MSG is safe enough for me

I honestly have no idea what you’re arguing with me about. You ask specifics, I gave them. I’m not a chemical engineer, I don’t know whats in those things that trigger a reaction, and I’m not saying all scents… so maybe point your vitriol elsewhere?

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Wow, man you are all over the map. A full bag? Like snack size or full bag size? Full bag size will dehydrate anyone and dehydration will cause headaches in lots of people.

I won’t say that MSG doesn’t cause a reaction in some people, but you could say that about just about anything. Doesn’t make it unsafe.

ETA - it’s also possible to feel sick or different from the placebo affect.

For sure eating anything all the time will alter one’s perception of taste.

I don’t have sensitivities per se, but just walking by Yankee Candle with all those different scents in some hedonistic orgy makes me nauseous just thinking about it.

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I just avoid flavored items like the plague. I have noticed an uptick in non MSG based snack foods, but I’ll stick to plain kettle chips or the like.

I will say that I have eaten a large amount of parmesan in a sitting and gotten a very slight aura effect from it, but it’s much more manageable then a full blown MSG migraine.

@Boundegar - a little bit of anchovy is the best thing, so glad I found out about those little guys.

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This is about MSG being safe to eat the way milk is safe to eat.

If you are lactose intolerant, you should avoid milk.

If any food seems to trigger migraines, of course you should avoid it.

I’m lucky enough to have no food triggers for my migraines but nicotine exposure is a big trigger for me.

When I want to go see live music I know I will probably spend the next day vomiting and in pain. Although it’s better now that fewer places allow smoking inside.

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Yes, please consume this MSG, all you can get, and leave the Earth free of its evils once and for all.

Signed: lifleong asthmatic

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Genuinely curious: Do you have the same reaction when you eat foods that have naturally occurring MSG, or only when it’s refined and processed?

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Pretty much only the processed versions - I do a lot of braising and soup making at home, and only after making say, beef stew with tomato and mushrooms; then eating it for leftovers over the course of a few days do I feel a tinge of a migraine. A large single portion of items containing it naturally is fine, but if I screw up and consume something containing the processed version, I can begin feeling the effects within an hour.

This is just my experience, if you like the stuff then have at it - just warn some folks occasionally, please.

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Not accepting your overbroad claims at face value != “vitriol”. Claiming it does is a BS way of trying to shut down legitimate conversation.

And while I don’t expect you to be a chemical engineer, I would think that since you are so affected by specific chemicals you would be interested in finding out which ones those are. Seems like that could be pretty important.

I bring up the issue of “scents” because this is a public health issue, not just a Missy_Pants issue. Do “scents” cause disease? Is “multiple-chemical sensitivity” a real organic cause of disease? Or is it a sociogenic illness? Is “detoxing” a genuine health treatment?

The fact that chemicals can and do cause harm to people gives the claims above a biological plausibility, however when you take a real thing, convert it to uselessly broad and vague claims, then use those broad and vague claims to create social policy and medical treatments, then there is a problem. And that’s what claiming “scent” sensitivities does, as opposed to noting reactions to specific chemicals, same goes for “multiple chemical sensitivity”.

So, my post is about the broader issues and not just you. And any “vitriol” is entirely in your mind.

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Also great, this stuff:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disodium_ribonucleotides
A mixture of 98% monosodium glutamate and 2% E635 has four times the flavor enhancing power of monosodium glutamate (MSG) alone.

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If you start a thread about “toxins” or “de-toxing” or “wifi-sickness” I’m sure you’ll find loads of people to talk with. You should do that, you seem like you really want to talk about that.

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You are the one who brought up scent sensitivity in a thread on MSG in a post where you criticized someone else for making overbroad claims:

[quote=“Missy_Pants, post:5, topic:75757”][quote=“HansHibbety, post:3, topic:75757”]
It’s great you love your processed bullshit,
[/quote]
I was totally with you until this. I use a Japanese msg-coated salt and its great, I use it while cooking non-processed “bullshit” foods, much like the OP says. And I am certainly not less sensitive to subtle flavours… that is a strange conclusion.

Sorry you have sensitivities, I have scent sensitivities and they are also hard to “prove” - apparently me crying in the corner and need to rinse my nasal cavities isn’t proof.
[/quote]

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it’s more than just “naturally-occuring”. the MS- part is just a vehicle for delivering glutamic acid - a vital amino acid that our own bodies require, but produce in sufficient quantities on their own (so we don’t need to get it from outside sources).

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Yes, however please note the:

Guanylates and inosinates are generally produced from meat, but partly also from fish. They are thus not suitable for vegans and vegetarians, and in most cases not suitable for Jews, Muslims and Hindus, depending on the origin of the product. Only the producer can provide information on the origin. [3]

From the Wikipedias.

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I was expressing empathy for a hard to prove claim, “sorry you have sensitivities” - what a monster I am!

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MSG is naturally occurring in many food items we all consume. It is the source of the umami taste that people love. Mushrooms, tomatoes, tea, and cheese all high in glutimate. Migraines can be triggered by a number of things, MSG included, but the average person who does not have a sensitivity to it notice nothing except an enhancement of the savory food taste.

As far as the hypothesis of people who are less sensitive to subtle flavors eat more MSG containing foods goes, I doubt it. 80-90% of flavor is made up of smell. The remaining contributing factors are taste, touch, sound & visual appeal. So people who lack sensitivity to subtle flavors would have an olfactory deficit & wouldn’t know what they were missing. I think its habituation to excessively salty or sweet foods that drives people to eat more when those taste experiences are not as intense as they have become accustomed to.

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Yeah that’s my favorite thing to point out to people who claim MSG makes them feel ill. Did you feel ill last time you ate mushrooms? Parmesan cheese? Soy sauce? Fish sauce? Seared meats? Cured meats? All of these things contain orders of magnitude more glutimate than you could practically sprinkle on your food.

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That would be extraordinarily difficult if not impossible to do. Companies that use artificial scents in their products don’t typically manufacture them – they source them from scent/flavor companies, and those companies keep their chemical mixtures extremely secret. During my time working for P&G, they’d never tell us or consumers what things like Febreze or Downy were scented with as they had no way of knowing themselves. For someone who’s sensitive to components in those scents, it’s infinitely easier to just use unscented products. Which, by the way, I sincerely wish that Febreze was still available in an unscented variety, as the stuff works great without its awful artificial scents added.

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No, no - I totally process almost all of my food. My milk is pasteurized, my meat is cooked, my sugar has been extracted from the cane…

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Agreed. And I think that should change. I do think that people can and do have reactions to chemicals, and they deserve to know what is actually in products. That doesn’t mean it will be clear or easy to do so even with that information - it’s hard to look out for even listed ingredients in food - but it will be infinitely easier if they are listed.

However, that being said, listing the chemicals has the potential problem of “Food Babe” level non-science and hysteria, where anything with a chemical name that Food Babe cannot pronounce is to be considered Toxic! and to be removed Immediately! because Chemical!

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Because of the vast chemical constituents of essential oils, a person has more of a chance to have an allergic reaction to those over an artificial aroma. Lavender, for instance, can have thousands of chemicals, making up the oil. This change from harvest to harvest and field to field. There is no way to control what constituents are in any oil. An artificial lavender may have two chemicals, These have been tested for potential allergic reactions separately and in combination,

Fabreze, however, is a molecular trap for scent molecules and does not add a scent. Nor does it eliminate the scent. It just makes it too large to bind with your olfactory bulb, so, you are essentially smelll blind. But the smell and whatever molecules that made that scent is still there.

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