperative.” Basically don’t fight the insomnia or anxiety it produces. If you can just stop caring about it, eventually your nervous system will catch up.

Also make sure you don’t have sleep apnea... that can also cause anxiety because you’re choking on a nightly basis.

There's an insomnia-specific CBT practice (CBTI) which is more targeted than general anxiety.

Unlikely to be the MSG.

Agree with other reply that tptacek has a good take. One thing to keep in mind is that glutamates play a role as neurotransmitters. It’s possible that if large doses are taken on an empty stomach they may exacerbate some insomnia symptoms.

It’s unclear how much of an effect it has though. Just like tryptophan in large doses can cause drowsiness. However for instance people eating turkey and getting sleepy assume it’s the tryptophan when really it’s just the large quantities of food they just ate, and the tryptophan really has no effect.

So like tptacek says... could be the sodium. But also dont just dismiss the role of glutamate out of hand.

And even if it does cause issues in some people, it’s probably also totally safe based on all the evidence.

I inferred it was probably basically fine when my Swiss relatives served a (relatively fancy, celebratory) dinner and provided it in a labeled shaker alongside salt and pepper.

MSG was a godsend to me because I am one of the few people on the planet allergic to yeast. Then everyone decided MSG was bad and put allergens all in their foods again.

Caldo de Tomato!!!

https://www.amazon.com/Knorr-Granulated-Bouillon-Tomato-Chic...

This stuff is essential for good Mexican cooking. Funny that only Chinese food gets a bad rap for MSG when it is far more pervasive.

Actual science:

The role of monosodium glutamate in headache

https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/...

This seems:

1 - not to have been published in any peer-reviewed journals

2 - a study on rats

3 - the rats were injected with MSG intravenously

4 - the amount of MSG injected intravenously was 50mg/kg, which would be equivalent to 2.5 grams of MSG for a 50kg person

Because of all of the above, it's not clear whether it's good science, and not clear if any of this research applies to humans, who normally don't inject gigantic amounts of MSG in to their veins.

> 2.5 grams of msg for a 50kg person

MSG is slightly more dense than sugar, with a specific gravity of 1.6 and comes in a crystalline form that resembles sugar.

4 grams of sugar is about a teaspoon, and the same can be expected of MSG. They can easily dump half a teaspoon of the stuff into your soup or sauce in a restaurant, treating it like salt or sugar.

This amazing paper is valuable not just for its work on rats, but for its references.

It's also noteworthy that the researcher basically considers it a settled question that MSG causes headaches.

In this work, she isn't trying to answer the question "do rats get a headache from MSG".

You'd have to be crazy to add 2.5 grams worth of MSG to a single meal. Accent calls for using like 1/10th that amount in soup. That's no different than using 10x as much salt as a recipe calls for, it's not going to turn out so great.

I work in restaurants and have seen chefs add two heaping table spoons of it to a pot of soup without hesitating.

Depending on the size of the pot that might be about right. The problem I have with the studies referenced is that they wildly overestimated MSG intake and their threshold effect was at a level similar to eating one of those heaping tablespoons of MSG by itself with no food. I'm sure MSG produces some noticeable effect at some point but those studies make it seem like the threshold they found was consistent with the amount you could plausibly eat in a normal meal seasoned with MSG.

That's something like 40 to 50 grams. Say it's an 8 liter pot, serving 16. That's like 2.5g to 3.1g per person, ouch! Then there is glutamate in that pot already from natural sources as well as possibly ingredients like processed meats and whatnot.

No, it's actually more like 24g to ~30g depending on how "heaping" the tablespoons were, you might be thinking of the specific gravity and using that to estimate the weight but an important consideration is that it's in a small crystalline form. 1/4 tsp of MSG is 1.0g which puts a tbsp at 12g. An estimate of only 16 servings is probably a bit on the low side as well. Even assuming all of that, that still only amounts to 24 mg/kg for a 70kg person whereas the paper you referenced indicated there was a threshold effect and used doses of 150 mg/kg.

> might be thinking of the specific gravity and using that to estimate the weight but an important consideration is that it's in a small crystalline form

I'm relying on the density of MSG being similar to that of sugar, and both being in crystalline form, then working from information around the web about the mass of heaped tablespoons of sugar.

(I know that not all crystals are of the same shape and not all pack the same. Something with needle-like crystals will end up fairly fluffy, unless mechanically crushed.)

In the paper I cited there is a reference to another one by Shimada, et al. 2013. Those researchers estimate the daily intake of MSG in industrialized countries to be between 50 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg. (That reference is given in section 2.4.1, p. 76).

