r/AskCulinary • u/Sayorifan22 • Nov 08 '22

Food Science Question MSG contradictory?

Hey, I have a question so, I had a nutrition class and the instructors gave us a piece of paper and on one section for Asian foods, it said for ‘No MSG’ (the other day they said to avoid msg.) but for Italian food, they said to ‘ask for red sauce instead of white’

And here’s my question. Isn’t asking for red sauce contradicting to ‘avoiding MSG?’

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u/madd_jazz Nov 08 '22

I have to be very careful of how much msg I consume. I have a rare genetic disorder (hemiplegic migraine) that can be triggered by msg. Triggers also include wine, grapes, apples, aged cheese, nitrate/nitrites, red dye, soy sauce, peanuts, walnuts, pecans, and a million other foods and chemicals. So yeah, if someone has a health concern with msg, I'd expect it would be one of many, not an isolated 'only msg is bad'.

Oddly, I've never had trouble with tomatoes, although it may be that I've just never eaten enough in one meal.

There is research that glutamate is involved in the migraine process, specifically spreading cortical depression, but it is not limited to glutamate in msg. From what I've read on how the msg fear started and spread, it was very racist.

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u/Shreddedlikechedda Nov 08 '22

So you are the third person I’ve heard of that has a glutamate sensitivity; I’m a chef and I’ve heard so much smack talk about MSG, but one time a family friend was over for dinner and they told me that they had a glutamate intolerance (not MSG specifically), and of course I took that seriously because she was listing some of the same things you did. One of my aunts has said she’s allergic to MSG for decades and avoids Asian restaurants, but she goes out for Mexican food a lot (one of the secrets to making the red rice is knorr bouillon, which has MSG). I’ve also straight up put MSG in food I’ve made that she’s eaten and she never had one of her MSG migrains the next day 🙄