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What's the deal with MSG? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, Stuff you should know, come and see us in
0:03
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0:07
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0:19
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0:25
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0:30
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Speaker 1: on October two. Uh. Ticket links are weirdly hard to find,
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Speaker 1: so just look up End of the World, Josh Clark,
0:39
Speaker 1: Austin or Chicago and you will find what you're looking for.
0:43
Speaker 1: See you guys soon. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know,
0:46
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
0:55
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
0:59
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. There's first time guest producer Dave Dave. Yeah,
1:06
Speaker 1: he picked it up already that he already knows not
1:09
Speaker 1: to say anything in response I love that for a
1:12
Speaker 1: guest producer, don't you so. Dave's story Dave worked with
1:15
Speaker 1: this many many years ago and went away. I don't
1:19
Speaker 1: even know what Dave did in the meantime. He went
1:22
Speaker 1: to Alaska. I think he wandered the desert. The heered.
1:26
Speaker 1: He wandered back in one day and said, hey, I
1:28
Speaker 1: hear you guys invented podcasting, right, Can I get a job? Yeah?
1:33
Speaker 1: And here he is now. Yeah, it's good to have
1:34
Speaker 1: him back. You may have noticed a distinct uptick in
1:38
Speaker 1: the quality of our short stuffs. That's because Dave took
1:41
Speaker 1: over editing those things. Yeah, Jerry was like, this isn't
1:44
Speaker 1: even worth my time. Snooze yawn. Yeah, Jerry's been handing
1:49
Speaker 1: off duties huh left dude, right, like she's dealing handed cards.
1:56
Speaker 1: You know. The final straw one day is she's gonna
2:00
Speaker 1: just look at us both. This is how she's gonna
2:01
Speaker 1: quit and do the move when the dealer leaves the table. Yeah,
2:05
Speaker 1: the little hand move. Yep, I'm out, I'm out. I
2:08
Speaker 1: hate you both so much. That's how she's gonna break
2:11
Speaker 1: it to us. And then a new person with a
2:14
Speaker 1: cumber bun on we'll just wander in and an arm garter,
2:20
Speaker 1: because we get a casinos in the nineteenth century, right,
2:22
Speaker 1: a portly fellow with the mustache hair waxed. That would
2:26
Speaker 1: be great, It would be great. Can't you see Jerry
2:29
Speaker 1: dreaming about doing that, just kind of twitching in her
2:32
Speaker 1: sleep with a big smile on her face. You and
2:34
Speaker 1: I dream about stuff you should have going on forever,
2:36
Speaker 1: and she dreams about it's ultimate to minds. Right, So Chuck,
2:40
Speaker 1: let me ask you. Have you ever had nacho cheese dorito's? Uh?
2:47
Speaker 1: Is that the original dorito? I don't know. I think
2:51
Speaker 1: it's possible taco flavors the original. But for you and me,
2:54
Speaker 1: as children of the seventies eighties, I would say nacho
2:58
Speaker 1: cheese is the first one. We probably right? The red bag? Sure,
3:01
Speaker 1: I'm a cool ranch guy. I like it too. Actually,
3:05
Speaker 1: I like al doritos. I don't really discriminate. So you
3:09
Speaker 1: have had nacho chritos? Yes? Have you ever had soy sauce? Oh?
3:15
Speaker 1: I'm a big soy guy. I do not follow the
3:18
Speaker 1: sushi uh what they say? How to eat sushi? Drown it?
3:23
Speaker 1: Do you? I? I still use soy sauce, even though
3:25
Speaker 1: every time I there's a weird little voice in my
3:28
Speaker 1: head that's like, can I'm supposed to do? That? Is
3:31
Speaker 1: probably you me sitting next to you. I say, no,
3:33
Speaker 1: it's really not, because she uses a little bit too.
3:36
Speaker 1: But I don't know it is. It's not male, it's
3:38
Speaker 1: not female. It's just some weird disembodied voice. And I
3:40
Speaker 1: say to heck with you voice, I'm doing it anyway. Um,
3:43
Speaker 1: what about Maggie sauce? Have you ever had that? Oh?
3:47
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Oh, I'll bet you have somewhere.
3:49
Speaker 1: It's a kind of like a tall, slender brown bottle
3:52
Speaker 1: with a yellow label, Maggie m A G G. I
3:55
Speaker 1: I think I can picture it. Okay, I'll bet you've
3:58
Speaker 1: had anyway, if you've had all three? Those? Are any
4:00
Speaker 1: one of those? What about vegemite? Oh god, no, okay,
4:05
Speaker 1: I've had vegemite. I'm not crazy for it, but we're
4:08
Speaker 1: not here to yuck anyone's am right? Well, I got,
4:10
Speaker 1: I got. I'm gonna throw one in because I see
4:11
Speaker 1: what you're doing now, Okay, can I throw it in there?
4:14
Speaker 1: Have you ever used accent? That is a c H
4:20
Speaker 1: A little excent. Agu I believe ce nt that's spice.
4:24
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know if I have. I know
4:27
Speaker 1: exactly what it is because I'm just so familiar with
4:30
Speaker 1: grocery stores, but I don't know if I've ever had
4:32
Speaker 1: which is so familiar with grocery store that's so familiar.
4:34
Speaker 1: It's one of your talents. I've got another one for you.
4:36
Speaker 1: You know, Japanese mayonnaise, the QP eat all mayonnaise. I
4:39
Speaker 1: have had that. Okay, we could do this all day.
4:41
Speaker 1: What about oysters? You ever had oysters? I love oysters. Okay, well, chuck, listen,
4:46
Speaker 1: you have had MSG monosodium glutamate if you've eaten anyone
4:51
Speaker 1: or all of those things, that's right. I love monosodium glutamate,
4:57
Speaker 1: also known as MSG. And the world does two. The
5:00
Speaker 1: world just doesn't know it because MSG, those three little words,
5:05
Speaker 1: those three little letters, have such a bad reputation, especially
5:10
Speaker 1: in the West, especially in America, that man food manufacturers
5:16
Speaker 1: have come to basically bend over backwards to create new
5:21
Speaker 1: processes for creating MSG so that they can insert them
5:25
Speaker 1: into foods without having to say that there's MSG in
5:28
Speaker 1: the food, even though there's very much MSG in the food.
5:32
Speaker 1: But they know that a lot of Americans won't eat
5:36
Speaker 1: that food if they see that there's MSG in there.