So you're saying that MSG doesn't cause headaches, because nobody would be crazy enough to put 2.5 grams of it into the meal consumed by a 50 kg person? Or what is the logic here?

The paper cites at least two other studies which found that 150 mg/kg daily doses caused headaches: to 100% of the subjects in one of the studies, and more than 50% in the other.

The paper you cited references three other papers. The first paper just throws out an estimate with no source or data for it, just a figure. That figure is also not in mg/kg just total dietary intake. Honestly the figure itself is believable as it claims 0.3g to 1.0g per day which works out to 4.3mg/kg to 14.3 mg/kg for a 70 kg person.

The second paper isn't listing MSG or even just free glutamate, it's listing all glutamate content which as you pointed out in another comment, is not comparable.

The third paper cited appears to be where they got their wildly wrong claim of 50 mg/kg to 200 mg/kg from but this literally just cites the first two papers. I'm assuming they just converted the glutamate figures in the second paper and assumed all of that was MSG.

Either way the claim that average daily intake of MSG is between 50 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg is just flat out unfounded and wrong. The very first source they cite lists a figure less than 1/10th that amount and obviously does not support their claim. And keep in mind, a 150 mg/kg dose for an average person is 10.5 g, that's over 20x the recommended serving size.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/130/4/1058S/4686672

[2] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9f51/b5f34954560f02b0c01eb9...

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3606962/

If it truly is a settled question that MSG causes headaches in humans, when the MSG is ingested (not injected) in amounts humans normally eat, then it should be easy to find studies in reputable journals to this effect. Do you have a link to such studies?

The injection/ingestion distinction is important, because when one ingests something, the entire quantity is not instantly dumped in to the bloodstream as it is when injected. The food MSG is ingested with might also have an effect on its rate of absorption and its effects. It might also undergo some changes in the digestive tract before it gets in to the blood stream.

Because this particular researcher is looking for very specific effects, that she's trying to measure accurately. She's shaved an area of the rat's skulls down to a thin window through which she's able to observe blood flow changes.

> Do you have a link to such studies?

This paper has a bunch of these types of references; for that alone it's useful. See section 2.4.

By the way, injection would be a good way to double-blind an MSG experiment with humans properly: you can't taste an injection. Nobody can tell whether they are being injected saline or MSG.

And nobody is claiming that the effects of MSG are not dose-dependent; that there is no consumption threshold below which sufferers feel no ill effects. Those who believe that any amount of MSG, no matter how miniscule, can cause them discomfort are deranged. If it were so, they would get these effects from all sorts of common foods that naturally contain glutamate.

How about...putting it in a capsule?

MSG is well known by scientists to lead to obesity. In fact, they know it so well, that they've created a very reliable and reproducible procedure for it. Whenever they need to experiment on Rats, they put them under a procedure called: MSG induced Obesity. And just like that their appetites shoot through the roof and the rats reliably get really fat, every time.

Anecdotally, I eat asian food on a regular basis and I can tell whenever it's got MSG in it just by the taste. It gives you a sort of High and really drives your appetite making you feel you can't get enough of the dish. For someone like me, there's a huge noticeable difference between a dish with MSG and one without.

MSG will give me a headache every frickin' time. Guaranteed.

Unless tomatoes, Parmesan cheese, and aged beef also give you headaches every time, then its guaranteed not to be the MSG.

The difference is that those foods are high in glutamate, not the chemically-stabilised for easy human sprinkling 'monosodium glutamate'.

I've long suspected any headaches or perceived ill-effects from MSG consumption are probably just sodium spikes from dishes made with a bit too much msg and salt, perhaps washed down with some not enirely quenching alcoholic beverage.

There is a big difference between the glutamic acid in tomatoes and the refined devilry that is put in Campbell's soup, KFC chicken, and cheap asian food. I do have to watch protein powders and bars that have glutemic acid ... some of these will give me a headache (I am looking at you muscle milk).

Tyramine is supposed to trigger migraines and they are in parm and aged beef.

Eat a teaspoon of MSG. Remember, "its guaranteed not to be the MSG."

I might be willing to try this, but I am afraid of the outcome. The headaches are violent. I have had these headaches decades and I know my triggers. MSG is the king of triggers.

https://www.thedailymeal.com/eat/foods-you-didnt-know-contai...

Doritos, Pringles, KFC, campbells soup among others.

MSG fear is mostly about racism at this point.

This video is pretty relevant and more recent with some good information / background on things.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Sm8Yx-gWlMs

MSG unquestioningly is a headache trigger for me. I've done multiple A/B tests with MSG with/without spices.

Were the tests blinded? Did you do an additional test with just salt?

Does he need to? It's his own body.

