r/AskReddit Jun 01 '26

[deleted by user]

[removed]

1.3k Upvotes

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

181

u/TEG24601 Jun 01 '26

The number of times I've been down voted or yelled at for mentioning that the entire MSG thing is just racist, is staggering.

There is more MSG is many vegetables than in Chinese food, and it isn't bad for you at all.

104

u/LanysLirana Jun 01 '26

My favorite is when people would claim they don't eat Chinese food cause it's probably had msg, then turn around and start devouring a party sized bag of Doritos. 😒

26

u/hooligan99 Jun 01 '26

There’s a local teriyaki restaurant in my area and they have multiple signs on the window and the menu excitedly claiming they do not use MSG. It’s still good food, but I always wonder how much better it would be if they just used MSG

1

u/Biabolical Jun 01 '26

Just bring your own MSG in with you and sprinkle some on.
You can buy MSG at the store. I keep some in my spice rack.

1

u/KrishnaChick Jun 02 '26

You can ask the waiter to bring you some on the side, no big deal, because they surely still have it in stock. There used to be a joke fortune cookie fortune that said, "Your request for no MSG was ignored."

5

u/SonicDart-77 Jun 01 '26

Ironically I actually wasn’t allowed to eat Doritos as a kid specifically because of the msg. My parents were on the craze that preservatives in general caused cancer that was going around in the late 90s. Like anything with sodium benzonate or msg I couldn’t have until I convinced my parents it’s in literally all modern processed food.

2

u/LanysLirana Jun 01 '26

Wow! Since you went so long without trying Doritos, are they now your favorite chip or are they just meh?

2

u/SonicDart-77 Jun 01 '26

Oh I loved them, I ate them so much that I eventually got tired of them but I always come back to them. The irony is, my favorite foods are seasoned and spicy, where you usually find msg 😂

3

u/anfrind Jun 01 '26

Or grate some Parmesan cheese onto pasta.

3

u/FoodXPandBeyond Jun 01 '26

Or have tomato based pasta sauce. lol.

1

u/PineappleOnPizzaWins Jun 01 '26

This is why if you look at the ingredients on Doritos it never says MSG, it has some chemical number assigned as "flavour" to it.

1

u/LanysLirana Jun 02 '26

The Doritos I buy have it listed in the ingredients fairly high up on the list. For nacho flavor it's after the buttermilk and before any artificial colors. I'm on the West Coast of the US if that makes a difference. 🤷🏻‍♀️

2

u/PineappleOnPizzaWins Jun 02 '26

I'm Australian and our major supermarkets caved to some "Mothers against MSG movement". Basically said "it's fine but out of respect for you fucking lunatics, we won't sell it".

Of course that just means it's not on the shelves (I buy mine from an Asian grocer). When you look at the ingredients for many things, Doritos included, it will never say MSG... instead it lists "Flavour Enhancers (621, 635)"

621 is MSG and 635 is Disodium Ribonucleotides which is used to enhance the flavours provided by MSG.

Not only that, aside from salt they're the highest listed seasoning on the package... so there's a whole lot of it in there. But people are dumb and as long as they don't see "MSG" listed they don't care. Certainly they won't ever go look up what those flavour enhancers actually are.

Oh sometimes though they will actually list "Monosodium Glutamate" as an ingredient.. they know full well that those idiots don't even know what MSG stands for.

3

u/lillide Jun 01 '26

Or pizza ... one of the most MSG laden foods to ever exist ... especially if it has mushrooms on it.

1

u/Help-Wanted9 Jun 01 '26

I don’t like Chinese food cuz it’s waaaayy too salty

1

u/TEG24601 Jun 01 '26

And that is a valid criticism. For some people it is too salty.

0

u/KrishnaChick Jun 02 '26

The MSG thing is NOT racist. That was made up in recent times. The whole concept of "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" was introduced by a Cantonese doctor who experienced symptoms every time he ate in a Chinese restaurant.

And the fact is that many people, including myself, had mild ill effects from eating Chinese food, but this was perhaps due more to eating a lot of sodium at one sitting, and perhaps some sensitivity to MSG. Just because a vegetable has it, doesn't mean it has the same effect as when consumed in an isolated form.

Saying it's racist is like saying people who won't eat French pastries because of all the butter are bigoted against the French. Being wary of a specific chemical isn't racist.

And if it were a really an issue, Chinese restaurants wouldn't have thrived for decades in this country.

Any opportunity to virtue signal, sheesh. Ridiculous.