MSG is safe enough for me

Check out Zero Odor. Completely scentless magic in a bottle.

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Neat! Sounds like the Natures Miracle I used when we were house breaking foster dogs!

http://www.natures-miracle.com/products/pet-odor-stain-removers/pet-odor-destroyer-remover-get-rid-of-cat-dog-odor.aspx

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Man, thatā€™s pricey stuff, but it sounds like good olā€™ scentless Febreze. Iā€™ll keep an eye out for it! [quote=ā€œMissy_Pants, post:57, topic:75757ā€]
Natures Miracle
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My dogā€™s housebroken, but for the rare illness or accident, Natureā€™s Miracle is wonderful stuff.

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From the dept of pedantics, did you really not understand what she meant, or are you just driving trollies here?

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I do, or at least multi-page articles in Newsweek/Time et al.

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OMG, I am so stealing that phrase! :stuck_out_tongue:

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Pretty much all of the LAYā€™s products are horrible poisonous shit, virtually any nasty side-effect is possible with that list! :stuck_out_tongue:

Glutamates are natural, but MSG isnā€™t a form of glutamate found in nature though, is it? Given that people can be allergic to anything (including water), Iā€™d not be surprised if some people were allergic to it, like, say, gluten. Doesnā€™t mean MSG or gluten are bad for anyone else, of courseā€¦

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What? Like mushrooms? Iā€™m not you, so if you tell me you get headaches after eating X, I believe you. Food sensitivities are hard to pin down, but how am I supposed to know if you did the legwork or not? I donā€™t, so I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume youā€™re 100% right and MSG in particular gives you migraines. Thatā€™s terrible. But donā€™t pretend that MSG is not objectively in non or minimally processed food. Thatā€™s false. 100%. As in youā€™re not a little bit wrong, but are completely and totally wrong without any doubt or exception. No asterisks, daggers, or double daggers about it. It was discovered in seaweed for crying out loud, and itā€™s derivatives are generated by your metabolism and used by your brain. Without at least some glutamate in your system, you would be dead right now. Itā€™s incredibly common to all living systems: Things we eat. Glutamic acid is equally common, even if not essential because of the interchange of these species in normal body chemistry.

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I am in fact sensitive to MSG at amounts found in some restaurant cooking, but I donā€™t get migraines or whatever, my tongue, lips and sometimes back of throat go numb. Not just a little numb, like lidocaine numb.

It took a long time for me to figure out what it was. I thought it was some spice, but it wasnā€™t until I bought a jar of MSG and started putting it on everything that I figured it out.

It takes a fair bit for it to cause it and it happens more if it is sprinkled on top of things than mixed into sauces. It might be the sodium ion that causes it since in a solution, monosodium glutamate disassociates into glutamate and sodium ions, but I donā€™t have an easy way to test that.

That said, it doesnā€™t make me stop from using it, I just donā€™t overdo it like I used to.

Also, if you have slightly under-ripe avocados, a pinch of MSG will make your guacamole taste much better (and with ripe ones, itā€™ll make you win competitions). /secret-ingredients

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Iā€™m pretty sure Iā€™m sensitive to the MSG in V8 juice. After the third Bloody Marry I tend to feel tired and get a headache.

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The problem with ā€œscent sensitivityā€ (aka ā€œFragrance Sensitivityā€) is that nobody knows what it means, not really, not in specifics. Itā€™s like saying you have ā€œfood sensitivityā€ without saying what food. Because the category of ā€œthings you can smellā€ is so broad, a ā€œscentā€ sensitivity isnā€™t a scientific medical syndrome, rather it is a common complaint in the alt med community that is so broad that it is hard to separate out actual organic reactions to specific chemicals from sociogenic reactions to smells. This is a public health issue with broad implications and not limited to Missy Pants.

