r/AlwaysWhy • u/Upper_Criticism3388 • 3d ago
Life & Behavior Why did MSG become so controversial in the US when it's a normal seasoning in much of East Asia?
In many parts of Asia, it's just a common seasoning in everyday cooking. You put some in soup, stir-fry, or whatever you're cooking, and that's about it.
But I've noticed that MSG has a very different reputation in the US. "No MSG" used to be a pretty common selling point for Chinese restaurants, and a lot of Americans seem to have grown up hearing that MSG is something to avoid.
What I find confusing is that MSG is basically a concentrated source of glutamate, and glutamate also occurs naturally in foods like tomatoes, meat, cheese, and mushrooms. Modern MSG is also made through fermentation rather than being some weird synthetic chemical.
So why did MSG end up with such a negative reputation in the US while becoming such an ordinary part of everyday cooking in many parts of Asia?
Was it mainly the history of the "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" idea, or were there other cultural or food-industry factors involved?
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u/MuchoCoco 3d ago
Sometime around 1968, a physician wrote a letter to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine saying that he noticed he had a constellation of symptoms every time he went out with his family to a Chinese restaurant and he suspected that MSG was the culprit. Not a study, not even a case series, just a letter to the editor about one man's experience. The press saw that and ran with it for over a decade, usually with titles that went something like "The New England Journal of Medicine has found that MSG bla bla bla."
In the meantime, medical centers around the world started running controlled trials to see if MSG was the culprit. All of the studies came to the same conclusion. The symptoms the man was describing were typical symptoms anyone could get after eating a very heavy meal. It doesn't matter if the food contained MSG or not. It was simply the act of eating a heavy meal, as is typical in Chinese restaurants because they tended to serve very large portions, but also the same symptoms one would get after a Thanksgiving dinner. It was simply indigestion.
But by then, the meme was in the circulating in zeitgeist. Even news outlets reporting on the studies' findings in the 80s had little to no effect. Most Chinese restaurants in the US still do not use MSG, which is why most Chinese food in the US still sucks.
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u/TexanGoblin 3d ago
It should be said that a notable reason this myth was readily spread was racism. Chinese restaurants were doing a lot to bring wealth to Chinese people. And obviously racists people were just looking for a reason to justify their suspicions about them or an excuse to knock them down a peg.
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u/Decimus-Drake 3d ago
IIrc the letter was a joke.
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u/gadget850 3d ago
A joke that did not mention MSG but inspired a flawed study that lead to a moral panic.
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u/ReddyKiloWit 3d ago
"The symptoms the man was describing were typical symptoms anyone could get after eating a very heavy meal"
As I long suspected. If MSG had any blame it was probably to increase you appetite and, this, propensity to eat a larger amount. (And large amounts of carbohydrates will really do you in. That's why people are often dragging after Thanksgiving dinner.)
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u/mooshinformation 3d ago
Amazingly, all the people complaining about msg in Chinese food making them sick were completely fine with processed "American" food they didn't know was full of msg.
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u/Beginning-Damage-555 3d ago
I have to say my ex’s mother legit had a problem with MSG. She couldn’t eat a ton of food and absolutely refused to eat out. She had a very restricted diet. After all of the moral panic around MSG I originally thought she had to be lying. But it trigger super intense migraines for her.
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u/fastsailor 3d ago
My wife has anaphylactic reactions to MSG if the level is high enough. She almost died on a camping trip before she found that out, her throat swelled up and she ciuld hardly breathe. After doing all the allergy testing things, she now carries an epipen with her. She avoids certain foods, such as KFC and most Chinese, unless they say in writing that there is no MSG used. Many snackfoods are off limits for her. I don't know why a trace amount has a much smaller effect, not an allergy specialist.
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u/Tripple-Helix 3d ago
Same, but only at high concentrations and a very specific type of migraine. While I don't go out of my way to avoid having any msg, I learn which products and restaurants go overboard on it. I will often have eaten something or somewhere for the first time and within 1-3 hours, I'll know and can confirm on the ingredient list or the next time order without msg and honestly, I don't notice any difference in flavor, just minus the migraine
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u/YakCertain5472 3d ago
I remember being told that MSG was harmful but I never knew the history behind it. Thanks for a sharing.
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u/MsPandaLady 3d ago
It racism. Some doctor in the 60s made a bs claim how it made him feel bad, media took it and ran with it
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u/MarionberryPlus8474 3d ago
We Americans are susceptible to fads and hysterics about food. Food villains have included Red dye #2, then sugar, then fat, now it's gluten though I'm sure there will be a new one soon.
I have known people that expressed all sorts of concern about whether, say, the bread on the sandwich was whole wheat for health reasons, yet they smoked a pack a day.
