MSG: For you and me?

by Pamela Lee, from the May 1997 Newsletter

Monosodium glutamate. I've learned to avoid it. Like a laboratory rat that gets a stunning electric shock when she pushes the wrong lever or scampers down the wrong lane in the maze, I've learned to avoid the mean pain that comes after I ingest MSG. It's why I buy tuna at the Coop. It's why I'm willing to part with two dollars for each small can of tuna, because the Coop's tuna doesn't contain MSG. Yes, tuna can be bought at any grocery store for less than a dollar, but I've read all the labels on cans of tuna at the supermarket. Each and every brand contains MSG, by another name.

Obscure Labeling
MSG would be easy to identify (and avoid) if it were honestly and plainly labeled as such. But it is not. MSG goes by far too many obscure descriptions, names one would not easily associate with monosodium glutamate. For a while, I had a list of six to eight of these names (compounds behind which MSG hides) written in a small purse-sized notebook, and I'd consult the list when shopping. I never did memorize the whole list. I learned a couple of the most commonly used descriptions (like hydrolyzed protein), but mostly I learned to avoid the prepared foods that typically contain MSG. When Dr. Kessler headed the FDA and was vociferously waging his campaign for truthful labeling of food products, I wrote, begging him to include MSG in his truthful labeling crusade. Obviously my pleas weren't heard, or perhaps the powerful glutamate-invested food lobbies won. While I can now read the total fat and saturated fat percentages on most any prepared food label, I'm still caught in that confusing maze of obscure names when trying to identify, and avoid, monosodium glutamate.

I've compiled the following list of names from five periodical articles about MSG. If you want to avoid eating MSG, watch for these compound names on food labels:

Food label names that always contain some MSG:

monosodium glutamate	hydrolyzed protein
monopotassium glutamate	textured protein
glutamate	hydrolyzed oat flour
glutamic acid	yeast nutrient
gelatin	autolyzed yeast
calcium caseinate	yeast extract
sodium caseinate	yeast food
Accent	Glutavene
Ajinomoto (in Oriental foods)

Food label names that often contain MSG, or create MSG during processing:

malt extract	carrageenan
malt flavoring	bouillon
barley malt	broth
maltodextrin	stock
whey protein	natural beef flavoring
protein isolate	natural chicken flavoring
protein concentrate	natural pork flavoring
protein	fortified flavoring
pectin	natural flavoring
protease enzymes	seasoning
enzymes	soy sauce
protease	sauce extract
enzyme modified	fermented
ultrapasteurized

Also, disodium guanylate and disodium inosinate are two expensive food additives that are hardly ever used in food without the presence of the cheaper flavor enhancer - MSG. These two expensive additives, also flavor enhancing chemicals, work synergistically with the inexpensive MSG. Manufacturers boost the effects of tiny amounts of disodium guanylate and disodium inosinate by using ample amounts of the cheaper MSG.

If you have severe reactions to MSG, notice that low-fat milk products often contain milk solids that contain MSG. Adverse reactions to MSG have even been reported with cosmetics, soaps, shampoos, and hair conditioners. Apparently, sensitive individuals can react to cosmetic ingredients that are hydrolyzed. Candy, chewing gum, manufactured drinks are other potential sources of MSG. People that react adversely to MSG are susceptible to cross-reactions to aspartame. The two additives are reported to have similar chemical structure, and both are considered "excitotoxins".

History of MSG
Japanese cooks have traditionally used pieces of Kombu, a seaweed, to flavor broth and stew. In 1908 a Japanese scientist, named Kikunae Ikeda, became curious about why his wife used Kombu to season the family's soup. Taking his curiosity to the laboratory, Ikeda soon isolated the flavor enhancing component of kombu. He identified it as sodium salt of glutamic acid, or monosodium glutamate. Kikunae Ikeda was apparently as quick in business as in science, for he took out a patent on the manufacturing of this white powder flavor enhancer that he'd isolated, as well as on subsequent patents on commercial manufacturing processes to use it. By 1933, monosodium glutamate had become an important, even a predominant, ingredient in flavoring oriental food. But, it wasn't until World War II that the United States became intrigued by this potent flavor enhancing powder.

Our government first became interested in MSG as a way to enhance the flavor of army field rations, to make them more palatable. In 1948, the Armed Forces Chief Quartermaster convened an eight-hour symposium that was attended by all the major American food manufacturers and sellers. The topic of this historical one-day meeting was the marvelous uses for the new flavor enhancer, monosodium glutamate. Leading food industry representatives returned from the 1948 meeting, excited about what they'd learned: how MSG could increase the flavor and palatability of their commercial food products. Moreover, not only does MSG increase flavor and aroma, but it also suppresses undesirable "off" flavors. It could make marginal food taste better, and could even eliminate the "tinny" taste of canned foods. This "discovery" coincided perfectly with the rise of fast and commercially prepared food products in this country. Competing fast food companies eagerly took advantage of this new flavor enhancing powder.... Until, today MSG, in all its guises, is difficult to avoid. The effects of those historical eight hours can still be witnessed on supermarket labels today, in the ubiquity monosodium glutamate, lurking behind many a name. Americans consumed about one million pounds of monosodium glutamate in 1950. Today we consume about 300 times that amount!

