experimenting with MSG in food and drink

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I kinda used to be scared by the tales my mother used to give me regarding MSG … only later in life (e.g. when I took a neurobiology course) did I realise that MSG is only harmful (and then only uncomfortably so) if you’re allergic, and most people aren’t anyway.</p>

<p>It’s kinda fun adding the stuff to various products with impunity – rediscovering a lost taste almost (since I left Singapore). Right now I’m using Maggie solution, but I hope to use pure crystals soon. </p>

<p>I read that the taste of glutamate (umami) is especially enhanced neurobiologically if you complement it with other tastes and odours … do you know what combinations work best?</p>

<p>Some things I have tried:</p>

<p>MSG in sweet, brown sugar oatmeal with strawberry jam stirred in. I have the plain kind and I wanted an economic way to cook up the packet kind without paying too much. </p>

<p>MSG and macaroni, with garlic and hot pepper. </p>

<p>MSG in rice without garlic doesn’t work too well.</p>

<p>Some things I want to experiment with. Some of them sound crazy I know, but I want to know what works.</p>

<p>MSG with cupcakes
MSG with coffee (without milk and sugar, and with milk and sugar)
MSG with green tea
MSG with garlic bread (since the taste of umami is enhanced by garlic compounds?)
MSG with toasted cumin and tamarind</p>

<p>In particular I’m kind of curious about its interaction with bitter foods, like brussel sprouts, various bitter spices, or even alcohol. </p>

<p>I’m also curious about perception levels of umami. I think glutamate receptors are fewer in number and get saturated at much lower concentrations than your traditional four tastes, so the taste of umami hasn’t really been “overpowering” yet, at least not like adding too much sugar or too much salt, but what does MSG clash with, and is there any benefit in avoiding glutamate receptor saturation? (As in, does it block anything?)</p>

2

<p>Not wise to use too much MSG and concentrated similar products.
Use substitute mushrooms, soy, & fish sauces which have a more balanced amino acid delivery.</p>

<p>to answer your questions, I forgot, perhaps because I found the information only marginally useful, other than use such products sparingly.</p>

3

<p>I’m no scientist, but can’t imagine there would ever be a reason to add an unneeded additive. If you want to learn to cook for a long, healthy life, stay away from most things in cans, bottles and packets.</p>

4

<p>I just want to caution you on using to much MSG. i never knew I was allergic to this. I starting going to a new restaurant ate there 4-5 times with no reaction to the MSG in the food. Then I ate there and had a small reaction but thought it was just the food not agreeing with me. The last time I ate there I had a very bad reaction…within 20 minutes I was outside throwing up everything I ate, went home and laid down to sleep it off. Woke up with my lips and tongue swollen, had virtago (sp), falling down like a drunk woman from the reaction to this. Since then I have accidentally ate a few things that had this in it with the same reaction. Now I look at ingredients very closely so that I don’t ingest this.</p>

<p>Be careful.</p>

5

<p>Longprime – is that economical? I’m just looking to maximise the utility of umami. Does fish sauce even go well with oatmeal? Besides nutrition, are there any taste differences between glutamate sources?</p>

6

<p>my son’s speech becomes very slurred if he ingests anything with MSG. There is a reason it is NOT in baby food due to what it “may” do to neurons(debatable if ingested MSG crosses blood brain barrier, but seeing what it does to my son, no doubt it crosses the blood brain barrier). Personally feel if it is something that will increase appetite for a product(selling more of it), causing one to want to eat more of it, then any pro info about it not being dangerous I would not believe as truth.</p>

<p>We avoid it and all the other hidden terms for MSG (hydrolyzed protein etc.)</p>

7

<p>Depends. I like a lot of different stuff in my oatmeal. Disgusts DW, but makes me happy. :)</p>

8

<p>LongPrime, I hope you do not add pickled herring to your oatmeal. I know some who do. Disgusting.</p>