If I burn my hand on a stove, am I obligated to to do a blinded A/B test with N=15 before I decide, for my own personal case, that the hot stove caused the burn mark?

I don't get why you're putting people on trial for noticing their own individual reactions to food. The article itself admits some people are sensitive to MSG.

Because people are notoriously terrible at this kind of self diagnosis.

I'm going to answer an anecdote with an anecdote here, but I was getting headaches that were completely correlated with food containing MSG. I "researched it" (cursorily google searched) and found that MSG was totally safe so I didn't want to believe it, but the correlation was there. Later I found out I had high blood pressure—the high MSG foods were also high sodium and the sodium was kicking my blood pressure up really high and causing headaches. When I got my blood pressure under control I tried MSG again and no headaches at all.

The body is complicated and things aren't always what they seem to be to our pattern seeking brains.

Yes, for something like “msg causes headaches”, that needs to be blinded to discern if there’s a placebo effect happening. It’s not nearly as straightforward as “touch hot surface, get burned”.

Parent brought up A/B, the person you're responding to asked if it was blinded. Doesn't seem like the affront you're making it out to be, it's an innocuous follow-up question.

So do you stay away from many processed foods like chips, frozen meals, and pre-packaged cold cuts?

I hereby title this post "Ingesting supplemental levels of glutamate — the single most important endogenous neurochemical — invariably does various stuff to the nervous system, the single most complicated system we study. Spending decades debating between black/white positions of 'it's always bad for everyone' and 'it's always fine for everyone' is ridiculous."

I've never met anyone in real life, or had a proper 1-on-1 online with anyone (with basic biology/neuroscience knowledge) who denied MSG's health/biological effects.

It's frickin glutamate. That's it. GABA is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter. Glutamate is the main excitatory neurotransmitter. Ingest various/increasing doses of the former, and you will be relaxed verging on sedating. Ingest increasing doses of the latter and you (and your whole nervous system) will be stimulated verging on seizure-y (for various reasons it wouldn't be possible to orally ingest enough glutamate to actually seize).

It's all a matter of doses. But seriously, grab some size 0 capsules, put 500mg of GABA or Glutamate (sodium glutamate aka MSG being the most readily available) in each, mix 'em up and have a party. You'll easily be able to tell which one you've taken after 15-30 mins. This is basic stuff.

Individual traits (species, morphology, and brain chemistry/epigenetics) all play a part, the same way they do for sensitivity/tolerance to any other ingested food constituent, herb, supplement, or drug. But for Glutamate at least, these factors mostly equate to differences in tolerated doses, because in the end there isn't anybody (or any species that I know of) for which Glutamate doesn't play the vital nervous system role we know it to play.

So, that's basic biology. Supplementing Glutamate/MSG generally isn't needed/wanted/pleasant. But is it so much of a problem in the amounts found in food? That's what the whole debate is about after all.

The answer is there is no answer. It's a nearly meaningless question. It's the kind of meaningless question/debate that comes out of the relationship between regulatory agencies and business/industry, because the former is tasked with the impossible task of making conservative black/white/one-sized-fit-all health decisions for the public, and the latter is tasked with making addictively-tasty things regardless of health impact as long as it's legal. They NEED the answer, and the answer they've come up with is SAFE.

The real answer, like any real answer to any biological/health question, is it's complicated. Or at least variable. It's a matter of how much you ingest until you experience/feel something you don't like. Maybe it's 500mg, maybe it's a gram or two. It doesn't really matter. "Consumers" should simply be able to know in advance the same way they do for salt and sugar content.

Please no one jump on this post for lack of sources. I'm not going to copy/paste 5 decades worth of research on Glutamate in humans/mammals for the sake of winning what is basically a nonsensical political/conspiracy-hunting-mob debate.

TL;DR I can eat MSG?

Yes.

Makes my friend go blind for a while after he eats it.

He should donate himself to science, and should also avoid... most food.

Yeah he's super careful with processed food.

This is a garbage non-article.

It admits some people have sensitivity to MSG.

It doesn't offer evidence against some other additive in chinese food is making people experience racing heart.

It doesn't even consider the possibility that in the past MSG had some impurity that caused a health issue that may not be reproducible now.

It doesn't even consider how detached the long-term effects of food are (think how long it takes to put on weight).

It likens the situation to anti-vaccine, which is basically the new Godwin's Law.

It has an obnoxious air of "Science knows everything right now and anybody who doesn't believe me is anti-science."

(The problem is that studies take decades to come to a consensus. The initial studies about leaded gasoline said it was totally safe, for example. But in this case the author doesn't bother to cite a single study that supports his case! Rather he just relies on name-value and a tone of superiority)

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