not me
Many people believe they are allergic or sensitive to MSG, and
it has been blamed for causing a wide variety of physical symptoms
such as migraines, nausea, digestive upsets, drowsiness, heart
palpitations, asthma and a myriad of other complaints all the way
up to anaphylactic shock. Symptoms that have sometimes been
mistaken for heart attacks or allergic reactions are sometimes
called "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome". A considerable amount of
research and testing into MSG allergies has been performed over the
past few decades, and the vast majority of controlled studies show
no link at all between glutamate in food and any allergic reaction.
Critics of the testing believe that the tests were unfairly biased
towards finding no result. In particular, they consider flawed a
1993 study in which aspartame was used in the placebo, because
aspartame itself has been accused of causing many of the same
symptoms as MSG sensitivity in susceptible people, and also because
volunteers with asthma, allergies, migraines or other symptoms of
potential susceptibility were automatically excluded from the test
group. Some researchers have suggested that specific individuals
might be hypersensitive to MSG while others are entirely unaffected
by it, but no conclusive results have emerged along those
lines.
Alternatively, some (especially those in alternative medicine)
consider MSG to be a potent neurotoxin which is yielding mass
neurological retardation in affected populations.
The United States Food and Drug Administration lists monosodium
glutamate as "generally recognized as safe", along with salt,
vinegar, baking powder, and sodium tripolyphosphate. In East Asia,
it is sometimes included in nutritional supplements.
Despite this, many American Chinese restaurants have taken to
advertising "No MSG" menus. More traditional establishments both in
Western countries and in China make no such efforts, but gourmet
chefs tend to view the excessive usage of MSG as cheating and some
of the more opinionated ones eschew it entirely.