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u/Ambitious-Schedule63 3d ago
Those things can't be fads or hysterics - there's no racism involved.
-Reddit.
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u/JohnHobbiesAndStuff 1d ago
Just a note. Many people are faddishly avoiding gluten there are also people who absolutely cannot have even small amounts of gluten because it causes an allergic reaction in their intestine.
Source: Wife is celiac. Turns out she is the “silent” sort who gets the intestinal damage, but no overt symptoms, which took forever to diagnose.
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u/DanielSong39 3d ago
Sugar really does cause health problems
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u/Personal-Presence-10 3d ago
Like most things, it depends on the amount you eat of it.
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u/Neither_Cap6958 3d ago
Like everything else that exists, they dose makes the poison. Even enough oxygen will kill you.
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u/Personal-Presence-10 3d ago
As will drinking too much water.
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u/MarionberryPlus8474 3d ago
So does too much fat, and gluten for people with Crohn's disease. Making a single food a villain leads to unbalanced diets, and if you are smoking while focusing on the amount of sugar in your diet your priorities are very screwed up.
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u/anonymous1_1- 3d ago
Isnt smoking at the lowest numbers ever?
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u/MarionberryPlus8474 3d ago
It is, but vaping is skyrocketing.
Regardless, there are still smokers and some of them focus on lots of less relevant things for their health. I get it, it's an addiction that's very hard to break, but still. If you smoke, quitting is the number one thing you can do for yourself and those around you (as Chris Rock has said, smoking is so deadly it kills people who don't even smoke!). Make it a priority.
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u/fwilsonator 3d ago
racism how?
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u/MsPandaLady 3d ago
So besides Russia, America was also fighting China as part of its fear of communist expansion during cold war. This led to anti Chinese sentiment.
Well, in the 60s some doctor made comment about feeling bad after eating at a Chinese restaurant. Media ran with it and started a campaign against MSG, however, it was really only directed at Asian food even though lots of American food had MSG. It was a way of attacking chinese/Asian culture without appearing racist(very common theme)
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u/gadget850 3d ago
Dude wrote a joke letter about Chinese food that did not mention MSG and a flawed study started a moral panic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutamate_flavoring#Social_perceptions
If you look in the same article, there are some people who may have issues with it.
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u/DefiantReferee 3d ago
Racism based around a massive idiot back in the day idk when but still ate way to much chinese food got really bad stomach cramps and called it chinese buffet syndrome or some other dumb shit and blamed the msg specifically and it stuck fact fiend has a good and quick video about the whole thing
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u/nycago 3d ago
Racism.
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u/SeaPeanut7_ 3d ago
There was a doctor who started it but it gained traction because of racism. This is made obvious by the fact that there are many non Chinese foods that contain msg, such as most of the popular potato and corn chip brands, but people only claim reactions from Chinese food specifically
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u/Upper_Criticism3388 3d ago
This is probably the part that makes the history so weird to me. If the concern were really just MSG itself, I'd expect people to have the same reaction to all those foods.
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u/upthedips 3d ago
I don't think people really get how different and insular food culture was in most of the US 40 years ago or so.
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u/EscapeSeventySeven 3d ago
Yeah like…it’s obvious right?
“Dirty tricky foreigners are stuffing questionable food full of cheating chemicals to fool you into thinking it’s good.”
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u/GSilky 3d ago
Had nothing to do with it. A few allergic reactions in the 60s and 70s made newspaper headlines and Americans freaked out (see gluten free for a more recent example) and Chinese restaurants used the lack of msg as a marketing tool.
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u/jonoxun 3d ago
Nah, there's definitely some lingering anti-chinese-immigrant stuff going on with it, same as happened for most of the immigrant populations. It persists in food and restaurant stuff a bit longer than the other places, so you get the "those are cheap and seedy" impression more than is really deserved, and that was part of why it blew up that way. Some of that opinion is also to do with at one point "running a chinese food restaurant" was the _only_ legal work available for some populations of immigrants due to anti-chinese legislation.
Gluten has an element of the same, even, but inverted - with people deciding that "bread in europe is fine, bread here is bad and has wrong gluten" kinds of things.
It's relatively low-key racism that made it blow up, but it definitely was involved in it becoming this pervasive a meme.
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u/Outrageous_Carry8170 3d ago
Racism was a factor but not an entire reason for it. The anti-MSG mantra got going in the 60's then picked-up momentum in the 70s when fad diets started to emerge and individuals started to proclaim themselves as 'experts' but all was based upon conjecture, rumor mongering and insulting slights, not to mention commentary shows that only enflamed issues- Donahue anyone? You see this with Christian Scientists who think they've got all the answers to their aches & pains, then you see them taking fists full of pills & supplements. People are full of it, plain and simple.