5:39
Speaker 1: That's right, And we will get to this in more detail,
5:41
Speaker 1: But it was such a bad thing at one point,
5:44
Speaker 1: especially in the seventies and eighties. Yeah, Like I remember
5:48
Speaker 1: growing up and people talking about MSG and Chinese restaurants,
5:52
Speaker 1: and the whole time they were talking smack about Chinese restaurants,
5:57
Speaker 1: a lot of American families were just dumping that stuff
6:00
Speaker 1: all over their food via that little accent spice bottle. Yeah,
6:04
Speaker 1: accent any kind of processed food that has any sort
6:07
Speaker 1: of salty or savory kind of flavor to it, Like,
6:10
Speaker 1: it's everywhere. It's in grape juice. It appears everywhere, naturally
6:15
Speaker 1: and added because grape juice what you want is a meaty,
6:18
Speaker 1: salty after taste. Swishing the grape juice around in your mouth,
6:22
Speaker 1: you're like, Yeah, it's got a real oyster equality to it.
6:25
Speaker 1: I love it. Are they natural and oysters? Is at
6:28
Speaker 1: the deal? Yeah? Oysters clans they MSG. They like the
6:34
Speaker 1: little trio of those three letters. Yeah. So the point
6:39
Speaker 1: is that people are terrified of MSG or really can't
6:43
Speaker 1: stand it. They say, maybe it gives them all sorts
6:46
Speaker 1: of physical maladies. Perhaps they think it can can lead
6:49
Speaker 1: to developmental disorders, and yet at the same time, they
6:52
Speaker 1: consume m MSG every day without realizing it and without
6:57
Speaker 1: being affected by it. So it's entirely possible. And you said,
7:00
Speaker 1: we'll talk about this much more in depth later, that
7:03
Speaker 1: the fear of MSG is a totally unfounded scientific panic
7:08
Speaker 1: that is, uh, basically a no cebow reaction to something
7:13
Speaker 1: that appears to be basically harmless to almost everybody who
7:17
Speaker 1: consumes it. Yeah, so let's I mean, we're gonna be
7:21
Speaker 1: busting some myths left and right. Like I call Adam.
7:27
Speaker 1: Did you say I call Adam? Yeah, I call Adam.
7:30
Speaker 1: You're Jamie this time. Nuts. Yeah, you gotta shave your
7:36
Speaker 1: beard to just keep the mustache. Yeah yeah, and I
7:38
Speaker 1: gotta grow that mustache out to where it covers both lips.
7:41
Speaker 1: That's right. He had that big thing, but he disappeared.
7:45
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he said, thanks for the memories, suckers. Yeah.
7:49
Speaker 1: My I always had was under the impression, just watching
7:51
Speaker 1: that show and being a fan that he didn't want
7:54
Speaker 1: to be there ever, Right, I think he liked the
7:57
Speaker 1: science of it, he wasn't into the TV part of it,
8:00
Speaker 1: I think so. I think his last day on set.
8:02
Speaker 1: He was He was probably pretty stoked together, right, he
8:06
Speaker 1: was like Jerry at the end of stuff, you should
8:08
Speaker 1: know when it comes. Yeah, except he had millions of
8:11
Speaker 1: dollars stuffed into his arm guarter exactly. All right. So,
8:16
Speaker 1: monosodium glutamate is there's a lot of myths. One of
8:19
Speaker 1: them is that you know, this is something that human
8:22
Speaker 1: beings just created out of thin air. It's black magic.
8:25
Speaker 1: And that is not true because it occurs naturally. And
8:29
Speaker 1: a lot of foods. If you've ever had tomatoes and cheese,
8:32
Speaker 1: those are a couple of big ones. Eat a pizza,
8:34
Speaker 1: you're eaten naturally occurring MSG. Yeah, don't forget again. Oysters, anchovies, mushrooms, potatoes, um,
8:42
Speaker 1: if you like Asian food, kelp seaweed, all that stuff
8:47
Speaker 1: contains natural MSG or some form of glutamates. Yeah, and
8:53
Speaker 1: such that the f d A like, if you get
8:56
Speaker 1: a can of tomato sauce, if you haven't uh added
9:00
Speaker 1: MSG otherwise, you don't have to put that on the
9:03
Speaker 1: label because it's in the tomato. Right. But apparently in
9:07
Speaker 1: the United States you also can't put something like no
9:10
Speaker 1: added MSG or no MSG on the label because it's
9:14
Speaker 1: been proven as misleading. She just don't mention MSG at all,
9:18
Speaker 1: even though there is MSG in that tomato sauce. But
9:21
Speaker 1: like you said, if the manufacturer says, these tomatoes have
9:25
Speaker 1: a decent amount of MSG, but we really want to
9:28
Speaker 1: pep it up a little bit with some added MSG,
9:31
Speaker 1: then they definitely have to put that MSG is in there.
9:34
Speaker 1: That's right. So, if you want to talk chemistry very briefly,
9:39
Speaker 1: which is always the best way to talk about chemistry, uh,
9:42
Speaker 1: it is monosodium glutamate. Is glutamic or glutamic acid? What
9:46
Speaker 1: do you say? Glutamic glutamic and a little ion a
9:51
Speaker 1: sodium just woop right there on top, right, and so
9:55
Speaker 1: so that's it. That's monosodium glutamate. And so the difference
9:59
Speaker 1: between glutamc acid, which is an amino acid that our
10:02
Speaker 1: bodies produced were able to synthesize it by breaking down proteins,
10:06
Speaker 1: it's actually um a glutamic acid, and any kind of
10:11
Speaker 1: mineral ion bonded together is a glutamate. So if it's bonded,
10:15
Speaker 1: if glutamic acid is bonded with an ion a sodium,
10:19
Speaker 1: it's monosodium glutamate. If it's bonded with an ion of potassium.
10:23
Speaker 1: It's potassium glutamate um. So there's like different minerals that
10:27
Speaker 1: it can bond to, but the one we're talking about
10:28
Speaker 1: is monosodium glutamate. And glutamate is extremely important to our bodies.
10:34
Speaker 1: I saw somewhere that four pounds of us a little
10:38
Speaker 1: a little under two kims um of any human being
10:43
Speaker 1: walking around is glutamate. That's how that's how much of
10:46
Speaker 1: it we have in our bodies at at any given
10:48
Speaker 1: point in time. Yeah, and it it actually serves functions
10:51
Speaker 1: to Glutamic acid is a neurotransmitter, and it's an excitatory neurotransmitter,
10:57
Speaker 1: which that means it stimulates nerve cells to relay the signal.
11:01
Speaker 1: And we'll get to the is it good or bad thing?
11:04
Speaker 1: But some people one of the claims and sort of
11:07
Speaker 1: where some of that is rooted aside from just propaganda,
11:11
Speaker 1: is that MSG and foods can lead to excessive glutamate
11:15
Speaker 1: in the brain and then excessive stimulation of nerve cells.
