The MSG mystery

"It enhances the flavor of your food, all foods".

"No, it causes heart palpitations and should be avoided at all costs".

Therein lies the mystery of MSG, the little know white powder that causes such divergent opinions. I went in search for answers after my recent trip to Vietnam where it was clear that the food we had enjoyed for so long during our stay of eight years was no longer innocent of causing various strange effects on the body. What was the truth? Can this flavoring really cause damage?

By 1901 scientists had drawn a map of the tongue, showing crudely the whereabouts of the different nerve endings that identify the four accepted primary tastes- sweet, sour, bitter and salty. But Professor Kidunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University was convinced that there was something missing in these definitions.' There is,' he said, 'a taste which is common to asparagus, tomatoes, cheese and meat but which is not one of the four well-known tastes.' He decided to call the fifth taste 'umami' - a common Japanese word that is usually translated as 'savoury' - or, with more magic, as 'deliciousness'. But it took him eight long years to prove its existence.

It started innocuously enough – one day he asked his wife why her soup was so delicious. She pointed to strips of dried seaweed, called kombu, a heavy kelp which when soaked in hot water provided the essence of dashi, the stock base of Japanese soups. Ikeda worked on kombu and by 1901 was able to announce that he had isolated a chemical whose properties were exactly the same as those of glutamic acid, which when broken down during cooking, fermentation or ripening- became glutamate. And glutamate is contained in the broth of seaweed and is what causes the taste sensation “unami”. It was easily stabilized with ordinary salt and water and made into mono sodium glutamate- a white crystal soluble in water. This was the birth of the ubiquitous MSG marketed initially as Aji-no-moto or “ essence of taste”. Later on they found a simpler and cheaper process using fermented molasses or wheat and the product took off all over Asia.

It spread to the US as the aftermath of the end of the world war two. As mass production of processed food was booming, MSG provided a cheap and simple additive that made everything taste better. Pretty soon it went into tinned soups, salad dressings, processed meats, carbohydrate-based snacks, ice cream, bread, canned tuna, chewing gum, baby food and soft drinks. As the industry progressed, it was used in frozen, chilled and dehydrated ready meals as well. Ajinimoto started manufacturing in the US in 1956, joining up with Kellog in 1962 and was soon selling everywhere under the brand Accent.

But in 1968, came the Chinese Restaurant Syndrome (CRS), which claimed that MSG was the cause of various ailments like numbness, general weakness and palpitations. Thus began a extended period of debate about MSG and its ill effects. Much research was done but no one could correlate these ailments with the intake of MSG. Indeed no official body was willing to warn humans against consuming MSG.

But popular opinion travelled spectacularly to this science. MSG's name soon became utter mud. It was blamed for causing asthma attacks, migraines, hypertension and heart disease, dehydration, chest pains, depression, attention deficit disorder, anaphylactic shock, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and a host of diverse allergies. Chinese restaurants started placing placards in their windows stating “ No MSG used “ and there were lines in many menus of even other restaurants claiming that there taste did not come from the use of MSG.

The food processing industry by then had a huge stake since almost all its products used MSG. Their response was to bury it by giving MSG new names- starting with the innocuous sounding “natural flavoring” to the more esoteric E 621.

The problem of MSG becomes even more complicated when we learn that glutamate is present in almost every food stuff and that the protein is so vital to our functioning that our own bodies produce 40 grams of it a day. Human milk contains large amounts of glutamate, ripe cheese is full of glutamate as are tomatoes. Almost all foods have some naturally occurring glutamate in them but the ones with most are obvious: ripe tomatoes, cured meats, dried mushrooms, soy sauce, Bovril and of course Worcester sauce, nam pla (with 950mg per 100g) and the other fermented fish sauces of Asia. Marmite, with 1750mg per 100g, has more glutamate in it than any other manufactured product on the planet!

So what is the truth about this little white powder that provides taste and “unami” but may also cause various ailments?

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has classified MSG as a food ingredient that's "generally recognized as safe," but the use of MSG remains controversial. Over the years, however, the FDA has received many anecdotal reports of adverse reactions to foods containing MSG. These reactions — known as MSG symptom complex — include: headache, flushing, sweating, facial pressure or tightness, numbness, tingling or burning in face, neck and other areas, rapid, fluttering heartbeats (heart palpitations), chest pain, nausea, weakness, etc. For this reason, when MSG is added to food, the FDA requires that it be listed on the label. However, researchers have found no definitive evidence of a link between MSG and these symptoms.

So the mystery remains. Is MSG bad for you or is it a simple food additive that does you no harm? No one seems to know for sure!