Realist that I am, I can't envision food manufacturers abandoning the cheap flavor enhancing additive, monosodium glutamate. If they did, many commercial food products would have to be re-formulated, just to taste good. MSG covers and enhances many bland and mediocre foods. Without MSG, manufacturers would have to spend more money on purchasing quality ingredients, and this would cost consumers more. You might all be paying two dollars for each can of tuna fish; but the flavor would be real, not "enhanced".

Adverse Reactions
Some researchers claim that only 1-2% of the American population experience adverse reactions to MSG. Other studies reveal that as many as 25-30% of the population react to monosodium glutamate. The FDA-documented adverse reactions to MSG are, listed in order of frequency: headache, vomiting, diarrhea, heart rate change, stomach cramps, mood changes, fatigue, and dizziness. Other studies include reactions such as: difficulty in concentration, extreme mood swings, depression, difficulty with balance, sleep disturbances, convulsions, hyperactivity, esophageal reflux and heartburn, flushing of the skin, asthma, and swelling of the throat.

Reaction time varies, from shortly after consumption, to delayed reactions of up to 48 hours after ingestion. Duration times also vary. While MSG reactions vary widely from one individual to another, the reactions are markedly consistent for each individual. In other words, if your particular reaction to eating MSG is a dangerously racing heartbeat and flushing skin, that will consistently be your reaction each time you consume MSG. I get horrible, hideous migraine headaches if I eat MSG. The severity is difficult to explain. These MSG headaches are worse than the pain of an abscessed tooth or a root canal. When I have these headaches, it feels like I'm being tortured with electrodes placed directly on the nerve endings in my brain. The pain is so awful; I wouldn't want my worst enemy to have to endure such pain.

I didn't always react to MSG. My immune system became sensitized to quite a number of things, including MSG, after I became very sick from an exposure to chemicals in the workplace. Before this injury, and resulting sensitivities, I reckon I consumed a goodly (normal) amount of monosodium glutamate. Growing up, we ate a mixture of Chinese food and American Midwestern food. I remember my father liberally sprinkling meat with Accent. When I was in high school, a girlfriend told me that she'd read that MSG could cause mental retardation. I asked my father about this, as he was routinely seasoning meat (with Accent), and he'd replied, "then, all the people in China must be retarded."

I think my dad was being a bit defensive; he's Chinese. So was the first doctor to write about "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, in April of 1968. Dr. Ho Man Kwok wrote: "For several years since I have been in this country, I have experienced a strange syndrome whenever I have eaten out in a Chinese restaurant, especially one that served Northern Chinese food. The syndrome, which usually begins 15 to 20 minutes after I have eaten the first dish, lasts for about two hours, without hangover effect. The most prominent symptoms are numbness at the back of the neck, gradually radiating to both arms and the back, general weakness and palpitations..."

George Schwartz, M.D., senior editor of the textbook Principles and Practice of Emergency Room Medicine, published by W.B. Saunders Co. and author of Bad Taste: The MSG Syndrome, published by Health Press in 1988, became interested in monosodium glutamate when he was studying food poisoning for several articles that he was writing. Dr. Schwartz believes that reactions to MSG are drug reactions, that MSG is not an allergen, but a poison, and that adverse reactions are dose related. In an interview, published in issue #66 of the Mastering Food Allergies Newsletter, Dr. Schwartz said that: "An allergen seems less threatening, since most people assume that it won't be a problem to everyone. MSG is toxic to everyone, at some dose.... Extremely sensitive people may experience severe, serious and debilitating reactions after ingesting a very small amount of MSG in a single food. Other people may tolerate many times that 'dose' by eating processed foods or in restaurants for most meals, continuing to get additional doses all day. Those people who think they aren't bothered by MSG are reacting. Physiologically, at the cellular level, body processes are being disturbed in subtle ways. Some may experience headaches or something else that is a direct result of ingesting food contaminated with MSG. But as long as they haven't made that connection to realize the cause, they go on having their headaches (or other symptom) - and go right on thinking they aren't reacting to MSG!"

In the newsletter interview, Dr. Schwartz briefly explains the mechanism for MSG's flavor enhancing ability. It excites the neurotransmitters, causing nerve cells to discharge an electrical impulse, exciting the nerves of the tasting apparatus. But this same excitatory impulse is what can cause a host of adverse reactions, from diarrhea to headaches to racing heartbeats. The excitatory action is non-specific.