<p>Galo, you sound like a great candidate for a PhD in food sciences! :)</p>

9

<p>I have a heard time BREATHING when I have MSG sometimes, so I try to steer clear of it. It has a lot of reactions in other folks I know as well. I would personally prefer that it be in fewer foods & beverages rather than more.</p>

10

<p>My face burns when I eat food with a lot of MSG. I use sugar as substitute.</p>

11

<p>

</p>

<p>UVA doesn’t offer a specialisation in that though.</p>

<p>Is it a subset of biochemistry?</p>

<p>I’m into neuroscience, physical chemistry, linguistics, cognitive science and maybe computer science and economics. Food science is a pretty exciting career, I guess, but I have so many choices!!</p>

<p>I don’t think I’m allergic to MSG. Maybe it’s because I’m Asian, but umami is like a cornerstone of many Asian dishes, and Singaporean cuisine is packed with inherent use of glutamate (though possibly not by synthetic MSG but other sources of free glutamate). I think I do get a slight headache when I overuse it, but it’s very slight, and I think it’s just because glutamate receptors might activate a pathway to the satiety mechanism. (To stop you from eating because the body already thinks it has digested so much meat, which are natural sources of free glutamate I guess.)</p>

12

<p>Developing a headache after eating MSG is an adverse effect. I shows that you do have a sensitivity to it that could grow with continual use, especially if you start putting it in a bunch of your food.</p>

13

<p>I’m sure I must have been eating it for years in Singapore (perhaps it less concentrated form) and it’s not major. Is it really an adverse effect so much more that I’m just playing with my receptors? By adding glutamate to just carbohydrates (macaroni and rice), I’m tricking my body into believing I just ate an insane amount of meat, when all I did was eat several bowls of macaroni and pasta sauce with generous dashes of Maggie sauce tossed into it.</p>

<p>One of the effects of the satiety mechanism happens to be nausea, and it causes you to feel full; I think it gets triggered by fat-detecting receptors but glutamate reception could enhance that. Indeed, the very slight headache I sometimes get is very much like the slight headache I get when I’m full. The only issue is: I still feel hungry!!</p>

14

<p>Studies indicate most alleged reaction to MSG are imaginary. It greatly enhances flavors of many dishes. There is no scientific basis to the anti-MSG hysteria.</p>

15

<p>I can assure you that the reaction I has was not imaginary. Its kinda hard to imagine (i.e. all in my head) that my tongue swelled up and had a hard time breathing. </p>

<p>Most of the people that I know and have read about that are against or pushing for a more regulated limited use of MSG are the ones that had physical reactions to it.</p>

16

<p>Am I the only person here who has never had a physical reaction to MSG? I mean I don’t go out and put MSG on all my food but I’m sure it’s on/in a lot of my food, and I don’t remember even a mild reaction to it, let alone the violent responses described here.</p>

17

<p>You are by far not the only person that has not had a reaction. I think its just luck of the draw that a few of us here have had reactions (or know someone that has). Like I said my reactions to it happened over time, like month- month and a half, then I started having reactions. That was 9 years ago and I still have reaction if I accidentally ingest MSG.</p>

18

<p>I don’t have any allergic reactions to MSG. I remember my mother adding Accent to food. Food with MSG tends to leave a “film”/oil like quality in my mouth that takes a while to go away. Tea doesn’t even cut it, so that’s why I think it is MSG, and not oil.</p>

19

<p>Let me get this straight: in another thread, you’re asking about the difference between fake vanilla and real vanilla, and here you’re experimenting with MSG? </p>

<p>Save your money and stop experimenting with fake food. </p>

<p>Buy real food, the kind produced by nature and as little refined as possible, the best quality you can afford, and cook it carefully. Pay careful attention to what you eat while you’re eating it. Make sure you set aside the time to enjoy your food. Put it on a real plate, sit down to eat it, and make sure you’re relaxed and hungry when you eat. (Hunger is an excellent spice.) You’ll save more money not eating prepared foods than you’ll ever save by adding MSG and vanillin to low-quality food.</p>

20

<p>^^What dmd just said. Experiment with purified chemicals in your lab, not in your food.</p>