Is MSG safe?

[Norman Walsh]

I have lately been trying my hand at sausage making and noticed quite a few sausage recipes have msg listed in the ingredients.

Is this stuff o/k to use? as if my memory serves me correctly I recall there was a bit of a scare about it a while ago.

wallie

[thom]

As far as I understand it was all just a bit of a scare-story whipped up by images of Chinese restaurants tipping industrial sized bags of scary looking chemicals into stirfrys.

The facts are that MSG is in almost every way like salt, it just has a scarier name (Monosodium Glutamate rather than Sodium Chloride).

In it's refined state it is a white granular substance. Like salt.

It enhances flavours. Like salt.

It naturally occurs in many tasty foods (parmasan, soy sauce). Like salt.

In high doses it can make your throat dry or give you a headache as it dehydrates you. Like salt.

Isn't it meant to be the substance that supplies the recently discovered sixth taste of 'umami'?

The thing that gets me with things like this is when people say 'well yes but too much is bad for you'. Well yes, but 'too much' anything is bad for you; as Stephen Fry pointed out that's precisely what 'too much' means - an amount above a safe or advisable limit. Too much water is bad for you, as is too much oxygen.

Anyway, I'm all for less additives in food but personally I worry less about salt animal fats or even MSG (which has been used in Asian cookery for ages) than pesticides, growth hormones, steroids, antibiotics etc.

That's my, possibly factually incorrect, Friday afternoon two-pennoth worth anyway.

Cheers

Thom

[srhcb]

Anyway, I'm all for less additives in food but personally I worry less about salt animal fats or even MSG (which has been used in Asian cookery for ages) than pesticides, growth hormones, steroids, antibiotics etc.

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That pretty much sums up my own opinion.

In my inventory of food additive issues, MSG ranks right below alar on apples.

SB (believes consuming too much food, additives notwithstanding, is the most serious health issue)

[Nathan]

studies have shown that MSG allergies appear to be purely psychological.

glutamates are prevalent in many foodstuffs...especially mushrooms (that's why they taste "beefy") and soybeans. Japanese food is filled with the stuff...(it's essentially what "umami" refers to).

I routinely use it in certain dishes...including for friends who purport to have an MSG allergy...I just don't tell them. they, of course, don't get a headache...cause they don't know that I used msg....amazing how that works.

[Matthew Grant]

We had a thread about this before with links to an article describing a study which found no evidence linking MSG with any of the usually complained about side effects. Unfortunately we're unabel to search on 3 letter phrases so I'm unabel to find it.

[srhcb]

Here it is!

[Infrasonic]

http://www.msgtruth.org/allergy.htm

It has been discussed lately in allergist office magazines that MSG is not an allergen. It was never considered one. What most people don't realize is the difference between food allergy and food intolerance or sensitivity.

Probably not as harmfull as getting pissed on a friday night, but worth reading.

I

[camp_dick]

Amused to note, listed two topics below this thread at the mo: Marmite, can't stop eating the stuff...

[Norman Walsh]

Amused to note, listed two topics below this thread at the mo: Marmite, can't stop eating the stuff... 

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Bringing Marmite into the thread this article from the Guardian was just brought to my attention:

My Webpage

Especially this paragraph:

Your mate, Marmite, with 1750mg per 100g, has more glutamate in it than any other manufactured product on the planet - except a jar of Gourmet Powder straight from the Ajinomoto MSG factory. On the label, Marmite calls it 'yeast extract'. Nowhere in all their literature does the word 'glutamate' appear. I asked Unilever why they were so shy about their spread's key ingredient, and their PR told me that it was because it was 'naturally occurring ... the glutamate occurs naturally in the yeast'.

wallie

[Zoticus]

MSG happens to be a neurotransmitter. Like most neurotransmitters it is abundant in our diets. Imagine if, in order to to have a ordinary brain function, one had to seek out a Chinese meal! However, there is a doubt that one can overdo the levels of MSG in the organism.

Simple carbohydrates are vital for life, yet there is no doubt that a diet overly rich in glucose is damaging.

Eating the majority of one's food in a 'close to natural' state should ensure that one does not upset the body's biology. Adding a lot of salt/sugar/MSG/Aspartme and so on runs the risk of subjecting the organism to something for which evolution has not prepared it.

If MSG makes you feel bad, then avoid it, if it doesn't then don't. Either way, your physiology is your physiology, just as your evolutionary history is uniquely yours, and so what affects you or not doesn't necessarily affect others the same way.

Edited March 30, 2007 by Zoticus (log)

[Matthew Grant]

Here it is!

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No its not This was a thread on the UK Board.

[rjs1]

Isn't it meant to be the substance that supplies the recently discovered sixth taste of 'umami'?

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Fifth, surely?

[Matthew Grant]

Here it is!

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No its not   This was a thread on the UK Board.

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Here is the original discussion, it was on a thread about Yauatcha:

MSG Discussion

and if you don't want to read through that there was a good article in OFM:

If MSG is so bad for you, why doesn't everyone in Asia have a headache?

Edited March 31, 2007 by Matthew Grant (log)

[LB Howes]

Another MSG discussion? Several months back there was a discussion on MSG hidden in another eGullet thread. . . perhaps there is someone else who remembers and can post the link to the thread?

Regardless - Is MSG safe? Yes - for most everyone. Even those of us who are truly sensitive to MSG don't die - we just wish we could die when our glutamate caused migraines strike us.

Luckily most everyone in the world is not sensitive to MSG and so high glutamate foods and foods containing added MSG don't affect them at all. I'd venture to guess that most people who claim MSG sensitivity aren't really sensitive to it. However, bear in mind that there are some folks who suffer from migraine headaches and high glutamate foods and MSG are some our migraine triggers.

[rlibkind]

I have lately been trying my hand at sausage making and noticed quite  a few sausage recipes have msg  listed in the ingredients.

Is this stuff o/k to use? as if my memory serves me correctly I recall there was a bit of a scare about it a while ago.

wallie

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Getting back to your original question. Yes, it is safe to use as called for in the recipes. But if you want to leave it out, your sausages will still taste fine; perhaps not quite as savory as they would be otherwise, but still pretty good.

[JAZ]

This subject has been thoroughly discussed before, so we're closing this topic. Further discussion of MSG can be continued on the topics Matthew Grant linked to above, or on a new topic, if, indeed, there's something new to say. Thanks.