11:18
Speaker 1: And for that reason, it's what's called an excitotoxin, right, Like,
11:23
Speaker 1: it excites neurons so much that it actually destroys or
11:26
Speaker 1: damages them. So you destroy enough neurons, then you destroy
11:30
Speaker 1: your cognitive function. That's right, and we'll we'll hold the
11:33
Speaker 1: rest of that to the UH for further mythbusting, mythbuff thing,
11:39
Speaker 1: I like the extra mustard you put on it. So
11:41
Speaker 1: as far as how much we're consuming, this is what
11:43
Speaker 1: the FDA says, and this is a quote. An average
11:46
Speaker 1: adult consumes approximately thirteen grams of glutamate each day from
11:50
Speaker 1: the protein and food. And then this is just like
11:52
Speaker 1: regular foods. While intake of added MSG is estimated to
11:56
Speaker 1: be around point five five grams per day, So average
12:00
Speaker 1: daily intake is about a half a grammed day. Right,
12:03
Speaker 1: and so um you can find it again everywhere in
12:07
Speaker 1: the body. You also find it in um, breast, milk, UM,
12:11
Speaker 1: and glutamates are just everywhere. And so even if you
12:14
Speaker 1: wanted to get away from M S G, you're not
12:17
Speaker 1: really getting away from glutamates. And it would be you'd
12:20
Speaker 1: be ill advised to get away from glutamates to begin with. Right,
12:24
Speaker 1: the thing is, and this is where a lot of
12:26
Speaker 1: people say, well, really, MSG is fine, there's no problems
12:29
Speaker 1: with it. A lot of people say that it's kind
12:32
Speaker 1: of consider settle science by some as we'll see um
12:36
Speaker 1: that the body does not distinguish between manufactured MSG and
12:42
Speaker 1: the MSG or other kinds of glutamates that it gets
12:46
Speaker 1: from foods in which this naturally occurs. Right when your
12:50
Speaker 1: body takes it in takes a MSG, it goes Okay,
12:53
Speaker 1: let's separate the sodium ion and send it over here
12:55
Speaker 1: for this use, and we'll break the glutamate down over here,
12:59
Speaker 1: and we'll use it for us for neurotransmitting and to
13:01
Speaker 1: build proteins. It doesn't make any any distinction metabolically speaking,
13:07
Speaker 1: between MSG that's manufactured and MSG that you find in
13:11
Speaker 1: like tomatoes, right. I think part of the problem started
13:15
Speaker 1: in the sixties with the way it was synthesized. Yeah. Uh.
13:19
Speaker 1: Anytime something is synthesized to a chemical process that has
13:23
Speaker 1: you know, toxins and toxic byproducts, I think people are
13:27
Speaker 1: going to freak out, even if the end result is
13:30
Speaker 1: not toxic. Yeah. And it's pretty understandable too, because I mean,
13:35
Speaker 1: some of the stuff we're talking about is very nasty,
13:37
Speaker 1: and you think about it, You're like, wait, that's where
13:39
Speaker 1: MSG comes from, and I'm eating it on my food.
13:42
Speaker 1: I can I can commiserate with that big time, even
13:45
Speaker 1: though a large part of my brain is like that's
13:48
Speaker 1: just kind of a fear of science and chemistry. But
13:51
Speaker 1: it's understandable. I mean, like in the for the first
13:54
Speaker 1: half of the twentieth century, there was a process um
13:58
Speaker 1: to produce MSG that include to propylene and acryla nitrial.
14:04
Speaker 1: But you don't want to eat that, and you don't
14:06
Speaker 1: eat it. It's just these were used to as precursors
14:09
Speaker 1: to create ms G. That's how that's the process for
14:13
Speaker 1: a while. But you can understand how it would get
14:15
Speaker 1: a bad rep just from that alone. Yeah, but now
14:18
Speaker 1: it's produced by fermentation. Basically, they take certain kinds of
14:22
Speaker 1: bacteria and yeast and they grow that in a broth.
14:26
Speaker 1: They basically use starches, various sugars, carbohydrates, and then the
14:31
Speaker 1: bacteria ferments that sugar and they produce the glutamate. Then
14:35
Speaker 1: they combine it with the sodium and it becomes it
14:39
Speaker 1: looks sort of like salt. It's a white crystalline substance.
14:43
Speaker 1: It doesn't really have much of an odor, and you
14:45
Speaker 1: could just sprinkle it on top of your chocolate ice
14:48
Speaker 1: cream if you wanted. You could. I think it actually
14:51
Speaker 1: does in certain amounts bring out sweet I don't think
14:55
Speaker 1: it does anything to sour bitter, but it can enhance
14:58
Speaker 1: sweetness and enhance salty. No, it does have its own flavor,
15:02
Speaker 1: which we'll see, but it's also known as a flavor enhancer.
15:05
Speaker 1: To write like that, accent right, exactly accent. Why aren't
15:11
Speaker 1: they sponsoring this episode? I don't know. They really should
15:15
Speaker 1: either that or like, leave us out of this. We
15:17
Speaker 1: don't want to get this kind of wrap there. Queenly,
15:20
Speaker 1: we were under the radar for a large portion of
15:22
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, right exactly until you guys came along.
15:26
Speaker 1: Should we take a break? Oh wait, hold on, I
15:28
Speaker 1: have a little more on fermentation. Of course, this is
15:31
Speaker 1: very surprising. But the fermentation the waste water, what's left
15:35
Speaker 1: over after you get the MSG out of this, like
15:38
Speaker 1: sugar beet juice that the bacteria and yeast have fermented.
15:42
Speaker 1: I read a study from um the Chinese National Academy
15:47
Speaker 1: of Science. I believe Chinese Academy of Science. They called
15:52
Speaker 1: um MSG wastewater one of the most intractable forms of wastewater.
15:58
Speaker 1: We we produce it, yeah, because all of that yeast
16:02
Speaker 1: and some of the ammonium that's produced as a byproduct
16:06
Speaker 1: of it. It um consumes a lot of oxygen, so
16:10
Speaker 1: it kills off other stuff and like water, So you
16:12
Speaker 1: can't just dump this wastewater into other water because it'll
16:15
Speaker 1: create like a dead zone wherever it hits. That does
16:17
Speaker 1: it's bode well for people that you know are scared
16:20
Speaker 1: of it. No, it doesn't. There's a lot of stuff
16:22
Speaker 1: about I'm achieve where if you look at you're like, yeah,
16:24
Speaker 1: I really understand it's really coincidental that this is actually harmless.
16:27
Speaker 1: But there's all this like circumstantial peripheral stuff that's wastewater.
