I get a headache every time I eat at Leann Chin’s restaurants. Other Chinese places do not cause this issue for me. I’m not much of a fan and have stopped eating at Leann Chin once I was sure of the correlation.
After some Googling, I have found numerous references to MSG causing headaches, so I set out to see if their food contains it. All I could find on the Internet was quotes such as “No added MSG”. That doesn’t help. If I don’t add salt to my food, it still has salt in it already. What about with MSG?
So I contacted the company and received a reply. The company responded with the same cookie cutter answer. “We don’t add any MSG to the food.” Never did he say “It does not contain it”.
So does anyone know the dope on this?
I’ve had a very similar experience with a certain Chinese restaurant that I used to eat at with my family when I was 16 years old. In my case, I tended to feel really short of breath and had some lower-digestive upset, and sometimes felt faint. I didn’t know what it was for a long time, but I imagined that the configuration of the seats and tables caused that. (Deep seats, ergo table rather high under my chin, ergo I had to lift my arms and elbows to eat, ergo uncomfortable.)
As for your other question: I’ve never heard of anyone having a bad reaction to MSG just from the amount that is naturally present, which I believe is miniscule. Even certain canned foods (like some brands of canned chili or soup, for example), with some added MSG, may not be bothersome – not for me anyway. But it seems that some Chinese restaurants pour it in by the shovelful, and that’s when it becomes a problem.
If I were to have the symptoms you describe at one particular Chinese restaurant but not at a lot of others, I would feel rather certain that they are using lots and lots and lots of MSG. It is available by various brand names, so maybe they don’t even know it. They may be piling it on and yet not even know what MSG is.
Do the staff at this restaurant speak English reasonably well? I’ve asked at a lot of restaurants if they use MSG, and at a few of them, it was obvious that the people I asked didn’t understand the question.
– “Do you use MSG here?”
– “Is good for you? Yeeeees, goooooood for you!”
I used to get dull, slightly throbbing headaches. Not pounding like a migraine, but sort of like when you can hear your pulse in your ears, but slightly painful.
Then I realized that I only got these headaches when I ate from certain Chinese restaurants. So I stopped eating there. No more throbbing. Yes, it was probably the MSG.
There’s also MSG in parmesan cheese so unless italian food also fucks you up, it’s probably* not the MSG.
*It’s not the MSG.
I’m pretty sure that it has been investigated repeatedly and MSG does not cause discomfort in anyone. It’s something else, yet to be determined. When they say “we don’t add MSG” that’s fine, the natural levels of MSG in any food couldn’t possibly be the issue. More likely you’re allergic to something else, and you probably suffer from that allergy a lot and in those instances can’t easily ascribe it to something obvious.
I am not a Dietitian.
This.
There’s no evidence MSG causes headaches or discomfort when consumed.
I agree that naturally-occurring levels of MSG are no problem, at least for me.
But all those claims that no amount of MSG causes any problems for anyone? :dubious: Then I’ll need to see some evidence of what does cause the kinds of problems described in this thread. As best I’ve been able to tell, high levels like some Chinese restaurants are reputed to use definitely fucks me all up. (ETA: And it can’t just be a placebo effect, because I’ve had these kinds of problems since I was a teen-ager before I ever knew anything about alleged MSG problems. It was only later when I learned about MSG that I connected the dots.)
Therein lies your problem. You’ve connected dots with a convenient answer that, unfortunately, has no actual evidence to back it up. I am not belittling your discomfort which is undoubtedly genuine, it’s just not caused by MSG.
Right.
So there is no evidence that MSG is causal.
But until you see evidence that something else does cause the symptoms, you’ll continue to believe it’s MSG?
Perhaps you could go over to the thread “New movie “Vaxxed” reopens discussion about the link between autism and vaccines” where you’ll see the Anti-Vaxxer faction relying on the same strategy.
Glutamate is ubiquitous in the natural world. It would typically constitute +/- 12% of the amino acids in all proteins. All foods will contain free glutamate. Humans seek out foods with high free glutamate levels. Glutamate and Aspartate are neuro-transmittors.
Whether high levels of free MSG, or synergists like disodium inosinate (IMP) and disodium guanylate (GMP) or high levels of sodium or other food additives e.g. the colourant tartrazine or something ingested with the meal e.g. alcohol or complex mix of all or some of the above causes the symptoms or the syndrome is entirely or partially psychosomatic has eluded the worlds best food scientists.
In double blind placebo controlled experiments using essentially pure MSG and in dosages greater than 3g (ie approx a teaspoon) in the absence of food there is scant evidence that MSG reproducibly causes headaches and similar symptoms among either the general population or among those self-identified as suffering “Chinese Restaurant” Syndrome.