Other than people who may have real sensitivities, I think it’s often a class thing. MSG is associated with poor foods (cheap chinese take-out) so middle class folks invent or imagine allergies and sensitivities so they don’t need to seem snobbish. That is of course unless it uses artisinal solar isolated MSG from organically harvested kelp. That’s the only MSG that’s safe. On the other hand, if kale gave them headaches they’d probably just munch on and endure it.
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The thing is that the same people complaining about Chinese Food would be fine with MSG found in greater amounts in Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup, Doritios, or Flavored chips.
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You may want to try pegging down exactly what’s making you ill. As far as I understand it there are more of these compounds in items where they naturally occur than you would find in anything with added msg. And chemically there is no difference between the “processed versions” as you call them and what’s occurring naturally in pretty much anything with protein in it. Hell you form a ton of glutimates every time you brown something. And if you go an look at something like some nice quality Kombu, you can see actual crystals of MSG crusted up on the surface. If your reactions to food with added MSG don’t match up with the reactions to food that contain more of that chemically identical substance than it shouldn’t be the MSG you are reacting to. And many of the processed foods that people blame for making them sick in connection to MSG don’t actually contain any added MSG. What they do almost always contain is a hell of a lot of salt.
I realize your experiencing some suffering as a result of this, I just don’t think you’re doing yourself any flavors by pegging it to MSG instead of investigating exactly what’s causing it. As an example I’m allergic to scallops, and shellfish allergies can be really dangerous. But I’ve pretty well figured out that its only scallops I’m allergic too (apparently the reaction is caused by a bacteria that lives in the things, not the scallop itself), that my reactions aren’t systemic or anaphalaxisy, and cross contamination isn’t too much of an issue. I need to know these things for my own safety. I’m also allergic to bee stings. And my reactions there are dangerous. 1 sting lays me up for a week, and 3 could kill me. And I know my reactions are to bee, wasp, and ant sings and how to avoid them or treat a sting in a way that could save my life. If I hadn’t bothered to figure these things out (honestly the bee stings were pretty clear from the start) I would be missing out on a hell of a lot and/or risking my life. I know that scallops make me shit myself, if I instead decided it was MSG making me shit I’d still end up shitting myself. I’d just be doing less of it in Chinese restaurants.
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Thanks, buddy!
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I came for the crazy comments. Didn’t disappoint…
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where are the free chips again?
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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!
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Man, that’s pricey stuff, but it sounds like good ol’ scentless Febreze. I’ll keep an eye out for it! [quote=“Missy_Pants, post:57, topic:75757”]
Natures Miracle
[/quote]
My dog’s housebroken, but for the rare illness or accident, Nature’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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Pretty much all of the LAY’s products are horrible poisonous shit, virtually any nasty side-effect is possible with that list! 
Glutamates are natural, but MSG isn’t a form of glutamate found in nature though, is it? Given that people can be allergic to anything (including water), I’d not be surprised if some people were allergic to it, like, say, gluten. Doesn’t mean MSG or gluten are bad for anyone else, of course…
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What? Like mushrooms? I’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 don’t, so I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re 100% right and MSG in particular gives you migraines. That’s terrible. But don’t pretend that MSG is not objectively in non or minimally processed food. That’s false. 100%. As in you’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 it’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. It’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 don’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 wasn’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 don’t have an easy way to test that.
That said, it doesn’t make me stop from using it, I just don’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, it’ll make you win competitions). /secret-ingredients
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I’m pretty sure I’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 “scent sensitivity” (aka “Fragrance Sensitivity”) is that nobody knows what it means, not really, not in specifics. It’s like saying you have “food sensitivity” without saying what food. Because the category of “things you can smell” is so broad, a “scent” sensitivity isn’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.
“Scent” 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, I’d say that most people with sociogenic reactions to “scents” 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. I’ve tested it enough times to be conclusive. The conclusion however is personal. I don’t think methyl anthranilate is toxic or causes migraines. It causes migraines for me. And I’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 doesn’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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