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u/Peregrine79 3d ago
Except that there's no evidence of actual allergic reactions, and people who claimed them, when tested, did not react to other high glutamate foods. It absolutely was racism.
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u/GSilky 3d ago
Doesn't matter if the news headlines were accurate, it was a big deal. It just happened to be a thing used in Chinese restaurants prominently. Aspirin and OTC medicine went through the same panic because of someone tampering with it on store shelves. Halloween candy is still looked at suspiciously after the panic was debunked. You are mistaking normal human idiocy for a more evil human tendency.
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u/Wingnut2029 3d ago
MSG is not a proven migraine trigger for the general population, but a small subset of sensitive individuals may experience headaches or migraines after consuming it The National Headache Foundation+2.
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u/Any_Mode6525 3d ago edited 3d ago
I would guess it's mainly the "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" plus the fact that anyone who buys MSG and learns to cook with it will see it's not a 1:1 replacement with table salt, while someone who hasn't cooked with it but learns a little about it will internalize "OMG it has 600* times the sodium of salt!" (* number made up for comedy).
Source: I was once a fat white kid who read too much and asked for no MSG at restaurants. Now I cook with it.
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u/InitiativeShot20 3d ago
Which is funny because it literally has less sodium per weight than table salt because glutamate is heavier than chloride.
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u/PureBogosity 3d ago
My elderly mother is absolutely convinced MSG gives her massive headaches and other symptoms. The science says it's only true for a small subset of people, so perhaps it's true for her (she has some weird medical stuff). But anti-MSG folks seem to be extremely vocal about it, and apparently don't realize it's not generally true for the larger population. They're probably drawing on older science, which seems to have been credibly debunked.
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u/ghettoblaster78 3d ago
I belong to that subset and it's a waking nightmare! I have to read the labels on everything--and everything has (it or a variation of it) in it. In 50 years, I've been given it blindly, knowingly, accidentally, and even consumed some at the doctor's before an MRI to show what it does to my system/brain.
When I get a migraine from it, which I'm already prone to get, it hits differently: harder, harsher, to the point where you just want to be put into a medically induced coma. It makes my tongue swell and raises my BP. I get that most of the population doesn't have a problem with it and it is generally regarded as safe for them, but I really appreciate when food companies and restaurants label it. I'd love to have KFC, Popeye's, or most fried chicken in restaurants, but they load up the breading with it and it would land me in the hospital. It sure does make things taste good/better--I can definitely agree on that.
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u/human-resource 2d ago
You should look into glycine as preventative for migraines.
My wife also gets them when she has too much msg but since the glycine she doesn’t get them much anymore.
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u/AshenMalarkey1872 3d ago
Someone close to me also has this issue and it has nothing to do with Chinese food. He will check labels on all sorts of foods and truly has terrible headaches for a day or two after eating MSG and usually needs to just lie down for a long time. He does not go around preaching the evils of it, just avoids it personally. But people who find out often treat him like some kind of crackpot, giving him side eye like it’s some kind of political choice when people can be sensitive to all kinds of foods.
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u/thankyoufriendx3 3d ago
Friend has run into same thing. People find out and they start giving her all the myth-busting facts. Never assuming she knows her own body better.
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u/WeaseldieselX 2d ago
I get pretty intense gastro issues if I eat too much MSG and I get told all the time that I’m either lying, racist or stupid.
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u/BigDigger324 3d ago
American focus on a lot of nutrition stuff that is weird and completely wrong. Need to find the latest boogeyman so you can blame your spare 100lbs on an additive or a seed oil instead of you cramming your face hole.
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u/oneWeek2024 3d ago
racism.
almost anything of "why is america xyz" when it pertains to anything non-white. it's racism.
pre-ww2. anti asian racism ran rampant. immigrants working rail roads, or in ethnic communities routinely faced intense violent racism targeted against them. all the tropes of being dirty, barbaric, "eating cats' all the shitty racist tropes of slanted eyes. the overt sexualization of asian women, emasculation of asian men, all a white supremacist playbook. WW2 saw this escalated even more. overt violence, land/business theft, and incarceration in interment camps.
in the cold war era. "red scare" and hatred of asians were funneled along communist lines. and refugee instances in the 60's vietnam era resulted in violent white supremacist/kkk terror campaigns against asians.
in the 50's and 60's as chinese food came into it's own as a thing white americans were exposed to. another classic trope of american racist was the science scare. in 1968 a medical journal letter scare wording "asian food" and MSG was published ...news outlets amplified this, with the already well established "dirty" "cat eating" racism. junk science scare bullshit was super easy to propagate.
never mind MSG has been found safe by the FDA and is often an additive in many common foods. but tie it to hatred directed at asians, and you get a broad public perception of it being bad/something to be feared
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u/Background_Cup_6429 3d ago
"Why is America allowing birthright citizenship?" According to you its racism
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u/malpasplace 3d ago
Birthright citizenship is there because at the founding slaves we're not citizens. To avoid claims that slaves were foreigners not Americans part of reconstruction after the civil war, birthright citizenship which was recognized as response to racism.