16:34
Speaker 1: The wastewater will scorch, scorch the earth basically, Yeah, but
16:37
Speaker 1: enjoy your enjoy your accent, chump, poor accent. All right now,
16:43
Speaker 1: I'm okay with taking a break. All right. Uh, We'll
16:46
Speaker 1: come back and talk a little bit, a little bit
16:48
Speaker 1: of a refresher perhaps on umami. Right after this, so, Chuck,
17:17
Speaker 1: we did an entire episode on New Mommy. Do you
17:20
Speaker 1: remember that? That was a good one. It was. We
17:22
Speaker 1: also talked about it in our episode on Taste and
17:25
Speaker 1: how it works. But we should kind of go over
17:29
Speaker 1: the broad strokes of it again, I think, yeah, I
17:32
Speaker 1: mean up until uh, the early nineteen hundreds. Humans were
17:35
Speaker 1: sort of since four d b C, when bitter was
17:38
Speaker 1: added by a philosopher of all people named Democritis democratus
17:45
Speaker 1: anything those philosophers couldn't do, I don't think so. It's
17:48
Speaker 1: pretty broad title back then, but sweet, salty, sour, and bitter,
17:56
Speaker 1: and we were locked into that and everyone was pretty
17:58
Speaker 1: happy with that. Like I mess with it, you know,
18:02
Speaker 1: I don't know they're still messing with it today. There's
18:05
Speaker 1: just seen like six seven other candidates for a sixth taste.
18:09
Speaker 1: I'm sure that will be happening at some point in
18:11
Speaker 1: near future, don't you think. Yeah? And I think we
18:13
Speaker 1: settled last time on carbon dioxide is going to be
18:16
Speaker 1: the sixth taste? Really really wow, sad. We know it's
18:23
Speaker 1: a good it's a goo and it does some some
18:25
Speaker 1: magic to your tongue. I guess it does, doesn't it?
18:29
Speaker 1: All Right, Well we'll see. Uh so here here's a
18:34
Speaker 1: gentleman that comes along in nine nine and his name
18:37
Speaker 1: is Kakuni Akita? Is that right? Uh? Not bad? What
18:42
Speaker 1: did I get wrong? There's like an extra little half
18:45
Speaker 1: syllable in there. Okay, Well I should just leave the
18:49
Speaker 1: Japanese pronunciations to you. I think you basically knew I
18:52
Speaker 1: should have just kept my mouth shut because it was
18:54
Speaker 1: so close that I've got Europe blocked down? How selfish?
18:58
Speaker 1: Can I be? Right? Exactly? You do? Kekunaya Akada in
19:02
Speaker 1: an Italian accent. I don't think I can't. Just my
19:06
Speaker 1: brain just broke. Uh. So he was a professor of
19:09
Speaker 1: chemistry at Tokyo Imperial University and he was eating some dashi,
19:14
Speaker 1: which is made from seaweed, a kelp called kombu, and
19:18
Speaker 1: he was like, man, uh, this taste meaty, but there's
19:22
Speaker 1: no meat in it, and it's super rich, and there's
19:24
Speaker 1: something going on in here that I don't uh that
19:27
Speaker 1: I can't quite pinpoint, and I think I might be
19:30
Speaker 1: onto something. He said, where's the beef? You might have?
19:34
Speaker 1: He totally did. So this is not like the first
19:37
Speaker 1: time anyone ever realized, like, yeah, there's a there's something,
19:41
Speaker 1: there's such a thing as a meaty taste or whatever.
19:43
Speaker 1: But because we have been so locked into those the
19:46
Speaker 1: idea that there's only four tastes. I mean, I remember
19:48
Speaker 1: going to elementary school and being taught that too in
19:52
Speaker 1: the in the eighties, basically just lied to over and
19:55
Speaker 1: over again. Yeah, no one. No one said umami to
19:58
Speaker 1: me until like even years ago. Basically yeah um. But
20:03
Speaker 1: uh at Kada had figured this out way back in night.
20:07
Speaker 1: He said, no, this is not just some flavor. This
20:09
Speaker 1: is a taste sensation that is not one of the
20:13
Speaker 1: other four. It's its own thing. And even more than that,
20:17
Speaker 1: I've been doing some pretty neat experiments on kombo and
20:20
Speaker 1: dashi and I've actually isolated what's giving this thing. It's
20:25
Speaker 1: meaty taste. And by the way, I'm gonna call meaty
20:27
Speaker 1: taste ou mommy, which means delicious or yummy um. And
20:32
Speaker 1: it's called monosodium glutamate, that's right. Uh. And this was
20:37
Speaker 1: not We knew about glutamic glutamic acid. Which way do
20:42
Speaker 1: you say? Do you prefer glutamic? I mean, my my
20:44
Speaker 1: mouth wants to say glutamic, but my heart wants to
20:48
Speaker 1: say glue to me. My, got you so torn between
20:51
Speaker 1: two lovers? You are just called it G acid? Yeah,
20:54
Speaker 1: g acid. We knew about this stuff already. There was
20:57
Speaker 1: a German chemist name Carl Einrich Rithausen beautiful and he
21:02
Speaker 1: discovered this in eighteen sixty six. So that brings us
21:05
Speaker 1: to another myth Weekend Bust. Here is that gluten like
21:11
Speaker 1: because it's monosodium glutamate. People that have gluten intolerance, I
21:15
Speaker 1: think that it's made with wheat gluten and that they
21:17
Speaker 1: can't eat it. And that's not that's not true at all. No,
21:20
Speaker 1: did you had you heard that before? I've heard I
21:22
Speaker 1: think anything with the letters G l U in any food,
21:27
Speaker 1: I think people that have gluten sensitivity are wary of. Right, Well,
21:31
Speaker 1: what's interesting about this? I hadn't heard that, but this
21:34
Speaker 1: makes total sense. The reason that it's even called glutamic
21:37
Speaker 1: acid is because um Rittenhausen used wheat gluten to He
21:43
Speaker 1: hydrolyzed it, basically broke it down like the acids in
21:46
Speaker 1: your stomach breakdown food, to isolate UM the glutamic acid.
21:52
Speaker 1: Since he used wheat gluten, he just kind of named
21:54
Speaker 1: the acid after what he used the as the the precursor,
22:00
Speaker 1: which was weak gluten. But it has no gluten in.
