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

Instead, current research indicates that high blood pressure after excess sodium intake may be caused by activation of the sympathetic nervous system, secondary to increased sodium loading on ion channels.

I remember it was in a relatively recent paper. This mechanism might help explain why sodium hasn't consistently been shown to have an adverse effect in humans while at the same time still being strongly associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Come to think of it, it's also a good explanation for why cultures in temperate climates tend to start their day with a hearty (salty) meal ;)

I would also like to point out, since above a comment was made about glutamate containing "a shitload" of sodium, that the actual sodium content of MSG is only around 13% by weight, compared to table salt where it's nearly 40%.

Turns out that an education in biology, medicine and science in no substitute for actually doing research. Your explanation for why salt raises blood pressure and increases mortality was considered so obvious that it wasn't worth studying. When it was studied, it turned out not to be in any way true. (see: reality).

The abstract claims foods to which MSG is added directly contained lower amounts of D-glutamate than foods where the MSG comes from fermented foods. I wonder why? Maybe due to better optimization / control for L-glutamate production in the bacteria?

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/chir.530060410/ab...

Some of the first evidence that glutamate additives were dangerous was provided by Dr. John W. Olney in 1969:

"Brain Lesions, Obesity, and Other Disturbances in Mice Treated with Monosodium Glutamate" (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/164/3880/719).

Dr. Olney and Harvard scientist Dr. Jean Mayer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Mayer) independently came to the same conclusion and led to the food industry removing MSG from baby food (and later all the MSG variants) because a baby's blood-brain barrier isn't fully developed so it can't protect against increased glutamate consumption:

The Harvard Crimson: Baby Food Manufacturers Will Suspend Use of MSG (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/10/27/baby-food-manuf...)

There is plenty of recent research that shows glutamate's effects on the brain...

* Serum proteins bypass the blood-brain fluid barriers for extracellular entry to the central nervous system (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8491281)

* Excitatory Amino Acids in Neurologic Disorders (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199407283310414)

* Dana Foundation: Protecting the Brain from a Glutamate Storm (http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=7376)

However, one of the most interesting reports is the government's 1995 Life Sciences Research Office (LSRO) of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) report: "Analysis of Adverse Reactions to Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)".

The full FASEB 293 page report is not available online in digital form (http://books.google.com/books/about/Analysis_of_adverse_reac...). You can order a copy from the LSRO FASEB (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/FR-1995-10-03/95-24594/cont...), and there are a few used copies on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Adverse-Reactions-Monosodium-...).

Here are a few statements from the report (I'll write up a more detailed blog post of my notes on this later):

* Page 29: "The net result is that certain areas of the brain may be vulnerable to acute, large, magnitude fluctuations in plasma glutamate concentrations because flooding from adjacent circumentrical organs."

* Page 42: "Levels of ingested MSG might be sufficient to raise the concentration of blood glutumate and related compounds enough to change the levels of these amino acids in the brain, particularly in the circumvention areas not protected by the blood-brain barrier."

* Page 42-43 (regarding the Pineal gland): "The elevated levels of glutumate and related compounds would have adverse neuroexcitatory effects, be neurotoxic, and/or initiate a chain of metabolic events that would result in either neurotoxicity or the release of substances that would cause the neurological manifestations reportedly associated with MSG exposure."

* Page 46: "It is conceivable that the consumption of MSG in genetically or otherwise predisposed individuals can exacerbate a preexisting neurological condition."

* Page 100: "In contrast, glutumate concentrations in the extracellular fluid in brain regions not protected by the blood-brain barrier will closely mirror changes in circulating glutumate concentrations."

* Page 103: "Theoretically, if blood levels seen in animals as a result of MSG challenge were achived in humans, similar lesions and/or neuroendocrine effects would be expected to occur."

* See pages 28, 29, 43-48, 96, 100, and 104 for citations that the blood-brain barrier can be breached at several sites in the normal brain.

If we had learned about table salt in the 1910s and knew it primarily by its formula name NaCl, people would believe all manner of weird things about salt, too. In fact, people do believe weird things about salt; there is a widespread and unsupported belief that moderation of sodium intake is a key public health concern, which it is not.