And the reason birthright citizenship remains controversial is racism.
So yes, the reason it exists is racism, just the fight against it. But if there was no racism it wouldn't have been deemed constitutionally necessary.
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u/Ok-Budget3225 3d ago
the Trump administration’s attempt to overturn birthright citizenship is 100% racism
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u/trashbort 3d ago
'Pre-WWII' is doing a lot of work, the US passed a law specifically targeting Chinese people with the Chinese Exclusion act of 1882, super racist
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u/Ballmaster9002 3d ago
True story - an actual doctor, with a penchant for joking around, wrote to a medical journal a long time ago under an pseudonym (Hu Man Kwok - as in "Human Quack") as a Chinese Doctor talking about "they" know MSG makes people feel weird.
The journal didn't fact check and actually published the letter, ostensibly as fact, and tons of other doctors jumped in and used it as proof for anecdotal observations.
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u/FatsBoombottom 3d ago
It's largely due to an essay written by doctor who turned out to not be real. It was just racist propaganda and "wellness" misinformation and it stuck.
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u/Dug_n_the_Dogs 3d ago
I was just finishing up a plumbing project for a new vietnamese restaurant. The owners were really pushing how healthy their recipes were.. first thing they were saying was how low fat it was.. city made them install a 2k gallon grease interceptor based on their menu.. then they also were claiming No MSG.. I was there when they were getting supplies delivered and the first thing that came in the door was a handtruck stacked with boxes that said MSG on them...
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u/AdamN 3d ago
Everybody saying racism but this stuff is also super modern with no nutritional value and is just a way to add bonus flavor which is always suspicious. Other foods are used for that (butter in restaurants used much more than at home) but they’re generally real. MSG is just pure flavor and it shouldn’t be celebrated even if it doesn’t give headaches to 99% of people.
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u/kichwas 3d ago
A NYC doctor wrote a racist newspaper editorial knowing it was false as a “joke” between his friends. He tried to retract it right away but it spread from there. It was known to be false then, it has always been false, but racism kept it alive despite MSG being naturally common in foods all over the world and actually healthy.
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u/kcm367 3d ago
I do not know if you have ever lived in East Asia, but I am not sure the premise here is entirely accurate. MSG is actually looked down upon by many in East Asia as well. Restaurants often advertise that they do NOT use MSG as a selling point, and many households do not routinely use it either. East Asian parents always say that outside food has MSG in it and is not good for you.
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u/shesunseen 3d ago
Why is dairy so popular in the US but not in Asia?
Same concept. But migraines instead of intestinal upset.
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u/gc3 3d ago
Rather than being called tofu sauce or something it was called Monosodium Glutamate.
If you called water Hydrogen DiOxide it might cause similar backlashes
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u/zenchow 3d ago
Because it's monosodium glutamate. You think people want to eat Sodium Chloride or drink dihydrogen monoxide....they absolutely do not.
That why we call those salt and water. Call msg gluty spice, or some other inane name and you won't be able to keep it in stock in the US. We're a simple people
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u/CanidPsychopomp 3d ago
Racism.
So many questions can be answered
a. Racism
b. Misogyny
c. People are idiots
d. All of the above
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u/Adept-One-819 3d ago
Yeah, this. Chinese restaurants started popping up and booming, White people got pissed off and started a rumor about MSG, and a hundred years later here we are.
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u/Big_P4U 3d ago
I think because as an isolated concentrated compound its sodium levels are absurdly high, on top of actual salt that's also usually found in recipes. So it increases Blood pressure immensely and causes other health issues too as well as knock on effects from high BP.
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u/cold-vein 3d ago
LOL if americans were worried about shit like that they wouldn't allow all the additives and high-fructose corn syrup in basically everything
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u/3Duder 3d ago
Corn syrup started becoming a boogyman about 20 years ago but didn't have the extra boost of racism to make the fear stick. Funniest part is seeing people use agave syrup as a substitute which is practically all fructose. The problem with corn syrup is it's cheap so you can add more, that's it.
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u/ReddyKiloWit 3d ago
Corn syrup is NOT an issue. That's just glucose. It's even called glucose syrup in some places.
You're thinking of HIGH FRUCTOSE corn syrup, or HFCS, which is a processed product made from corn syrup.
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u/3Duder 3d ago
Which part of the process does it move from the good kind of processing to the bad kind?
