If MSG is bad for you \u2013 as Jeffrey Steingarten, food critic for Vogue once asked, \u201cwhy doesn\u2019t everyone in China have a headache?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why? Because at the time Jeffrey Steingarten was conducting his often quoted \u201cinvestigation\u201d as to the headache status of people in Shanghai, the Chinese didn\u2019t use a lot of processed food, meaning they didn\u2019t have exposure to large quantities of manufactured free glutamate (MfG), the toxic ingredient in MSG. And the little that they used was sprinkled<\/strong> onto the dish they were making as they were finishing it. So, you wouldn\u2019t expect <\/strong>everyone is China to have a headache.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wonder what Mr. Steingarten, who claims to be \u201cnot\u201d an \u201cunbiased observer\u201d of \u201cphony food allergies and intolerances\u201d would say if he knew that in 1969, it was discovered that glutamate is an excitotoxic \u2013 brain damaging — amino acid. It is a Jekyll and Hyde chemical that when ingested in quantity kills brain cells in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus as well as elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since 1957, virtually unlimited<\/strong> quantities of this manufactured free glutamate (MfG) have been added to processed and ultra-processed foods. That was when the Japanese company Ajinomoto began producing MfG using carefully selected (patented) genetically modified bacteria to feed on carbohydrates such as sugar, and excrete glutamate through their cell walls. And Big Food recognized that there was profit to be made by producing MfG to enhance the flavor of food, and started mass producing their own MfG-containing hydrolyzed proteins, yeast extracts, maltodextrin and more than 40 other MfG-containing ingredients to be used as flavor-enhancers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even today, not everyone in China gets MfG-induced headaches.<\/p>\n