Why Is MSG Bad For You?
MSG stands for monosodium glutamate and is an food additive that, many years ago, got significant press about how bad it was for you. As it turns out, many Asian cuisine flavor enhancing ingredients contained high amounts of MSG but it wasn’t commercial separated and made into its own individual product until 1907 and introduced in the US in 1947. MSG was and is still used as a flavor enhancer in many foods, especially processed foods such as canned soups, frozen dinners, and fast food.
So why is MSG bad for you?
First off, it’s actually the glutamic acid in the MSG that is of concern for most people and in 1959 the FDA classified MSG as “generally recognized as safe.” However, because glutamate is absorbed very quickly in the gastointestinal tract it can spike blood plasma levels of glutamate. What does this mean for you? Well, glutamic acid is known as an excitotoxins and high levels of excitotoxins has been shown in animal studies to cause damage to areas of the brain. Does this happen in people? No one knows, but it’s been shown in mice.
Indirectly, MSG has been shown in lab tests to downregulate hypothalamic appetite supression, which is a fancy word for it makes you feel hungry again. That’s the whole joke about how you feel hungry thirty minutes after you eat at a Chinese restaurant. The indirect effect is that the mice in the lab just kept eating and thus got fatter. However, a 1973 study didn’t show a similar effect in human beings.
So it’s okay?
The FDA considers it safe but regulations require the clear labeling of MSG on any product that contains it or a product of it. There are no studies that show it’s bad for human beings but it hasn’t been good for mice.
The verdict? You can eat it, but I wouldn’t eat too much of it. And stop it with the Chinese food jokes. 
18 People have left comments on this post
Jul 14, 2009 - 04:07:59I have a question… I was talking to a good friend the other day at a local restuarant,a local buffet type rest. she commented that she could not eat the salad bar because of the MSG I thought that MSG was mainly in your chinese food rest. please correct me if I am wrong. This particular rest
is known for there produce being prepped on site so we know it is fresh.
thanks
debi
This is a lot of good information on MSG.
I am sure that i will get a good grade on my science project.
But all i need to know now is…
Is MSG flammable?
This is a silly question but I was just wondering if MSG makes you hungry faster,eat more and eventually get fat, Asian peolpe eat alot of MSG why are most if them thinner then other races? No offense to anybody just wondering.
so is msg edible raw?
Actually, Chinese food does not really use MSG anymore. It’s amercian food that is very high in MSG. All your fast food restaurants especially kfc is particularly high in MSG. Hidden valley ranch is excessively high in MSG. Canned goods amongst other things. American food is one of the highest users of MSG.
to “?” : no its more because there is less red meat in asian diets.
to “plz answer me” : yes you can buy it in bags just like salt. the consitancy is similar to salt. if you taste it raw, it’s a wierd taste. it’s not exactly salty, but “hearty” tasting i guess.
Well it’s the classic case of how Chinese food at fast food takeout places isn’t really “chinese” as much as it is “fast food.” The oil and fat and salt are going to cause you more problems than any MSG in the food. MSG won’t make you fat, eating will.
Actually, those thinking MSG is relegated to Chinese food are probably pretty far behind the times.
MSG is in *EVERYTHING* unfortunately. Any fast food you eat has it. Quiznos? Yup, it’s in their sandwiches and salad’s. Chik-fil-A? In the breading of every sandwich you get there, and some of the sauces. Jack in the box? Sure it’s in a lot of stuff there too, including the beef tacos. Mcdonald’s has it in all of their chicken sandwiches.
KFC puts MSG in just about everything. literally just about every chicken product on the menu, but also things not expected like their potato wedges.
actually just about every fast food chain uses it in something. Americans are silly and put up with it.
Just found out that even Chick-fil-a has it in their breaded chicken products. When I wrote to them and asked them about it, they backed MSG up by saying there was nothing wrong with it, and no health issues arose from MSG, although some people are sensitive to it. They even sent me the FDA’s website. Like I would trust anything the FDA has to say. So sad, Chick-fil-a was the ONLY fast food restaurant I occassionaly took my family to. Guess we’ll cross that one off our list now too.
I am one of the people who is affected by MSG in a big way. Within a couple minutes I start to get hot and dizzy, then I have a panic attack. I stop eating but the symptoms continue always ending in a full blown migraine headache, comeplete with color auras.
You cannot tell me that stuff is safe when it can do all that. It’s poison and should not be used ever!
I understand that MSG can be especially harmful to some people but not all. My grandma is 88 years old and she has been eating MSG all her life, and is in as good health as any other 88 year old.
OK, so glutamate is naturally occurring in almost EVERY food (and even produced by your own body!) and is especially high in tomatoes, mushrooms, and cheeses. MSG is simply glutamate that has been combined with water and salt and then crystallized to stabilize the glutamate so it will have a longer shelf life. A very small percentage of the population is sensitive to MSG and will have some adverse reactions to it, otherwise, MSG is as safe as table salt! True story, some scientists injected baby mice with four grams of MSG per day (that is how much the average American consumes per week!) and the baby mice did develop brain lesions, but these are baby mice and they were injected with 7 X’s the amount of MSG as most adults consume per day, of course something bad was going to happen. No studies since then have indicated any negative affects of MSG to the average human body.
Also, MSG makes food delicious.
I am asian and my parents use lots of smg in our food and i don’t really see how its so bad for our body,but when we found out the bad sides of smg they’ve been substituting chicken mix with smg i dont think that’s alot better lol
I live with a Chinese family and they have a huge jar of MSG in the pantry that their grandma uses to cook. They took me to a Chinese restaurant this evening. Which is the reason why I am looking up this article. The food was delicious, however I couldn’t help to notice after eating a ton of this wonderful spicy chicken, there was MSG sprinkled all over it as if it were used like salt. In my culinary training, I was taught that just a dash of that stuff will do wonders. Anyway, I am sitting here with a massive headache and dehydrated as hell….just makes me curious as to why that is.
Everything has MSG. Almost all Ranch Dressing has MSG. I buy the refrigerated dressing like Marie Calendars which doesn’t have MSG. Most flavored potato chips have MSG. I try to avoid anything dyes or MSG.
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