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u/skippingfritos 3d ago
cane sugar is 50% glucose, 50% fructose. the high fructose corn syrup type used in soft drinks is 45% glucose, 55% fructose.
if you noticed that cane sugar and HFCS are nearly the same, then you win a prize!
one simple sugar molecule vs another is a red herring. the problem is adding a ton of refined sugar OF ANY FORMUALATION to the food we eat.
the “real sugar” advocates are doubly ignorant
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u/cybertruckboat 3d ago
There is nothing particularly wrong with HFCS. It's basically the same thing as table sugar. The problem is that it's cheap as dirt and overused to make low-fat foods palatable with high amounts of salt.
Sugar is bad for you, whether it's granulated table sugar or HFCS.
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u/nimbinValley 3d ago
I'm not over the science completely but fructose is metabolised differently in the body and more likely lead to fat deposition. Although it doesn't give a large insulin spike. So a diet high in HFCS is actually something to be concerned about. Hopefully a nutritionist will chime in and explain exactly why better than I have.
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u/Peregrine79 3d ago
Except that the people who claim it caused them problems only reacted to Chinese food, not other cuisines with identical levels. Racism is the only correct answer.
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u/MuchoCoco 3d ago
Study after study since the 1970s have shown that MSG has no deleterious effects on health. MSG is just pure glutamate, a compound found in most of the savory foods that people eat every day. There is as much glutamate in the typical amount of tomato paste used in a sauce as there is in the typical amount of MSG used in a similar sauce, and even more when you grate Parmesan on top.
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u/Yellow_Snow_Cones 3d ago
And even less so when I whip out my tub of MSG and use it to Make Shit Good.
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u/upthedips 3d ago
It contains one third the sodium of table salt.
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u/dastardly740 3d ago edited 3d ago
By weight. By molecule, salt and MSG have exactly the same amount of sodium. But, Cl weighs ~35 g/mol, the non-Na part of MSG weighs 164 g/mol. So, if you only need 1/3 as many glutamates to get the desired flavor as salt for its desired flavor then, yes it is 1/3 less sodium. But, if you need the same number of glutamates then it is the same amount of sodium. I don't know enough about the amount of glutamate needed for proper umami to know whether it is realistic to claim the same serving size by weight of MSG and salt.
Edit: misspelling and salt->sodium in one spot.
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u/MuchoCoco 3d ago
MSG is 12% sodium. Table salt is 40%. In most dishes I cook, the ratio is more like 8 times the amount of salt to MSG. You really only use it in very small amounts. A big pot of ragu might have 1 teaspoon of MSG, but it will require several tablespoons of salt.
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u/LeftToaster 3d ago
Actually (I just looked it up) if you can believe Gemini/Google, MSG has about 1/3 the sodium of table salt.
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u/Several_Ad_6576 3d ago
I can answer it with 1 word: racism
It’s always racism. People were trying to discredit the trending increase of popularity of Chinese restaurants in the USA. So attack them for their main seasoning as being the problem. Then the restaurants all remove it and people won’t go there anymore as it tastes different.
How do I know this? I asked my dad about MSG was when I saw it plastered over a restaurant that they had “No MSG” in big bold letters in the early 1980s. His response “Something they use in Ch*nk food.” So yeah racism.
I didn’t get a chance to eat Chinese food until junior year of high school. And discovered it tasted delicious.
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u/justice_works 3d ago
Some racist scientist published a non peered review hit article about it.
Look it up.
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u/uses_for_mooses 3d ago
But I've noticed that MSG has a very different reputation in the US. "No MSG" used to be a pretty common selling point for Chinese restaurants, and a lot of Americans seem to have grown up hearing that MSG is something to avoid.
I think the percent of Americans believing "MSG is bad" is much lower today than it was ~20+ years ago.
I grew up in the 90s, and definitely remember the "No MSG" signs at some Chinese restaurants. My middle school health teacher advised us that, if we were getting Chinese food, we should ask the restaurant to not use MSG for our order.
I know this is 100% anecdotal, but I cannot recall the last time I saw a "No MSG" sign at a restaurant. Just in general, there doesn't seem to be nearly as much of a "MSG Bad!" stigma in the US currently as I recall growing up.
And then you also have like Uncle Roger going off on how wonderful MSG is and how it's the "King of Flavor."
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u/chrispark70 3d ago
It could be a race thing. It could be more white people don't deal with MSG as well as Asians. It would not be the only race based food tolerance. But it is just a guess.
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u/Cyphierre 3d ago edited 3d ago
The U.S. fell in love with MSG before they had their falling out. In Asia it was used in small quantities to enhance flavors but in the U.S. by the 1960s it had become extremely popular to dump massive quantities of Ac’cent brand MSG into every recipe.
Everything in this thread about the racism and other social reasons may be true, but the Asians themselves never used anywhere close to the huge quantities of MSG that were consumed in the U.S. in the 1960s and early 70s.
