Is MSG Actually Bad for You? What the Science Says
For decades, MSG has had a bad rap. Headaches, flushing, and other unpleasant reactions have all been blamed on the flavor enhancer. But, monosodium glutamate is more complicated than its reputation suggests.
Together, let’s explore MSG, where all the concerns came from, and what we know about it today.
What Is MSG?
MSG stands for monosodium glutamate. It’s the sodium salt of glutamic acid, an amino acid that occurs naturally in our bodies and in many foods.
Glutamate is also responsible for umami, the savory taste we associate with foods like:
Tomatoes
Cheese
Mushrooms
Meat
Fish
According to the FDA, the glutamate in MSG is the same as the glutamate in food. Commercial MSG isn't extracted from those foods. And, today, it's generally produced by fermenting ingredients like:
Starch
Sugar beets
Sugar cane
Molasses
MSG's Reputation Goes Back Decades
Much of the controversy can be traced to 1968. That year, a letter published in The New England Journal of Medicine described the symptoms the author felt after eating at certain Chinese restaurants, including:
Numbness that began at the back of the neck and spread to the arms and back
General weakness
Heart palpitations
The author considered several possible explanations, including alcohol, salt, and MSG. He didn't establish MSG as the cause. The discussion that followed became known as "Chinese restaurant syndrome," and MSG became the focus of the concern.
The history of MSG is important because the stigma became associated with Chinese food, even though MSG was widely used elsewhere in American food. The Smithsonian Magazine points out that MSG was used in everything from military rations to processed foods.
Research into the reported symptoms followed, but the results weren't as straightforward as MSG's growing reputation suggested.
Is MSG Safe to Eat?
The FDA considers adding MSG to be "generally recognized as safe." The agency has also investigated reports from people who say they're sensitive to MSG.
Studies involving people who said they’re sensitive to MSG haven't been able to consistently trigger reactions when participants were given either MSG or a placebo. That doesn't mean nobody has ever reported symptoms.
The FDA says it has received reports including:
Headache
Nausea
Flushing
Numbness
Tingling
Heart palpitations
Drowsiness
However, the agency says it hasn't been able to confirm that MSG caused the reported effects. An independent scientific review commissioned by the FDA found that some sensitive people may experience short-lived, mild symptoms after consuming 3 grams or more of MSG without food.
The FDA says some people who are sensitive to MSG may experience short-term symptoms after eating 3 grams or more of MSG by itself, rather than as part of a meal. For comparison, a typical serving of food with added MSG contains less than 0.5 grams.
International food-safety experts have reached similar conclusions. The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives evaluated monosodium glutamate and didn't establish a specific acceptable daily intake for it.
Instead, the committee classified its acceptable daily intake as "not specified," meaning it didn't consider a numerical daily limit necessary, based on the available safety evidence and the amounts normally used in food.
MSG Still Contains Sodium
Clearing up MSG's reputation doesn't turn it into a health food. The "sodium" in monosodium glutamate is still sodium, and overall sodium intake matters.
Too much sodium can raise our blood pressure and isn't great for our heart health, so it's still worth keeping an eye on how much we're getting, overall.
Finding MSG on an ingredient label isn't cause for alarm, but it also doesn't make the rest of the nutrition label irrelevant.
You'll See MSG on the Ingredient List
If MSG has been added to a packaged food in the U.S., manufacturers can't tuck it away under a vague term like "spices."
The FDA requires it to appear on the ingredient list as monosodium glutamate. And keep in mind that other ingredients naturally contain free glutamate like:
Yeast extract
Soy extracts
Hydrolyzed vegetable protein
Also, despite the similar names, glutamate and gluten aren't the same thing.
MSG's Reputation Is More Complicated Than the Evidence
None of this means we need to seek out MSG or start adding it to dinner. And, if you consistently notice symptoms after eating a particular food, don't ignore that experience, either.
But, the idea that MSG itself is inherently bad isn't supported by the FDA's assessment or decades of safety evaluation. For an ingredient with such a notorious reputation, the story turns out to be a lot less clear-cut than many of us grew up believing.
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