4 ms·

>do you get headaches when you eat blue cheese, parmesan, mushrooms, or tomatoes? Those are naturally intense sources of glutamic acid How much, though? Some q

by rm999 11y ago

>do you get headaches when you eat blue cheese, parmesan, mushrooms, or tomatoes? Those are naturally intense sources of glutamic acid How much, though? Some quick and dirty math (please correct me if I'm wrong in any of this): 100 grams of parmesan cheese (about a cup) is 1.2 grams of free glutamates: http://www.msgfacts.com/nutrition/what_foods_are_glutamate-rich.aspx http://www.msgfacts.com/nutrition/what_foods_are_glutamate-r... Powdered MSG contains 78% free glutamate and 12.2% sodium, or about a 6.4:1 glutamate:sodium ratio: http://www.edenfoods.com/articles/view.php?articles_id=207 http://www.edenfoods.com/articles/view.php?articles_id=207 A teaspoon of powdered MSG contains 500 mg of sodium (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91dpQqbFZrL._SL1500_.jpg http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91dpQqbFZrL._SL1500_.j...). This is about 3.2 grams of glutamate. So, if my math is correct, a teaspoon of powdered MSG contains as much sodium as 2.7 cups (0.5 * 6.4 / 1.2) of parmesan cheese. As someone who regularly cooks with MSG powder and has seen other people cook with it too (my chinese friend uses a 1:1 ratio of salt and MSG powder), it's easy to load food with way more than 1 teaspoon of MSG per serving. My point is, I think people who cook with MSG use way more glutamate than people who cook with natural foods like parmesan or mushrooms.

tptacek 11y ago
Studies of food with MSG added suggest that typical dishes with MSG have less than 0.5 grams of MSG (and thus even less glutamate). 3 grams of glutamate is a lot. The important question in this part of the thread, just to be clear, isn't whether you can more rapidly ingest glutamic acid by eating pure MSG than by eating parmesan. Of course you can! The question is whether you get a roughly equivalent dose of glutamate from common umami-forward dishes than you do from dishes where umami is added through MSG. If people who claim to be MSG-sensitive are eating typical dishes (the kind where MSG is buried in the label as "yeast extract") and reporting symptoms, but aren't responding to a blue cheese burger with mushrooms, something's wrong wth the reporting.
- rm999 11y ago
  >If people who claim to be MSG-sensitive are eating typical dishes (the kind where MSG is buried in the label as "yeast extract") and reporting symptoms, but aren't responding to a blue cheese burger with mushrooms, something's wrong wth the reporting. This was the point of my comment: there is far more free glutamate in (some) foods containing powdered MSG, like Zatarain's, than there is in naturally high glutamate foods like mushrooms and parmesan. I'm talking potentially an order of magnitude. This is partially because of the way people use the powders, and partially because the processing of MSG involves freeing bound glutamates. As someone who cooks with powdered MSG, I'm speaking from personal experience here - I don't have a sensitivity to glutamate, so I cook with a lot of it. So do many other people I know. >The question is whether you get a roughly equivalent dose of glutamate from common umami-forward dishes than you do from dishes where umami is added through MSG. The answer is "not at all" for many types of food (like a typical corner Chinese restaurant, who uses powdered MSG a lot like I do).
  - tptacek 11y ago
    "The processing of MSG involves freeing bound glutamates"? This sounds suspiciously Mercola-ish. Can you be more specific?
vonmoltke 11y ago
> it's easy to load food with way more than 1 teaspoon of MSG per serving Leaving aside the MSG, that would be over 500mg of added salt per serving. I would find that disgustingly salty and unpalatable, so I don't see how it's "easy" to add that much.

by rm999 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago

Studies of food with MSG added suggest that typical dishes with MSG have less than 0.5 grams of MSG (and thus even less glutamate). 3 grams of glutamate is a lot. The important question in this part of the thread, just to be clear, isn't whether you can more rapidly ingest glutamic acid by eating pure MSG than by eating parmesan. Of course you can! The question is whether you get a roughly equivalent dose of glutamate from common umami-forward dishes than you do from dishes where umami is added through MSG. If people who claim to be MSG-sensitive are eating typical dishes (the kind where MSG is buried in the label as "yeast extract") and reporting symptoms, but aren't responding to a blue cheese burger with mushrooms, something's wrong wth the reporting.

rm999 11y ago
>If people who claim to be MSG-sensitive are eating typical dishes (the kind where MSG is buried in the label as "yeast extract") and reporting symptoms, but aren't responding to a blue cheese burger with mushrooms, something's wrong wth the reporting. This was the point of my comment: there is far more free glutamate in (some) foods containing powdered MSG, like Zatarain's, than there is in naturally high glutamate foods like mushrooms and parmesan. I'm talking potentially an order of magnitude. This is partially because of the way people use the powders, and partially because the processing of MSG involves freeing bound glutamates. As someone who cooks with powdered MSG, I'm speaking from personal experience here - I don't have a sensitivity to glutamate, so I cook with a lot of it. So do many other people I know. >The question is whether you get a roughly equivalent dose of glutamate from common umami-forward dishes than you do from dishes where umami is added through MSG. The answer is "not at all" for many types of food (like a typical corner Chinese restaurant, who uses powdered MSG a lot like I do).
- tptacek 11y ago
  "The processing of MSG involves freeing bound glutamates"? This sounds suspiciously Mercola-ish. Can you be more specific?

vonmoltke 11y ago

> it's easy to load food with way more than 1 teaspoon of MSG per serving Leaving aside the MSG, that would be over 500mg of added salt per serving. I would find that disgustingly salty and unpalatable, so I don't see how it's "easy" to add that much.