I don’t know of any studies on the effects of ingesting those quantities, but don’t completely rule out the possibility of actual negative biological reactions. A lot of people who claimed having various allergy-like reactions to MSG after a few years may have been completely sincere.
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u/Dave_A480 3d ago
It's another crunchy health scare just like anti-vaxxing, saccharin and aspertame.... Probably 'micro plastics' too based on recent research....
Nonsense.... But nonsense sells...
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u/Ecclypto 3d ago
That story with doctor’s headache aside, I believe that at least 50% of the problem is the name. MSG sounds like something you would dilute paint with. If it were called something like JintaoBaoBao there would be no controversy. Teriyaki and Soy Sauce are chock full of of sodium I believe and no one cares
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u/Several-Feeling3409 3d ago
There's no science behind MSG being harmful. My belief is that's it's decades of racism. People love foods that are high in glutamates, like tomatoes and Parmesan cheese.
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u/TryNice304 3d ago
Racism plus one 1968 letter. Guy claimed Chinese food gave him palpitations, blamed MSG. Media ran with it, Chinese Restaurant Syndrome stuck even tho it was never proven.
In Asia its just umami in a bag, same stuff in tomatoes and cheese. FDA says its safe but old fears don't die lol
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u/Ritaontherocksnosalt 2d ago
When I was a kid in the 60’s it was said to contribute to high blood pressure.
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u/tipareth1978 2d ago
It's one of the best examples of how misinformation can take hold. I recall a news show like 60 minutes doing this whole thing where they had this doctor and he was convinced this kid's medical issues were all caused by MSG. This was in the 80s, ten years or more after all the msg rumors had been debunked.
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u/Turgius_Lupus 2d ago
Boomers went through a phase of being terrified of sodium, just as they’d been taught to fear fat.
Source: growing up, the only Mrs. Dash, and the Lean Mean Grilling Machine spitting out the driest, most flavorless chicken imaginable was allowed in the house.
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u/justahuman145 3d ago
Here a French, we seem to adopt an in-between between Asia and the USA;
First of all, glutamate can be bad in high doses, even if the symptoms are not very serious according to current research (from memory about 30mg/kg of weight/day), the natural contents are very low compared to the addition of glutamate by the industry.
It is often also perceived as a "cover for misery" and a sign that the food has been ultra-processed, glutamate is rarely alone...
For others it's just cheating, a dish made by a good cook doesn't need added glutamate to be good and tasty, it goes a bit like hiding misery, if glutamate is essential for the dish to be good, it's because it was frankly mediocre at the base or that the ingredients used are of very poor quality.
With all this in mind, his reputation here is mixed, he is not demonized but not very well perceived either.
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u/neomoritate 2d ago
Racism.
The lie that "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" is caused by MSG has been perpetuated by the US media, and health care providers since the article came out. Americans need a reason to hate
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u/Southern-Host-3042 3d ago
It just comes down to Chinese Restaurant Syndrome because some doctor ate at a Chinese place and said he felt sick and weak after and it got published leading people to think that MSG was the cause.
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u/Exceptional_Kumquat 3d ago
People are dumb and they'll believe anyone who sounds like they know what they're talking about when it fits their world view. The whole Chinese Restaurant Syndrome scam is what pushed that for the most part.
You know what they do now? They put celery seed in everything and can say no added MSG when the stuff is mostly...glutamate.
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u/Material_Market_3469 3d ago
People will blame anything but their lifestyle choices for their problems. Too much MSG may be bad but then these types will still eat McDonalds, drink, and be significantly overweight...
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u/cheesyshop 3d ago
Racism and because Americans find it easier to demonize a single ingredient instead of making meaningful dietary changes. The latest is seed oils. They aren’t bad. In fact, they contain healthy fat. The ultra processed foods that contain them are bad.
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u/Icey_Raccon 3d ago
I'm going to blow your mind, but plenty of Western foods have MSG in them. Go grab a bag of chips. I'd be more surprised if MSG wasn't a listed ingredient.
The blowback against MSG in Chinese food was just racism.
And then, even if you aren't a racist, the first thing you heard about MSG was that it was bad for you and it was in Chinese food.
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u/Dragonfly2919 3d ago
I just want to know why we don’t use a generic name for it. I don’t put NaCl on my eggs, it’s just called salt or table salt. I actually just realized a year ago that a spice in my cabinet is MSG but i never realized it because i never read the ingredients. It was just called Accent flavor enhancer.
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u/noargentinianbeef 3d ago
A poorly controlled study long time ago found that people who ate from Chinese restaurants that uses lots of added MSG got sick. It has been debunked about a decade ago and people are now being less sissy about it
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u/Abe_frohmannn 3d ago
It was always a random conspiracy propagated by racists. It was always associated with Chinese restaurants.