22:02
Speaker 1: It has nothing to do with gluten. You can get
22:04
Speaker 1: um MSG any number of ways that don't involve wheat
22:08
Speaker 1: to ever. Tell you about the restaurant in Paris, the
22:10
Speaker 1: Gluten Free Place. Emily and I went to, No, you
22:13
Speaker 1: know what the name of it was what no glue, noice? Serious,
22:19
Speaker 1: that's pretty great. Yeah, right in the middle of Paris,
22:22
Speaker 1: and it was actually really good. I had a very
22:24
Speaker 1: very delicious hamburger there. I can imagine, man, French cooking is, yeah,
22:28
Speaker 1: even without gluten. And speaking of French cooking, there is
22:32
Speaker 1: a guy who was using savory. That's what people in
22:35
Speaker 1: the West called it. Even after a Keda came along
22:39
Speaker 1: and said no, no, it's this is your mommy, it's
22:41
Speaker 1: its own thing. The Western chefs were well aware of
22:44
Speaker 1: this idea of savory. They just hadn't said this is
22:47
Speaker 1: a fifth taste that humans are capable of tasting. Um
22:51
Speaker 1: and Augusta Scoffier, who I had heard the name of before,
22:55
Speaker 1: but I didn't realize. Um, he's the guy who basically
22:58
Speaker 1: founded for classical cuisine as we understand it today. Yeah,
23:03
Speaker 1: it was this guy. He invented the sauce. No, no,
23:07
Speaker 1: he invented like French cooking. That was a joke. And
23:10
Speaker 1: French is all about the sauces. It is about the sauce.
23:13
Speaker 1: So yes, I'm sure he had a lot to do
23:14
Speaker 1: with the sauce. But I was reading in an article
23:17
Speaker 1: on him in Britannica and it was written by Nathan Mervold,
23:22
Speaker 1: who was the first CTO of Microsoft. But it was
23:25
Speaker 1: about this French cook from the nineteenth century. Yeah, he was.
23:30
Speaker 1: He was big into animal stocks and he used veal
23:33
Speaker 1: stock and kitten stock and puppy stock, all sorts of
23:39
Speaker 1: baby animal stocks. Uh. And he knew about it, you know,
23:43
Speaker 1: he was. We just didn't call it umami until it
23:46
Speaker 1: was so named. No. And also one other thing about
23:49
Speaker 1: escofi a. He also used something called Maggie sauce, which
23:53
Speaker 1: had been invented several years before by Julius Maggie, who
23:56
Speaker 1: was a Swiss miller. Um who came up with the
23:58
Speaker 1: sauce in a scoffier was like, this is the bomb.
24:01
Speaker 1: I think was the quote that he said. Um. So
24:04
Speaker 1: people were aware of savory so much so that they
24:07
Speaker 1: were creating sauces that really isolated the ommmy flavor. It
24:10
Speaker 1: just again was a Kada who came along and said,
24:13
Speaker 1: let's apply some science here. I give you, ladies and gentlemen,
24:17
Speaker 1: the fifth taste. That's right. Uh, And it does taste. Um.
24:21
Speaker 1: You know, there's a writer name Carla Lali. Music nice,
24:27
Speaker 1: it's music, but I bet. She pronounces that music I
24:30
Speaker 1: would if my last name was music, and she writes
24:32
Speaker 1: sometimes for a bon epetite and um. She said, it's
24:35
Speaker 1: sort of like salt mixed with the hydrated meat juice,
24:38
Speaker 1: and it adds a lot to food. It can you
24:40
Speaker 1: don't want too much of it. UM. You you can
24:44
Speaker 1: sprinkle it on your food, but you don't really want
24:46
Speaker 1: Like you can buy pure MSG, but it's not the
24:48
Speaker 1: kind of thing that people generally do, like at home,
24:52
Speaker 1: is by a big tub of MSG, and like sprinkle
24:54
Speaker 1: it on stuff. It's usually mixed with other spices, yeah,
25:00
Speaker 1: sent um. It can be mixed with other seasoning salt.
25:03
Speaker 1: It gets mixed with most most often UM. And the
25:06
Speaker 1: reason that you want to pre mix it is because one,
25:08
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just easier to use. But there's certain
25:11
Speaker 1: proportions you want to use. It doesn't take much MSG
25:15
Speaker 1: to bring out the flavor and salt or for MSG
25:17
Speaker 1: to kind of even stand on its own and lend
25:19
Speaker 1: that umami flavored or whatever you're doing. So you don't
25:22
Speaker 1: want to use too much. So you'd have to be
25:24
Speaker 1: pretty proficient in you know, using MSG to just use
25:27
Speaker 1: straight up MSG, which is why it's usually pre mixed
25:31
Speaker 1: to begin with. Yeah, so Ikeda for his uh you know,
25:36
Speaker 1: he was a smart guy, so he wasn't just satisfied
25:39
Speaker 1: with discovering this and sort of sitting back and said,
25:43
Speaker 1: one day on Wikipedia, I will be featured. He said,
25:47
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make some money off of this. You've got
25:49
Speaker 1: a business partner name, so well you should say all
25:51
Speaker 1: Japanese names, okay, Sabaro Suzuki Jr. Yeah, so you do
25:56
Speaker 1: it with the right flair. I've just been I've been
26:00
Speaker 1: os to it so much like, Yeah, I like it.
26:02
Speaker 1: I sound like an American and you sound like you're
26:04
Speaker 1: trying to fit in. Thank you, thank you. So this
26:08
Speaker 1: guy was already a part of the chemical industry, and
26:11
Speaker 1: so it was a pretty natural relationship. They founded a
26:13
Speaker 1: company called Ajuno Moto the Essence of Taste, and their
26:19
Speaker 1: mascot was and is, well that's just okay, the Aji Panda.
26:25
Speaker 1: I could have said that. You could have said that.
26:29
Speaker 1: But they are still around today, and a couple of
26:31
Speaker 1: years ago they they had about ten billion dollars worth
26:34
Speaker 1: of sales of MSG. They're the largest producer and they
26:37
Speaker 1: are literally pumping this stuff out on a year to
26:39
Speaker 1: year basis. Yeah, funny enough. Um, I don't have a
26:42
Speaker 1: bottle of accent in my pantry, but I do have
26:45
Speaker 1: a bottle of Ado Moto. Oh yeah, yeah. Some listeners
26:48
Speaker 1: gonna write and be like, what do you hate America?
26:53
Speaker 1: I bet accent is not even made to America. I
26:56
Speaker 1: wonder sometimes they do kind of slip it by, like
26:58
Speaker 1: it's just been around for along. Everybody thinks like, well,
27:01
Speaker 1: that's of course it's America. Yeah, like they chant USA
27:05
Speaker 1: when they grab the bottle and sprinkle it on their foot.
