i like msg but hear too much of it is bad for you. reacts differently to different folks id guess...but it do make food good though

 

The reason Chinese restaurants have gotten the bad rap on MSG isn't so much that they use it and no one else does, it's the fact of how much they use. They use far more than the recommended levels and that does cause effects.

Blinding headaches after eating Chinese food HEAVILY laced with MSG isn't someone's imagination. Skin flush similar to a heavy dose of Niacin isn't imagination.

Cancer? Well who knows. The studies I remember seeing seemed pretty conclusive, but then again they loaded up the mice with huge, huge doses. I presume that is supposed to simulate long term exposure, but it seems that just about anything they load the mice up with in those doses turns out to be bad for the mice.

And from the tone of your posts it's clear you have made up your mind and you are just trying to convince others.

 

Okay, I'm not going to read this entire thread but I am allergic to MSG. Hey, some people are allergic to milk, peanuts and other foods. My allergy is MSG. What does it do to me?

Well simply put, it gives me the shits. I remember a bad case when I was eating at a Korean restaurant in NYC. I forgot to ask if they use MSG til it was too late. Later, I felt bloated. Like I ate everything in the restaurant or swallowed a basketball or something. My stomache rumbled like bombs were going off inside me. Then...run to the toilet!

Damn, I was on the toilet all day! What a nightmare that was. That wasn't the first time I experienced something like that w/ MSG but it was probably the worst. Since then, I always make sure I ask when I go to any restaurant because it's not only Asian restaurants who use MSG. Some restaurants put it on lettuce and other vegetables at salad bars.

You can find MSG in canned food too. You have to read the labels to make sure. Both Campbells and Progresso soups are now touting their MSG free varieties.

Bottom line is it's in a lot of foods and you need to read the labels and ask at the restaurants, all restaurants, not just Asian ones.

Warren

 

Niacin overconsumption is a totally different kettle of fish.

Unlike MSG, there is an actual elucidated mechanism for it's action, involving prostaglandins D2 release and and subsequent vasodilation. There is numerous well founded research into the area of high dose Niacin effects on the body. It is not myth.

MSG is not the same. There is rarely research with MSG doesn't involve huge doses of the stuff directly injected into mice or various tissues of mice. I could do the same with about a billion other things people eat and get the same result. Give me a compound, any compound, and I can get it to kill a mouse. Most anti MSG factions just hark on the fact that Glutamate is a neurotransmitter in the brain and high doses can cause damage (excitotoxin). In fact Glutamate release from neurons is one of the leading causes of damage to a larger portion of the brain following stroke (in the preumbra) by ultimately inducing cell apoptosis (suicide). However they fail to ignore that dietary glutamate is not a molecule that can cross the blood brain barrier without special transport in special sectors, which means however high the Glutamate concentration in the blood, it still trickles into the brain at a very regulated and low rate.

Dietary MSG causing actual true damage is a lot like the belief that you can see intelligent design in biology. It's an idea that has been actively crushed by scientific consensus. If you ever want to see if an idea is really still that viable as a scientific theory, look no further than a search on Science Magazine's website for relevant articles.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/search?src=h...ci&fulltext=MSG

You'll see that the vast majority of articles were published from the 1960s 70s and 80s.

like this one from 1969.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abst...ourcetype=HWCIT

Then you want to look at where the bulk of the research with MSG is going today with a search sorted by date.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/search?&site...e&sortspec=date

You'll find more articles like this one, more about how taste buds actually taste MSG than how bad MSG is for you.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/search?&site...e&sortspec=date

Of course you could find tons of articles about how bad MSG is, but seeing how nearly anyone can write a scientific paper and there is some journal out there desperate enough to publish it, you really want to stick to be best journals like Science when it comes to making a decision. The biggest sign that the campaign against MSG is faulty is that most of the drive is now coming from pseudo science books aimed at convincing the gullible population rather than the science field.

Of course I've already made up my mind as until very recently I've worked as a biological scientist and clearly see there has never been anything beyond faulty science against MSG.

 

i dont think you're allergic to MSG, most likely your body doesnt process MSG like other people.
it's like lactose intolerant (me) people arent allergic to milk, it's just that their body doesnt produce enough enzyme to break down lactose, which is abundant in milk, so it comes straight out the other end.
if you're allergic to MSG, your immune system will be elevated enough to give you swellings and such. so MSG giving you the shitters isnt allergic reaction and it's probably safe for you to eat MSG, but you'll have to suffer the consequences after. haha

on the side note, isnt MSG produced in your body naturally, but just not alot?
i've heard many stories about how MSG causes cancer and whatnot, but i dont see why and after all the research, they have yet to prove the fact that it causes it.
but it sure does make me therrrrrrstay.

 

So because you like it no one else's reactions matter or you consider them unreal?

The niacin like flush, increased heart rate and subsequent increased blood pressure are facts to millions of people. The blinding headaches might be caused by the heart rate and increased blood pressure.

Strokes can also be triggered by increased blood pressure. No a stroke's not caused by the MSG, the weakness in the blood vessel already exists, but the increase blood pressure can cause a blow out. Is that a chance you want to take?

It doesn't matter whether it is an allergy or how a person's body processes the MSG, the fact is that it bothers and is a health hazard to millions.

But even if "all" it caused was a case of the galloping shits, that'd be reason enough for me to avoid it if it caused that reaction in me.

The bottom line is "why risk it?"

Moderation is the key in most things, most chinese restaurants don't seem to know the meaning of that word.

 

I hope thats not the tone that came across. I'm just saying that I have what I believed and I'm pretty much set on it unless there's a study that shows compelling evidence to show otherwise. I don't plan to force my opinion on anybody. Its your own body, you are the person to make sole decision about your food intake. Like I mentioned before, I acknowledged that there are people who are truly allergic to it. To sum up my statement in a sentence, I believed the amount of people who claimed allergic reaction from MSG, 90% of them are psychological reaction. What I'm trying to do here is to de-myth of of the stereotypical information.......like Chinese restaurant are the only group to use MSG, or MSG will cause cancer....etc, etc.

Now, a response to 2 of your statements.
"Chinese restaurant uses a higher level of MSG then other." As I stated, it was never about "How much MSG do you use?", but "Do you use MSG?" If they use MSG, ooh....cross them out as a place to go.....but we can have chicken noodle soup and other package food all day long. If we debate about the amount use, they don't use anymore compare to cooking at home. Which leads me to "What about Asian culture that are not allergic?" You can argued that their body are used to processing MSG since its in their daily diet. If so, that means MSG is not the "god forsaken chemical" that so many media and people are trying to portrait it as. Because if its toxic, the human body should never get used to it.

"Why risk it?" In this day and age, everything we eat are risky. MSG isn't anymore dangerous if not less than salt, trans fat, oil, sugar along with everything else. Do you know what happen if you consumed too much vitamins? If you consume a reasonable amount, you have the ability to live a healthy life.

 

msg is bad for many people as peanuts are bad for those who are alergic to peanuts.

if it hurts you, stay away from it. don't take away the good stuff that the rest of us can enjoy.

 

[QUOTE=Wildncrazy,Nov 22 2008, 10:15 AM] So because you like it no one else's reactions matter or you consider them unreal?

The niacin like flush, increased heart rate and subsequent increased blood pressure are facts to millions of people.

 

very impressive write ups 565565.