It's the same with MSG. Dissolve MSG and you get sodium and an amino acid that is so important to our bodies that we produce it ourselves, without sourcing it from our food or the environment; an amino acid that is thus, unsurprisingly, hugely prevalent in foods we "naturally" eat.

In research, the rats used as controls were fed nutritious food. Given a choice of water and alcohol to drink, these rats chose water. Rats fed [msg laced] junk food chose alcohol to drink over water.

Unrelated, but interesting.

But not as free glutamic acid, and that makes a HUGE difference.

Anyway, if it's made by bacteria, that suggests that it's enantiopure, so there goes one of my hypotheses about the cause of the problem. The ones I'm left with are:

- it's something else entirely that's making me ill

- the naturally-occurring MSG is bound up with other substances in some way that makes it safe for me to consume

I guess there's nothing for it other than for me to pick a weekend when I'm not busy, swallow a teaspoon of the stuff, and see what happens.

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

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

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

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

http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/Can-reheating-rice-cause-food-po...

> You can get food poisoning from eating reheated rice. However, it's not the reheating that causes the problem but the way the rice has been stored before it was reheated.

> Uncooked rice can contain spores of Bacillus cereus, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning. When the rice is cooked, the spores can survive.

> If the rice is left standing at room temperature, the spores can grow into bacteria. These bacteria will multiply and may produce toxins (poisons) that cause vomiting or diarrhoea.

> The longer cooked rice is left at room temperature, the more likely it is that the bacteria or toxins could make the rice unsafe to eat.

Reheating the rice does kill the bacteria, but does nothing to the toxins.

You might also consider the ambient temp of your kitchen. Pro kitchens run several hours a day, staying fairly warm the whole time (might have several ovens, tens of burners, and other hot equipment running throughout the day). Your kitchen, even with the rice cooker going, might stay fairly cool, and so bad bacteria has less time to grow.

Food safety is also talked about in terms of risk to different groups. Young children, pregnant mothers, and old adults are at higher risk than younger adults.

Anyone else in the UK agree or disagree?

>> Therefore, the intake of MSG as a food additive and the natural level of glutamic acid in foods do not represent a toxicological concern in humans.

This is the same story with aspartame vs sugar. Aspartame has an LD50 of around 5 g/kg, sugar 29.7 g/kg. You can say "wow, aspartame is 6 times as toxic as sugar!", but you have to take into account that it is 200 times sweeter than sugar.

Of course in reality you can't really compare salt with glutamate since they stimulate different receptors. In the end we can probably conclude that neither salt not glutamate pose any real danger to a healthy person in doses that are not completely ridiculous, so add both to your food!

"Subsequent studies, however, provided mixed results: some confirmed findings of brain lesions in animals or symptoms in humans, but other studies were unable to replicate the results. Double-blind studies often showed little correlation between MSG and adverse symptoms. Parties on both sides of the debate slung accusations at the other, with the anti-MSG researchers claiming that studies were being funded by MSG producers, and pro-MSG researchers accusing the other side of fear-mongering.

From the FDA to the United Nations to various governments (Australia, Britain and Japan) the public bodies that have investigated MSG have deemed it a safe food additive. The FDA states on their website:

FDA considers the addition of MSG to foods to be “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS). Although many people identify themselves as sensitive to MSG, in studies with such individuals given MSG or a placebo, scientists have not been able to consistently trigger reactions.

Scientific interest in its deleterious effects seems to be waning: one of the last studies to gain public attention was published in 2011. The authors of that study claimed to have found a link between MSG and obesity, though those results have been questioned. While the general scientific consensus seems to be that only in large doses and on an empty stomach can MSG temporarily affect a small subset of the population, MSG’s reputation is still maligned in the public eye."

That last sentence is important.

This is sort of true, but also not at all. Natural selection deals with incremental changes over the course of decades, or generations. The likelihood that, for instance, Omega 3 production will spontaneously arise in a tomato, is so small as to be negligible. GM represents a step-change in capability, closer to the possibilities of the use of industrial food additives, than it is to traditional breeding. Except, as I say, the additives are now an integral part of the ingredients.