CAIN, EXPLAIN YOUR PEOPLE!

[East Coast Hustle]

It's almost impossible to get Chinese food with MSG in Portland.

It's also almost impossible to get good Chinese food in Portland.

Coincidence?

Yes, actually. MSG is found in all sorts of foods naturally. Using it as an additive is just another way of intensifying the flavor of a dish. And AFAIK absolutely zero evidence has been found to support the claims that people make about MSG being bad for you. In fact, every study I've ever heard of on the matter has shown that MSG-related symptoms are completely unreproduceable in a controlled experiment. Basically, the idea that MSG causes side effects is almost certainly hogwash and the idea that adding MSG means the food is crap is, itself, crap.

[East Coast Hustle]

And then I realized that I read your post COMPLETELY backwards.

Reading comprehension is my friend, I swear.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And then I realized that I read your post COMPLETELY backwards.

Reading comprehension is my friend, I swear.

It happens.

Nice to see you around, man.

[Ben Shapiro]

It's almost impossible to get Chinese food with MSG in Portland.

It's also almost impossible to get good Chinese food in Portland.

Coincidence?

Yes, actually. MSG is found in all sorts of foods naturally. Using it as an additive is just another way of intensifying the flavor of a dish. And AFAIK absolutely zero evidence has been found to support the claims that people make about MSG being bad for you. In fact, every study I've ever heard of on the matter has shown that MSG-related symptoms are completely unreproduceable in a controlled experiment. Basically, the idea that MSG causes side effects is almost certainly hogwash and the idea that adding MSG means the food is crap is, itself, crap.

Use free range MSG.

[Cain]

The Chinese I previously worked for, which I use as a benchmark for good Chinese food, uses MSG.   I've never had a problem with it.  And neither have the, oh, 1 billion people in China, Korea and Japan who use it on a pretty regular basis.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

For a tiny percentage of people who actually are sensitive to MSG, it can trigger migraines. The vast majority of people, though, are experiencing the nocebo effect, in which belief that an adverse reaction will occur triggers an adverse reaction. If it were a chemically-triggered reaction, they would also experience it when eating mushrooms, seaweed, soy sauce, meat, hard cheese, and any number of other foods.

It's a lot like gluten intolerance, or the latest fad here, "nightshade" intolerance... people who claim they are "sensitive" to tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplant, sweet potatoes, and any other plant that is vaguely related to these.

The last one, that never really took off, was "brassica sensitivity", in which anything related to cabbage was forbidden.

In my opinion, over 99% of these are ways for attention-whores to make people pander to them.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Largely because evolutionarily, you know what people with food intolerances did? They died. Taking their food-intolerant genes right out of the pool. It isn't an adaptive trait, it's a fairly immediately fatal trait, and would tend to get weeded out very rapidly. There are clearly exceptions, which tend to be widespread and obvious, like lacking the enzymes to digest a particular form of carbohydrate because of geographic displacement from that food source.

Of course, the stupidest thing about the food-intolerance claim is that every jackass who decides to go gluten-free because it's trendy and they think it will make them healthier even though they don't even fucking know what gluten is makes it that much likelier that someone with Celiac's Disease won't get taken seriously. Way to go, moron brigade.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Most chinese food does a weird thing in my mouth. Not an allergic reaction, per se but a kind of really fucked up odd thing that's more like licking a battery than a taste. Maybe it's just coincidence and chinese food regularly contains some other ingredient or additive that's doing this or maybe it's some additive in the MSG but I hate it.

[LMNO]

I have heard an unsubstantiated claim that much of what is deemed MSG headache is really just a massive amount of sodium that's used while cooking.  Dunno if it's true, but it makes sense, somewhat.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Most chinese food does a weird thing in my mouth. Not an allergic reaction, per se but a kind of really fucked up odd thing that's more like licking a battery than a taste. Maybe it's just coincidence and chinese food regularly contains some other ingredient or additive that's doing this or maybe it's some additive in the MSG but I hate it.

Could be anything. Prickly ash, oyster sauce, who knows. Do Marmite and soy sauce do the same thing?

[P3nT4gR4m]

Fuck if I know. It's not just chinese. Happens from time to time with other things, there's a brand of protein bar f'rinstance they used to sell down the gym, but it happens so often with chinese that I just don't bother anymore. Exception being one upmarket restaurant in Stirling where the food is so good it makes the takeaway shit look like some kind of obscene parody.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Marmite doesn't do the tingle but it's a fucking horrific "normal" taste that I haven't experienced anywhere apart from those Victory V losenges. Soy sauce I love. Cook with it all the time.

The thing that weirds me out a bit is I've never heard a single other account of this tingle effect. Maybe it's psychosomatic 

[Cainad (dec.)]

Nigel, that "nightshade intolerance" sounds like someone was deliberately trying to ruin their life as hard as possible. If I couldn't eat those foods you listed I would probably jump off a bridge.

[LMNO]

Nigel, weren't you trying to make Alium Sensitivity a thing?


As a joke, of course.

[trippinprincezz13]

OMG I just ate 10 pounds of Chinese Food and now I feel awful! It must be the MSG that made me do it and not my own lack of self control!