This article is very long and having skimmed it I'm still not entirely sure: is monosodium glutamate unhealthy or not after all?
> More recently, studies have roundly debunked the idea that MSG is harmful. Multiple studies using placebos have shown no difference in effects on people eating food with or without MSG. In 1995, the Food and Drug Administration asked an independent scientific group, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, to study MSG’s safety. It found that only a small number of people experienced any side effects, and that was only after consuming six times the normal serving of MSG on an empty stomach.
We've pretty clear evidence of harm from certain doses of cyanide. We don't have it for MSG, despite a whole lot of trying.
Some people have a lower tolerance than "most people", for any given chemical, MSG included.
I don't think this sentence has any meaning. What is "the same order of magnitude"? By the normal definition (still not great, but at least it's well-defined), 6 times x is only in the same order of magnitude as x when x is in the range [0,1.7), and it's in the next order of magnitude up when x is in [1.7,10). Even if we adjust that to a log scale, 6x is in the same order of magnitude when x is in the interval [0,0.23] and in the next higher order of magnitude when x is in (0.23, 1).
This is not a solid foundation for the idea that "six times is in the same order of magnitude", even if we think the sentence is interpretable.
The underlying message that some restaurants might plausibly put 6x the MSG of the standard dose comes across just fine and it doesn’t need to be nitpicked to hell.
Still, the point stands - a 6x difference between normally-served dose and a harmful one is way too small to call it non-harmful. How do you even define a normally-served dose? This needs further clarification with better definitions.
We happily accept a 1.5-2x margin for Tylenol.
If you accidentally put 6x the normal amount of MSG in some fried rice, you’re gonna know about it.
Sadly, almonds that taste of something have become much harder to find.
Where did you hear that potatoes contained cyanide?
Heuristics are a mental shortcut, not evidence themselves.
> Multiple studies using placebos have shown no difference in effects on people eating food with or without MSG.
Do you realize how many non-celiacs claim glutten intolerance? The existence of a fad does not preclude the existence of a condition.
> randomized blinded studies found no effect at all.
1. MSG in a capsule is not how MSG in food is delivered. So perhaps the delivery mechanism has something to do with it. Perhaps the capsule allows the MSG to pass the tongue, or esophagous, or stomach, with far less reactivity than free MSG does. Maybe the interaction of MSG with other chemicals is necessary for the effects to manifest.
2. Maybe there exists a psycophysical element for some subjects? Such as the commonplace phenomenon of non-celiac "gluten intolerant" people. If those types of people self-select to take part in a study, no wonder no connection is found. And real sufferers would stay far away from a study that promises to expose them to a chemical that they know to be harmful to themselves.
3. There have been many studies which have found no connection between smoking and lung cancer. There have been many studies which have found no connection between fossil fuel usage and climate change. The existence of a study which finds no connection does not mean that such a connection does not exist. Especially when a huge industry depends upon no connection being found.
There have been studies which get self-selecting individuals to test their reaction, which would make #2 less likely. The best study, I think is https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/027869..., where none of the individuals tested knew what they were being tested for. Maybe all msg sensitive people opted out of any food challenge, but that's not always the case, given the 2000 study in the linked tweet.
I think #1 is the most likely explanation, fwiw.
> it could be the case that all the studies are simply right
Ajinomoto is the powdered form that makes MSG easy. Traditionally umami is extracted through fermentation (as it is in soy sauce) or through konbu (seaweed) or fish (vietnamese fish sauce, katsuo dashi).
The only potential issue, as with any food, is with allergies. Growing up in Japan, there was a rumor that Ajinomoto may contribute to atopic dermatitis (atopy). Still doesn't appear to be any evidence of it [1].Of course, peanuts, milk, soy, wheat, fish, and eggs are the most common culprits, so it's not bad company to be in even if it were true.
[1] https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(06)03525-1/ful...
It's an amusing tale, but rather unsettling how easily fooled we can be. I remember (growing up as late as the '80s) people legitimately wondering whether an MSG allergy was responsible for their loaginess and fatigue. A number of tv news programs like 20/20 ran cover stories about it. To hear it was all bunk is a sobering reminder to take what we read with a grain of salt. Even much of the hysteria surrounding coronavirus and the like.
I don't have an answer to this, but these publications take a serious long term credibility hit with stories like these. And rightfully so.
And I think that's ultimately the culprit for this hoax.
Just because a reporter at a NYTimes lacks the most basic scientific knowledge to understand that this "letter to the editor" was merely a joke, doesn't mean that it's the fault of the scientific/medical journal -- with a very specific audience, mind you -- for taking a comedy minute.
What's next? We're not allowed to talk in our professional roles and circles using the long established terms for technical concepts, just because the jargon could be misinterpreted by people unfamiliar with the field and the subject matter? Oh... Nevermind...
Counter-tip -- if your children prefer to eat fast food, that may be due to the additives that make the fast food more enjoyable than home-cooked food. So learning how to incorporate some of their tricks into your own cooking can help your family enjoy the home-cooked foods more. In other words, learning how to enhance your cooking with MSG (Accent) can lead to more (healthy) meals consumed at home (assuming you are otherwise preparing healthy meals).
As for proportions -- I've used 1/4 teaspoon per pound of meet, or per 6 servings of stew/soups/vegetable dishes, etc.
"There’s no evidence to substantiate the claim that MSG causes ill effects in most people who consume it. A minority of people are hypersensitive to glutamate and MSG in food—added or natural—and in a study where MSG was given at 3 grams, in the absence of food, sensitive individuals had short-term, transient adverse reactions."
[0] https://peterattiamd.com/should-we-still-be-worried-about-ms...
There's another store brand called "Accent" that's good, too.
I'm being a little snotty about this, but the problem is that things often don't have "clean" stories behind them.
Excess salt has been one of the "heart health" bugaboos for years. Yet the evidence that it is unhealthy is quite thin on the ground.
"Nutrition science" is often anything but.