5 ms·
Here's what I know: 1. I occasionally get symptoms often associated with MSG. Terrible headache, confusion, nasal drip, nausea, and so on. It can put me out of
by Pitarou 13y ago
Here's what I know:
1. I occasionally get symptoms often associated with MSG. Terrible headache, confusion, nasal drip, nausea, and so on. It can put me out of action for about 12 hours.
2. I invariably get these symptoms about 24 hours after I've eaten processed foods with an unusually rich flavour and which have, somewhere in their ingredients, either MSG or something that might conceal MSG (e.g. "flavourings").
I can't guarantee that it's MSG, because I'm too chicken to test it directly (that headache really sucks), but it certainly fits the profile.
Now some people point out, "It occurs naturally in all kinds of foods. The original MSG was derived from miso soup, which you eat every day."
And my answer is, "I don't know. Maybe it's a subtle variant of MSG that only occurs in the synthetic variety? Maybe the naturally occurring MSG is bound up with other things that render it safe for me to eat? But something's making me ill, and it's only in synthetic ingredients."
- tptacek 13y agoThe "synthetic" MSG you're referring to isn't synthesized, it's cultured by bacteria in sugar. There is a chemical process to create MSG, but it is significantly more expensive; the shift to fermentation happened in the '70s, so you may never have had chemically synthesized MSG.
- Pitarou 13y agoThanks for pointing that out. So "synthetic" is the wrong word. Maybe "industrially produced"? Anyway, if it's made by bacteria, that suggests that it's enantiopure, so there goes one of my hypotheses about the cause of the problem. The ones I'm left with are: - it's something else entirely that's making me ill - the naturally-occurring MSG is bound up with other substances in some way that makes it safe for me to consume I guess there's nothing for it other than for me to pick a weekend when I'm not busy, swallow a teaspoon of the stuff, and see what happens.
- tptacek 13y agoTry eating some Roquefort cheese; it's almost nothing but salt, fat, water, and protein, half of which is glutamic acid.
- Pitarou 13y agoHard cheese is fine. If MSG is the culprit (and I still think it probably is), it's the industrially produced kind. I don't know why, but I can assure you I'm not making up those headaches.