Food&drink

Before Vancouver’s Olympic Village neighbourhood had Wholefoods and million-dollar condos, it had Apple Hill Farms.

The store occupied a barren stretch of city across the street from a deserted Fabricland and an empty grey road, and none of the apples looked like they had ever seen a farm. But only amateurs bought apples at Apple Hill Farms, everyone else bought noodles. At the back of the store under a row of blinking fluorescents, mountains of instant Mr. Noodles packets in every imaginable flavour were displayed on a large drawing table. They were permanently on special: three packs for $.99. I remember gazing at the multicoloured bags of hot pink shrimp and bright green spicy chicken flavours as my mother treated the area like a hazmat zone. The noodles, she explained, had MSG.

Ever since 60 Minutes aired a segment about the dangers of MSG in the early 1990s, she had turned our house into an MSG-free zone. I had been programmed to fear the additive without ever knowing what it was. Nearly two decades later, the mystery ingredient has continued to confound me. I avoid it as a form of insurance, just in case it really is as bad as it has been made to seem.

However, few foods are more embattled with conflicting advice. David Chang has been known to preach about how the additive is found naturally in soy sauce, steak, Parmesan cheese and tomatoes, meaning that it can’t possibly be that bad. It can be difficult to take these claims at face value, since scientists have associated MSG with everything from heart palpitations to brain lesions.

A letter published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1968 actually blamed the additive for causing “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome,” a condition that includes headaches, muscle weakness and heart palpitations brought on also a difference between consuming natural and artificial MSG. Adding more to your diet, beyond what occurs naturally, is similar to adding more salt and sugar to foods. It’s often unnecessary, and since everyone reacts to foods differently, it’s possible that those with glutamate sensitivities can have negative reactions to these higher doses.

But more than causing any real symptoms, eating MSG is known to contribute to a placebo effect where diners expect to feel sick after visiting a Chinese restaurant, and experience symptoms shortly after. A study published in the journal Allergy and Clinical Immunology tested 30 asthmatic patients who claimed to have a history of Chinese Restaurant Syndrome for MSG sensitivities, and found that no ill effects could be reproduced consistently during testing.

More than improving our health by renouncing a dangerous ingredient, our fear of MSG reveals a cocktail of bad science and xenophobia. The food at Italian restaurants and steakhouses is full of MSG, but I have never heard anyone complain about MSG sickness in either setting. This is likely because as Westerners we are more comfortable eating pasta and steak than Asian cuisines. MSG is also added to Doritos, Campbell’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken products, and yet, instead of accusing chicken noodle soup of making us sick, we treat the familiar meal as an antidote to the common cold.

By blaming MSG for our perceived illnesses, we avoid the messy tasks of parsing information and understanding different cuisines. MSG may be an easy scapegoat, but we shortchange our own eating experiences when we approach food with fear instead of hunger. The truth is that MSG is delicious, and no one should be afraid of an ingredient they are already eating every day.