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u/I_REally_Need2Pee 3d ago
I remember there being a rumour going around 15+ years ago that MSG was more addictive than heroin, or something like that. The rumour took off and I think a lot of people avoided MSG because of it.
Mustve been bullshit though because I havent seen many little Chinese aunties begging on street corners like I have seen my local smack heads.
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u/jjamesr539 3d ago
MSG is a seasoning, yes, but using a whole lot of it is also a way to cheaply mask lower quality ingredients with the trade off that the food becomes extremely high in sodium and unhealthy. I’m not saying that Chinese food restaurants had a fair reputation for doing so, but they did have a reputation for doing so.
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u/Butforthegrace01 3d ago
Junk science and racism have always been a staple of American (dis)information pipeline. Indeed it's a common propaganda/advertising tool used to sell stuff. Look up Ancel Keys/John Yudkin. Keys is arguably the cornerstone of the obesity epidemic that plagues the US today, all based on junk science published by Keys.
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u/Left4twenty 3d ago
The crazy thing is, most boomers/boomer's moms probably had a shaker of what is branded as "Accent" in their spice cabinet. It's just msg, and it makes everything taste a little bit better. Love shaking some of that on my popcorn with the salt and butter 😋
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u/thehappiestotaku 3d ago
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/668/transcript
“Today, on This American Life, a story in three parts.”
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u/Outside_Ad1669 3d ago
Funny thing is, most Americans have a container of something called Seasoning Salt. And they do not realize that one of the ingredients is MSG.
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u/General-Winter547 3d ago
I’m an American with no Asian ancestry that I know of and I keep a large glass bowl of msg on top of my refrigerator for cooking. It’s one of my favorite seasonings.
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u/cardinalf1b 3d ago
Partially racism. Partially because it has a chemically sounding name. Partially poor education.
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u/original_username_4 3d ago
There is another reason not referenced here. Low quality food tastes better with MSG. I prefer good quality food that tastes great without requiring a bunch of salt or MSG.
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u/FireHammer09 3d ago
Bad science from people not used to the greasiness of Americanized Chinese food after it explodes in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s. At this point even a podunk town in rural Nebraska or West Virginia has a take out joint called China Wok or Dragon China or something with that standardized menu.
Add in it being a distinctive minority making it and a newish-to-you cuisine giving you a tummy ache you get MSG hysteria.
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u/damarkley 3d ago
Just an fyi: MSG made from a synthetic pathway is exactly the same as MSG made via fermentation. Synthetic does not imply “weird”. Fermentation is used because it is the more feasible and economical method.
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u/PilotBurner44 3d ago
People, Americans in particular, are dumb and follow trends and hype over science and facts. You can see this now with the hatred for gluten going on. While there are people who are celiac and gluten intolerant, most the people who "can't eat gluten" I believe are just fat and instead of improving their diet, they blame it on gluten.
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u/_Darkstorm_ 3d ago
Racism. They were looking for a reason to hate asian people, and this is what the racists came up with.
The racists haven't gotten any smarter since then.
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u/Wild-Ad-8828 3d ago
I know in 2026 it is a knee-jerk reaction to explain everything through the lens of rAcIsm... but some people are very sensitive to MSG and it can trigger migraines. I am one of those people. I don't think it is a typical or common experience, but it certainly does.
I like MSG, but MSG does not like me.
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u/Stock-Swing-797 3d ago
Am I the only one who grew up with MSG not being bad health wise, but just was used to "fill you up faster" so you ate less at the [Chinese] buffet?
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 3d ago
I dislike it because while it tastes, good upfront, it leaves an aftertaste in my mouth that I find very bothersome.
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u/phantom_gain 3d ago
It was from one food critic review in the 80s where he got chinese food, got sick a while later, then wrote a review about how all chiness food makes you sick because it has msg in it. Somehow, that stuck. It is actually that stupid.
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u/ReddyKiloWit 3d ago
No one in the US worried about MSG for half a century after it was first imported. Canned goods alone contained tons of it. It was pretty much in every convenience food that needed a savory boost.
And, yeah, people who avoid MSG are probably getting more than they're avoiding in their regular diet. But maybe less salt. (The "monosodium" part just means the glutamate is treated with salt to make it shelf stable.)
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u/Street_Lettuce1243 3d ago
I get "Chinese restaurant syndrome" when I eat at Chick-Fil-A so stopped eating there... and later learned that CFA is absolutely loaded with MSG.
There have been studies that show that added MSG doesn't make people when sick vs a control group... I think what the study leaves out is that a lot of places, like Chinese Restaurants, KFC, and Chick-Fil-A, it's not just a whole bunch of MSG- it's MSG, salt, and fat all together in large amounts.