27:08
Speaker 1: So we should talk a little bit about the science
27:10
Speaker 1: of whether or not MSG. You know, is it all
27:13
Speaker 1: in people's head? Is it real? I'm really glad you
27:18
Speaker 1: asked that, Chuck, I don't. I don't know. Well, I mean,
27:22
Speaker 1: here's the deal. The FDA says, I remember, do we
27:26
Speaker 1: do one on the f d A. Does the FDA
27:29
Speaker 1: protect Americans? That's right, because that's where we remember. This
27:32
Speaker 1: phrase generally recognized as safe. Gross. I think that also
27:37
Speaker 1: came up in Our Dietary Supplements episode two. Yeah, it's
27:40
Speaker 1: it's funny that a phrase meaning something is safe does
27:44
Speaker 1: not make one feel any better. Generally, yeah, generally recognized
27:48
Speaker 1: the safe does not mean safe and it doesn't mean
27:53
Speaker 1: on safe because even though it's fairly settled science, they
27:57
Speaker 1: can't say, like, absolutely, no way in in case is
28:01
Speaker 1: MSG ever harmful at all to anyone in any amount. Yeah,
28:04
Speaker 1: but I mean you can say that about basically anything,
28:07
Speaker 1: and I hate I'm not trying to create a straw
28:09
Speaker 1: man argument so much. You can say that about water.
28:12
Speaker 1: There was a woman who drank too much water and
28:15
Speaker 1: die of water toxicity. Um, you can die from too
28:19
Speaker 1: much salt. And remember it doesn't take much MSG as
28:22
Speaker 1: compared to salt um to be added to food UM
28:25
Speaker 1: to to really you know, bring out the flavor or whatever.
28:29
Speaker 1: So there's there's like a lot of well you can
28:32
Speaker 1: basically there's nothing you could say, this is never going
28:35
Speaker 1: to harm you, no matter how much you eat. And
28:37
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of why they're saying generally recognized
28:40
Speaker 1: this safe. I think the other aspect of it, though,
28:43
Speaker 1: is that a lot of people do want to say, no,
28:45
Speaker 1: this is just it's settled. I've seen that all over
28:47
Speaker 1: the place while we were researching this is settled science.
28:50
Speaker 1: I've read about a woman who wrote a book UM
28:53
Speaker 1: exploring whether or not, you know, some food additives were
28:56
Speaker 1: safe and she didn't even bother to include MSG in
28:59
Speaker 1: the book because she she considered it so so settled.
29:03
Speaker 1: But there is definitely a contingency of people out there,
29:06
Speaker 1: including not just like worried parents or Facebook dwellers, like
29:11
Speaker 1: actual scientists in in like the industry of food sciences
29:16
Speaker 1: who are saying no, actually, there may be a small
29:19
Speaker 1: group of people out there who experienced these symptoms um
29:23
Speaker 1: that we we now call um MSG symptom complex but
29:28
Speaker 1: what used to be called Chinese restaurant syndrome. But that overall,
29:32
Speaker 1: like it's not going to developmentally harm your kid or um,
29:37
Speaker 1: it's not going to um blow your brain up because
29:41
Speaker 1: it's an excited toxin or anything like that. Yeah, So
29:44
Speaker 1: here's the deal on the science. It's it is true
29:48
Speaker 1: that increased glutamate activity can cause harm and that large
29:53
Speaker 1: doses of MSG can raise the blood levels of glutamate.
29:57
Speaker 1: But dietary glutamate, like we'll talk about some of the
30:00
Speaker 1: experiments here in a second, but dietary glutamate is not
30:04
Speaker 1: going to have any effect on your brain because it
30:06
Speaker 1: can't cross the blood brain barrier, uh in large amounts.
30:10
Speaker 1: So huh that's right, Oh yeah, for sure. So here's
30:16
Speaker 1: the deal. If people experience like headache, muscle tightness, numbness, tingling, weakness, flushing,
30:22
Speaker 1: these are all reported like symptoms of that syndrome. Um,
30:28
Speaker 1: we're talking about dietary glutamate. Like they say, the threshold
30:32
Speaker 1: that could cause those symptoms is about three grams in
30:35
Speaker 1: a single meal. But if you remember, we said point
30:39
Speaker 1: five grams is a daily average intake, So in a
30:43
Speaker 1: single meal, consuming six times the average daily intake of
30:47
Speaker 1: MSG could lead to something like that. And they're not
30:50
Speaker 1: exactly sure why, but some researchers they, you know, they
30:53
Speaker 1: have speculated that really large doses like that, like overdosing
30:57
Speaker 1: on MSG, you may get little trace amounts crossing the
31:01
Speaker 1: blood brain barrier. Got to that makes sense, and that
31:04
Speaker 1: three grams in a single meal is straight up MSG
31:09
Speaker 1: fed two people in an experiment who were on an
31:12
Speaker 1: empty stomach, So like there's basically no situation where you're
31:18
Speaker 1: going to accidentally poison yourself with MSG, so that you
31:23
Speaker 1: would actually get that MSG symptom complex, right, And in
31:27
Speaker 1: the early seventies, when this stuff started really becoming, like
31:31
Speaker 1: you know, the devil spice, they were literally injecting baby
31:36
Speaker 1: monkeys and mice with straight MSG and humans and humans,
31:41
Speaker 1: and they didn't like it very much because they were
31:43
Speaker 1: injecting large amounts of MSG into infant animals. Right, So
31:48
Speaker 1: I read that there are pharmacological effects from injecting MSG,
31:53
Speaker 1: like that's basically not not up for debate. And I
31:57
Speaker 1: was like, well, sure, if you inject sugar or even
31:59
Speaker 1: if you inject salt or something like that, you're you'd
32:02
Speaker 1: be you know, the same problems. Actually, it's not necessarily true. Um,
32:05
Speaker 1: you get kind of saline drips, you get um glucoset trips.
32:10
Speaker 1: They're like people do inject salt and sugar and contolerate it.
32:13
Speaker 1: So in injected form MSG is not good for you.
32:19
Speaker 1: But no one injects MSG. And the fact that we
32:23
Speaker 1: metabolize MSG by eating it, and that that's how we
32:26
Speaker 1: actually in take MSG in small amounts through food, which
32:30
Speaker 1: are guts then metabolized and turn into glutamate and sodium,
32:33
Speaker 1: that it should not be harmful for you. That's the
32:37
Speaker 1: that's what the science has found. That's right. And in
32:40
Speaker 1: addition to these studies that injected baby mice, which is
32:44
Speaker 1: sort of ridiculous. Um, these weren't even great studies anyway.
32:47
Speaker 1: They were not double blind. Um ed found research that says,
32:52
Speaker 1: you know, they were just basically lacking in design altogether. Right,
32:56
Speaker 1: So they weren't good studies and they were wacky. And
32:59
Speaker 1: how they uh the methodology, I think, well, yeah, which
33:05
Speaker 1: is kind of I don't know, I guess it's surprising.