The Controversy
An article on MSG, in the April/May issue of Fine Cooking, one of my favorite food magazines, represents the side of the MSG controversy that contends that monosodium glutamate is just fine, no problem (except for those few hypersensitive folks). The largest print on the page reads: "MSG Enhances Flavors Naturally". The next largest typeface reads: (in the upper left hand corner of the page) "Food Science", (and in the center of the page) "The FDA affirms that MSG is safe for most people when eaten at customary levels." This side's arguments are all in this Fine Cooking article; they are threefold:

1. Glutamates occur naturally in foods such as parmesan cheese, tomatoes, spinach, mushrooms, and seaweed.
2. Glutamates are natural. They occur (naturally) in foods. Also, some glutamates occur (naturally) during the breakdown of proteins during (natural) processes like digestion and fermentation. Not only does MSG provide "mouth satisfaction" and "total intensity of food", but some believe that MSG may even provide a fifth basic taste sensation (in addition to sweet, sour, salty, and bitter), what the Japanese call "umami", roughly translated as "tastiness".
3. Almost every article I've read on the safety of MSG cite studies finding MSG safe. The Fine Cooking article was typical in stating: "A few participants in the studies had reactions, but those not getting MSG had as many in several studies even more reactions than those getting MSG."

I have wondered why I can enjoy mushrooms (which I knew to contain glutamates), but suffer so horribly after eating tuna, or a Chinese condiment, that contains MSG. Ralph Dawson, Jr., Ph.D., of the University of Florida Department of Pharmacodynamics states that: "Most proteins, such as meat and other types of natural food products, are in fact quite rich in glutamic acid. Usually, though, it's in the form of a protein. Once it is digested, it gets broken down. So you're delivering the amount probably in slower and smaller quantities than if you're eating food that is highly seasoned with MSG. Whereas, when you ingest MSG, you're ingesting the free glutamic acid. It doesn't have to be broken off of a protein, so you could absorb a higher dose, more quickly. It's already in its free form, so what you eat is what you get." (From Informed Consent, Mar/Apr 1994, a magazine that, unfortunately, is no longer being published.)

Another article, in the same issue of Informed Consent Magazine, addressed those studies - in which the people that ingested the placebo, reported as many or more adverse symptoms as the people that ate the MSG. Aspartame was included in the studies' placebo material! Dictionaries defines placebos as "inactive substances" used in studies to compare the effects of the substance in question with the inactive placebo. Both aspartame and monosodium glutamate are considered "excitotoxins". As of February 1993, the FDA's Adverse Reaction Monitoring System had received 6,000 reports of adverse reactions to aspartame.

I found it so remarkable that a supposedly scientific, and often cited, double-blind study would select a placebo material that contained aspartame that I hunted and hunted for the name of the institution that conducted the research. I kept coming up with the initials "IGTC", repeatedly reading "IGTC" in connection with these studies. Finally, I found the name that fit those initials - the International Glutamate Technical Committee. Wouldn't you know. Dr. Andrew Ebert, chairman of the International Glutamate Technical Committee said, "People are ill and are looking for a simplistic answer - that's human nature."

MSG Intake
Does everyone react to MSG, like author/physician George R. Schwartz contends? I don't know. I didn't register any adverse symptoms for years. It wasn't until my immune system was overloaded, by other chemicals, that I became hyper-reactive. Do you eat MSG? Yeah, you do if you eat in restaurants, purchase any canned, processed, or manufactured food, or Asian food condiments.

Both sides of the controversy over MSG's safety seem to agree that sensitive individuals react to eating about five grams of MSG, while nonsensitive folks are able to eat high doses, up to 25 grams, without having adverse reactions. (A pound contains about 454 grams.) But, most of us don't know how much MSG can be found in common foods. Here are a few food listings, excerpted from a 1991 chart titled "Average MSG Intake for the General Population in Grams per Person per Week":

Risk Assessment
Studies conducted by Patricia Bell. Ph.D., and James E. Merrett M.S. of the Eastern Virginia Medical School Department of Pharmacology found that MSG-containing foods pose a serious risk for individuals with pre-existing vascular disease, hypoglycemic patients, pregnant women, and people with renal or congestive heart failure. Other researchers warn that the vascular system is not the only body system vulnerable to large amounts of MSG. It is possible that the nervous system may be at risk for subtle damage from diets high in foods containing MSG. Small children would be especially vulnerable. MSG was removed from baby food manufactured in this country in 1960, but as soon as the young ones start eating typical table food, they'll be exposed to MSG.

Dr. Schwartz, at the end of the Food Allergy Newsletter interview, said: "As for children in my opinion, we can't effectively improve education in our schools without first taking the toxins out of the food we're feeding our children." And, he stated that " We have a curious national mentality in the late twentieth century. Every year we develop new, more potent medications to relieve headache and depression, two of the most common symptoms of MSG reactions - without ever asking or diagnosing the cause."

If you're concerned about the additives you're eating, read the labels [if you can make any sense of them].

Resources
A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, by Ruth Winter, published by Crown Publishers, Inc.
In Bad Taste: The MSG Syndrome, by Dr. Schwartz, published by Health Press, 1988.
NOMSG, 540 Frontage Road, Suite 3105, Northfield, IL 60093, phone # (708) 446-3000.
International Food Information Council, 1100 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 430, Washington, DC 20036, phone # (202) 296-6540.

For additions or corrections to this page, please contact the Webmaster.