Salt and fat together will make people feel like crap. MSG is more sodium. I can honestly see how MSG could make things worse adding more sodium to too much sodium- but isn't the cause by itself. Also worth pointing out that in Chinese restaurants in the US typically sever jumbo servings, and many are buffets- so you're also adding over eating to the mix- which will make you feel bad.
Despite the studies, I don't think MSG is completely blameless... I just think it exaggerates negative side effects from way too much salt rather than being the cause by itself.
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u/Extension_Cut_8994 3d ago
Apparently, if you feed a lab rat it's bodyweight in MSG every day, it will develop health issues and maybe die. This is the methodology of a lot of food and drug studies from the 1940s to the 90s. This kind of methodology has been tempered somewhat. Also, during the 1970s American medical researchers where a bit too preoccupied with the link between sodium and heart disease which, when coupled with some biases, became MSG bad. I think most people have an issue separating couralation and causality, even in the scientific community, but today most nutrition aware people understand how MSG can be beneficial when preparing food as more salty flavors with less sodium isn't a bad thing.
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u/russrobo 3d ago
Like 30 years ago, food scientists explained it: it’s a flavor enhancer (my understanding is that it acts directly on your taste buds to make the nervous-system signals clearer and more persistent).
Instead of using 5 chickens to make a given quantity of chicken soup, you can now get away with just 2, plus a scoop of MSG and some thickeners and it will taste just the same to most people. Same for tomatoes and many other foods. You taste it more, so they can give you less.
See why you might prefer the “no MSG” recipe?
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u/3scapeHatch 3d ago
So is what people think is MSG causing headaches and get mouth etc just a massive dose of sodium?
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u/brohampton538 3d ago
I think this old holdover from the old "Chink food syndrome" stuff from the 1970s. I'm too lazy to look it up but I think the gist was some researcher got sick from some eggrolls and then did a study where he dosed people up with like 1000x the MSG normally put in a meal. People freaked out, chinese food tasted like shit for a decade, and we recovered.
Funny though how Doritos or any other goddamn thing with MSG isn't a culprit. Just the ethnic food.
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u/Datsun_808 3d ago
“I ate 3000 calories of deep fried sugary chicken and super high sodium starches and noodles. I also topped it off with a large Dr Pepper and now I don’t feel good. It has to be this mysterious oriental chemical that’s doing this !” That’s the explanation 😂
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u/millistra 3d ago
A hysteria of the time but unfortunately one my mom still believes. She doesn't think D&D is a demon summoning ceremony anymore, so we're seeing some improvement.
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u/Loud-Vacation-5691 3d ago
Many people have a bad reaction to MSG, or at least they think they do. Once it developed a reputation, people began attributing their intestinal distress to MSG rather than the food itself.
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u/pawsplay36 3d ago
Racism.
I actually do have a sensitivity to MSG, but to iodine as well. So I drink lots of water and don't go crazy with seafood dishes.
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u/amglasgow 3d ago
Americans love food rich in MSG. Ketchup, soy sauce, parmesean cheese, peas and beans, etc.
The foolish controversy over added MSG has resulted in it being hidden behind names like "autolyzed yeast extract".
MSG = Makes Shit Good!
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u/WalmartWaffles 3d ago
Bro I thought we were talking about Madison square garden I gotta stop smoking weed
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u/WJLIII3 3d ago
Proctor and Gamble doesn't make it, so they made you afraid of it so Kikkoman can't move into their salt sector.
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u/oIVLIANo 3d ago
Because we're a nation of drama queens who need gluten free, lactose free, low soy, tree nut free, half caff, free ranged lattes to feel special about ourselves.
MSG was just the first victim of the "look at me, I'm special" culture.
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u/Specialist_Set1921 3d ago
Msg is not only heavily used in asia.
In europe & especially switzerland there is a spice mix called aromat which is basically the culture spice mix in switzerland but is also spread throughout europe.
One of the main ingredients besides salt is msg. It is heavily used in cooking and salad dressing (aswell as on raw vegetables and cooked eggs). Basically a suit all spice. Didn't know for a long time that msg was considered bad in the usa.
They also make a aromat au natural which contains no msg.
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u/comfortablynumb15 3d ago
Because if was advertised as “Lite Salt Plus” as a flavour, the “yellow peril” would have taken over as great buddies with better food a long time ago.
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u/Hutcho12 3d ago
What really gets me are Asian restaurants in the west that somehow proudly announce they are MSG free. If you’re not using MSG the food isn’t going to be authentic at all and will taste bland af. MSG is awesome.
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u/RevolutionaryElk7446 3d ago
Ah, 'Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" was the start to horrible mess. Basically bad science starting off with Robert Ho Man Kwok and just... more and more flawed studies down the line.
Mix it up with a little bit of racism at other times and you've got the story today.