33:08
Speaker 1: Maybe just scientists who weren't so great were the ones
33:11
Speaker 1: who tended to be interested in it or where they
33:14
Speaker 1: were rushing it out to market. I'm not sure. Food
33:16
Speaker 1: science was just a little early, maybe so, but they
33:20
Speaker 1: they they from the findings they of these early studies
33:24
Speaker 1: and then replicated studies of the early studies that found
33:28
Speaker 1: MSG to be harmful basically said no, this is not
33:31
Speaker 1: this is not harmful. Yeah, probably if you injected, it's
33:34
Speaker 1: not good, but don't inject it is is basically what
33:37
Speaker 1: science said. And then um, there was there were further
33:40
Speaker 1: follow up studies, you know, in the decades that followed
33:44
Speaker 1: that said okay, well wait a minute, what about all
33:45
Speaker 1: these people who are self reporting MSG allergies, who are
33:49
Speaker 1: saying they're getting this complex of system or symptoms from
33:53
Speaker 1: eating it like Chinese restaurants or something. Um. And so
33:57
Speaker 1: there was investigation of that and what they found from
34:00
Speaker 1: those studies is that they basically couldn't get it beyond
34:04
Speaker 1: the placebo effect that there were you were just as likely,
34:08
Speaker 1: if not in some cases more likely to report the
34:13
Speaker 1: the MSG symptoms complex from a placebo then you were
34:17
Speaker 1: if you were given actual MSG a pillow with MG
34:20
Speaker 1: or something in it. So combined, all these studies combined
34:24
Speaker 1: basically led the FDA to say, because the the symptoms
34:29
Speaker 1: can't be consistently reliably replicated, and that there's all these
34:33
Speaker 1: double blind placebo tests that have been done that show
34:36
Speaker 1: placebo can bring it out too, we tend to think
34:38
Speaker 1: that it's actually basically in almost everyone's heads, that's right.
34:43
Speaker 1: Should we take another break? All right, we'll take one
34:46
Speaker 1: final break, and we're gonna come back and talk about
34:48
Speaker 1: a few reasons why the MSG scare was born right
34:52
Speaker 1: after this so chucked um just despite the fact that,
35:23
Speaker 1: like there's all the science out there that some people
35:25
Speaker 1: are like, this is settled science, Like that is not
35:27
Speaker 1: a phrase that even really has any basis in reality,
35:31
Speaker 1: But that's that's what they're kind of the point with
35:34
Speaker 1: people who say it settled science are saying like this
35:36
Speaker 1: is as closest science comes, like it's stopped being afraid
35:38
Speaker 1: of MSG. There's still plenty of people who don't eat
35:43
Speaker 1: M S G who avoid it. I saw that. UM.
35:47
Speaker 1: The International Food Information Council did a survey and found
35:51
Speaker 1: that of Americans actively avoid MSG like they read labels
35:56
Speaker 1: and if the thing says MSG is contained in this,
36:00
Speaker 1: they they won't need it, which is more than people
36:03
Speaker 1: who avoid caffeine, genetically modified organisms, or gluten, which was
36:08
Speaker 1: really surprising to me. And when was that? Uh, that
36:11
Speaker 1: was Oh man, you're killing me. It wasn't very long ago.
36:15
Speaker 1: How about that, Well, it's been since the gluten scare
36:19
Speaker 1: has happened. Yes, OK, yeah, I would guess. So, so
36:22
Speaker 1: I would say within the last ten years that Paul
36:25
Speaker 1: was done. But so there are people who are like,
36:27
Speaker 1: I don't trust you, I don't trust the FDA. I
36:29
Speaker 1: don't like the word that says generally UM. It scares
36:32
Speaker 1: me that sometimes MSG is used as a preservative and
36:36
Speaker 1: stabilizer in vaccines. I don't like those two being associated
36:40
Speaker 1: with one another. Other people say I saw this, but
36:44
Speaker 1: I couldn't see it. I saw the same mention basically
36:47
Speaker 1: around the internet, and I couldn't find any source material.
36:50
Speaker 1: So take this with a grain of salt, as it were,
36:52
Speaker 1: but that msg um, the fermentation of MSG produces arsenic
36:58
Speaker 1: and lead. People aren't really excited about that kind of thing.
37:03
Speaker 1: And then there's that whole other subsection of people who
37:05
Speaker 1: are like, it's a it's an excited toxin, and if
37:08
Speaker 1: you eat too much of this, your brain is gonna
37:10
Speaker 1: blow up. It's basically like a genuine flavor blast, is
37:14
Speaker 1: what they're saying. So there are are a lot of
37:16
Speaker 1: people who are afraid of msg um. But the question is,
37:20
Speaker 1: you know, is it because msg really is harmful or
37:24
Speaker 1: is it because it's you know, just a fear of
37:26
Speaker 1: science and a distrust of the people who are supposedly
37:29
Speaker 1: looking out for our well being well and a holdover
37:32
Speaker 1: from the nineties, seventies and eighties when it was uh,
37:37
Speaker 1: you know, it was all over the place of something terrible,
37:39
Speaker 1: to the extent where restaurants and hotels and a lot
37:43
Speaker 1: of them still do have these signs that say no
37:45
Speaker 1: MSG like it's safe to eat here. Right. There was
37:49
Speaker 1: a book written by a man named Russell Blaylock called
37:52
Speaker 1: Excito Toxins Colon the Taste that Kills UH, And there
37:58
Speaker 1: were rumors of you know that, you know, uh, Chinese
38:02
Speaker 1: restaurants put it in their food because you get filled
38:05
Speaker 1: up faster and you won't eat as much off the buffet.
38:08
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Oh you don't remember hearing that. No, yeah,
38:11
Speaker 1: that was a big one. I I just fills you
38:13
Speaker 1: up and so or makes you feel full, so you
38:16
Speaker 1: know you're gonna get away with thirteen cents less less food, right.
38:21
Speaker 1: I've actually seen UM that there there is an idea
38:24
Speaker 1: that that um MSG does affect you in that way
38:27
Speaker 1: it makes you feel fuller. But from what I'm seeing
38:30
Speaker 1: that sciences is bearing out the opposite that they think
38:34
Speaker 1: that people who eat MSG tend to be heavier than
38:38
Speaker 1: people who don't use MSG because it may suppress lepton,
38:43
Speaker 1: which is a hormone that tells us that we're full,
38:45
Speaker 1: so we stopped eating. So the ideas the more MSG
38:48
Speaker 1: you eat the the the less you're going to feel full,
38:52
Speaker 1: or you're just not going to feel full and you're
38:54
Speaker 1: going to keep eating more, which is a problem because
38:57
Speaker 1: from what I'm seeing, you know, the whole like anti
39:00
Speaker 1: odium thing that's kind of going on among health crusaders. Well,
39:04
Speaker 1: UM in very much the same way that corn syrup
39:07
Speaker 1: was allowed to replace fats in that whole fat free trend.