ā€œScentā€ sensitivity and reactions to MSG have some of the same issues in play, which is that some people may have adverse organic reactions to them, but the majority of the complaints seem to be sociogenic. And just as we all like to think we have an above average sense of humor, Iā€™d say that most people with sociogenic reactions to ā€œscentsā€ and MSG are utterly convinced they have organic reactions.

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I will reliably get a migraine when I get a whiff of methyl anthranilate. Iā€™ve tested it enough times to be conclusive. The conclusion however is personal. I donā€™t think methyl anthranilate is toxic or causes migraines. It causes migraines for me. And Iā€™d be happy to test it with you as long as you clean up the vomit and help me into a cool dark quiet corner.

It really sucks, because everyone seems to love the smell and taste of purple.

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Glutamate is a neurotransmitter. Given the wide variation in body chemistry person-to-person, it doesnā€™t seem hard to believe that it could have any number of various neural-related effects in different people, including migraines, numbing of the mouth, and so on. I wonder too if the effect of eating food that includes it depends a lot on all the other thousands of other different chemicals present. One chemical canceling out (or enhancing) the effect of another.

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Methyl anthranilate acts as a bird repellent.

Gee, you canā€™t snort bird repellent? :cry:

Huh. I get nauseated around certain kinds of perfumes and there are certainly people who get migraines triggered by scents (there are people who get migraines triggered by nearly everything from stress to bright lights), but it almost sounds like youā€™re having an allergic reaction in your sinuses to them.

Should be pretty easy to test if you can stop them and ask them for what kind of perfume they use since youā€™ll get the same reaction to your skin at larger amounts. I guess it might be hard not breathing though while you do the test.

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Itā€™s also a key component in the flavor and scent profiles of pears, apples, grapes, and other fruits. I only run into trouble when itā€™s concentrated like in your standard purple drank, and red wine.

Capsaicin is mammalian herbivore repellent. That doesnā€™t make it unsafe in low concentrations, like in your pico de gallo.

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For you, LDoBe, Iā€™ll hold your head while you throw up :cry:

As to exposing yourself to methyl anthranilate, Iā€™m reminded of a Henny Youngman joke:

ā€œDoc, it hurts when I do this.ā€ ā€œDonā€™t do that.ā€

In most cases there isnā€™t any harm in you using your personal experience to decide what is right for you to do, rather it is generally a good idea. The problem comes when we try to extrapolate our personal experiences, which are subject to the subconscious flaws of our human cognitive biases, for broader use. And that is precisely what is at issue in the case of MSG. People are told MSG causes headaches, and, lo and behold, people who think they are eating MSG-laced food report getting headaches. That is legitimate personal experience of what they believe happened, but when those individuals corroborate each others personally convincing anecdotes as universal ā€œfactā€ we get can misinformed.

Science is what we use to separate what seems true to our bias prone minds from what is objectively true. When subjected to science that accounts for human bias, the headaches of so called Chinese Restaurant Syndrome fall by the wayside. MSG does not cause wide spread headaches, though that doesnā€™t rule out the possibility of causing adverse reactions in a much smaller population of people. The same is true of ā€œscentā€ sensitivity.

Now, back to Methyl anthranilate. From the wiki:

Methyl anthranilate acts as a bird repellent. It is food-grade ā€¦ It is also used for the flavor of grape Kool-Aid.

Well, now I know why I find grape Kool Aid so repellent. :slight_smile:

Now this is rather amusing:

Methyl anthranilate both as a component of various natural essential oils

Iā€™ll bet there are many ā€œscentā€ sensitive people who are just fine with their natural ā€œessentialā€ oils that they donā€™t know have Methyl anthranilate in them, but are affected by the scent of perfumes that use the same chemical. Speculation on my part, admittedly, but I do think people tend to give stuff that comes from the natural health store a pass that they donā€™t give to the nasty chemicals used in perfumes.

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Thereā€™s a reason why the plural of ā€œanecdoteā€ isnā€™t ā€œdataā€.

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