I have no dog in this fight, just found this interesting, given recent discussion here.
Seems pretty silly to me to be afraid of MSG.
I bought a big olā jar of MSG at Price Club (tells you how long ago I bought it!). Turns out a little goes a long way: I didnāt know it at the time, but it looks like itās a lifetime supply!
Didnāt know about the fake scientist side, but yeah, once the idea is out there, thereās always people who swear by it. Iād like to think that most cooks and population in general arenāt averse to eating foods with MSG - especially given the amount we spent on snacks and pre-prepared foods, but there is always going to be a resistant group that has their own ideas.
There are all sorts of obscure or uncommon allergies that are real, so might there be a few people who could have something so rare? Maybe. I know at least 2 people who have the allergy to most vegetables, and really have to avoid it, but strange how no one goes on an anti-vegetable push.
Same with the bag I got at our local Japanese products store, several cupsful, will last forever.
I, too, procured a lifetime supply.
That would certainly make a big dent in my lifetime supply!
I have a small bag, I use it in various recipes.
I bought a bag of that!
Put it in a spice shaker. Is this going to last a lifetime? I donāt use it often, but it seemed like a good buy. I think they call that āspavingā now.
Same. I add a sprinkle here or there, most often to vegetables or something needing perking up.
I so agree.
Long ago I bought a small bag of aji-no-moto. I put it in a fancy jar with that name on the label. I still have some of it, as I donāt add it to most things, but as my food guru Fred Landeen said, it allows the flavors to marry. Sometimes it needs it. DH doesnāt know what it is in English but I donāt use it in front of him, which isnāt hard. Iām going to send him the article from above. He needs to know.
Just tell him that every meal he eats that includes tomatoes, mushrooms, parmesan, scallops, chicken, shrimp, cheddar, walnuts, soy sauce, fish sauce or even potatoes (to name a few ingredients) also contains the same MSG without adding anything from your jar
I have. More than once.
Them tell him from now on you will exclude all ingredients with natural occurring MSG from your cooking. After two days he will beg you to add a few spoons from your jar
Donāt ever let facts, actual facts, get in the way of a good marriage.
I had a friend years ago who was certain of āMSG intoleranceā. I looked at a few controlled trials that recruited like-minded folk, and tested the notion.
For example, give a first group (call it 200 people) meals w added MSG for a week, and a second similar group had no added MSG meals for a week.
Then they did crossover, switching the diets for the groups for a second week. Everyone recorded symptoms throughout, and once all the info was collected, it was just random noise.
So maybe some are sensitive to MSG, but back when I was looking, I failed to find a well-controlled trial to support it. The stuff I found in support was observational and anecdotal in nature (by definition, not well-controlled).
ETA - I didnāt realize fear of MSG was so prevalent in the āhealth and wellness worldsā, as the author puts it. Iāve only know 3 or 4 people who thought it was a problem.
I saw a similar āstudyā where a large group of people was served a meal with no added MSG but were told it was in there. Something like 70% of them claimed symptoms. This was in the '80s, and I hope thereās been some enlightenment since then.
Thatās a variation of a placebo effect a common occurrence also in clinical studies for drugs