39:12
Speaker 1: MSG is being added in increasing amounts to this low
39:17
Speaker 1: sodium or even salt free stuff because it brings out
39:21
Speaker 1: the flavor and salt. So if you add more MSG,
39:24
Speaker 1: you can use less salt and on the package you
39:27
Speaker 1: can say lower sodium. You don't say anything about the MSG,
39:30
Speaker 1: but you can sell this thing is lower sodium or whatever.
39:33
Speaker 1: So people who are worried about their harder, worried about
39:35
Speaker 1: their salt and take will buy that, not knowing that
39:38
Speaker 1: they're eating actually more MSG than they would be and
39:40
Speaker 1: that may actually cause them to overeat. If indeed MSG
39:45
Speaker 1: is linked to obesity, and the jury is still out
39:47
Speaker 1: on that one as well, Yes, very much inconclusive at
39:50
Speaker 1: this point. Yes, uh so a lot of this. This
39:53
Speaker 1: is where the story gets kind of interesting, I think.
39:55
Speaker 1: As far as the hysteria around M s G and
39:59
Speaker 1: there was the was a letter written to the New
40:02
Speaker 1: England Journal of Medicine in n from Dr ho mon
40:07
Speaker 1: quak uh kW Okay and he was a senior research
40:12
Speaker 1: investigator at a place called the National Biomedical Research Foundation.
40:17
Speaker 1: He immigrated from China, and he said, you know what,
40:21
Speaker 1: after I eat at Chinese restaurants here in the United
40:24
Speaker 1: States Chinese American food, I feel malaise, I feel some
40:28
Speaker 1: of these symptoms that people always list out, these adverse reactions. Uh.
40:32
Speaker 1: And I think I'm speculating here that it's because they're
40:37
Speaker 1: using a lot of MSG over here, right, which I
40:41
Speaker 1: think the implication was they don't really use MSG in
40:44
Speaker 1: China because they're better chefs, like good, really good chefs
40:48
Speaker 1: kind of look down their nose at using MSG because
40:51
Speaker 1: it's a cheat. Um, you can bring MSG out, you
40:54
Speaker 1: can bring glutamates out and food through like patient um,
40:59
Speaker 1: slow and low hooking techniques, or you can just take
41:01
Speaker 1: a shortcut and put a little MSG on it and
41:04
Speaker 1: you're gonna get to basically the same place. Right. So,
41:07
Speaker 1: in one way, you almost have the idea that he
41:10
Speaker 1: was saying, like, Chinese food in China is superior to
41:13
Speaker 1: Chinese food in America, but he was saying probably. But
41:18
Speaker 1: he was saying, um, like I actually feel physically unwell
41:25
Speaker 1: after I eat in Chinese restaurants in America, yeah, exactly,
41:30
Speaker 1: which is a big difference than Chinese food in China
41:33
Speaker 1: is better than Chinese food in America. Right, And this
41:35
Speaker 1: was not you know, a letter to the editor. This
41:37
Speaker 1: was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, right
41:40
Speaker 1: by a doctor. Yeah, so it was a big deal.
41:43
Speaker 1: And um, here's what happened after that. Uh, this letter,
41:48
Speaker 1: like it was sort of a domino effect and even
41:51
Speaker 1: though he was a Chinese American and he had probably
41:54
Speaker 1: the best of intentions, it gets picked up and then
41:57
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, there are white people in America
42:00
Speaker 1: writing racist articles with like broken English headlines, very much
42:05
Speaker 1: like making a caricature out of Chinese people, Chinese food,
42:09
Speaker 1: Chinese immigrants, Chinese chefs. And it devolved into jokes and like,
42:13
Speaker 1: this is the era that we grew up in in
42:15
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, where like we remember this stuff. Sure,
42:18
Speaker 1: And in very short order, Dr Quac didn't coin this,
42:21
Speaker 1: but um, some of the letters, the follow up letters
42:25
Speaker 1: in response that the New England Journal of Medicine started
42:27
Speaker 1: to print, UM coined this term Chinese restaurant syndrome. That's right,
42:31
Speaker 1: where basically, if you aid at a Chinese restaurant in America,
42:36
Speaker 1: because of the copious amounts of MSG that was used,
42:39
Speaker 1: you could feel weak, lightheaded, your your neck and face
42:44
Speaker 1: could feel tight or flushed or both. You might feel woozy, um,
42:49
Speaker 1: you might have heart palpitations, any number of things, headaches,
42:53
Speaker 1: allergies might get set off, your asthma might get set off. Um.
42:56
Speaker 1: And all of these things combined came to be called
43:00
Speaker 1: Chinese restaurant syndrome. And here's the thing you said it.
43:03
Speaker 1: Doctor Quak's letter was a letter. It wasn't a study.
43:06
Speaker 1: He didn't say, here's a study, let's peer review it.
43:09
Speaker 1: It was a letter that got some response, pretty much
43:13
Speaker 1: tongue in cheek, joking responses in the New England Journal
43:16
Speaker 1: Medicine and the non medical media saw this and said, oh,
43:21
Speaker 1: let's start reporting on this, and started reporting on it
43:24
Speaker 1: as if it were scientific fact that MSG caused these
43:27
Speaker 1: symptoms and that you would get this from eating at
43:29
Speaker 1: Chinese restaurants. That's right. So none of it had to
43:34
Speaker 1: do with eating eight pounds of Chinese food at a buffet. Sure. Sure,
43:38
Speaker 1: And even Dr Kwak in his letter said, maybe it's
43:41
Speaker 1: soy sauce, maybe it's cooking wine, maybe it's um. I
43:44
Speaker 1: can't remember. I think the copious amounts of sodium. And
43:47
Speaker 1: people even still today say, hey, maybe Chinese food does
43:51
Speaker 1: do something to you, but is it possible it's one
43:53
Speaker 1: of the spices or herbs or plants that's used extensively
43:56
Speaker 1: in Chinese cuisine. Who knows. Yeah, and it you know,
43:59
Speaker 1: it can be salty food, especially when you're dumping soy
44:01
Speaker 1: sauce on top of already salty food. Sure, But the
44:04
Speaker 1: point that the point is it's not clear at all
44:07
Speaker 1: that there is such a thing as Chinese restaurant syndrome,
44:11
Speaker 1: that there is any kind of response that anyone actually
44:14
Speaker 1: gets to this, or is it all just the power
44:17
Speaker 1: of suggestion? That's right, And the story gets a little
44:20
Speaker 1: weirder here as far as this letter goes. So they
44:24
Speaker 1: published a letter New England Journal of Medicine, and apparently
44:27
Speaker 1: there there's a history there of like joke letters, like
44:31
Speaker 1: onion style stuff, I guess, uh, fake syndromes, silly letters.
44:37
Speaker 1: A lot of letters in response to this uh quack
44:42
Speaker 1: letter had this um sort of took this angle where
44:45
Speaker 1: they were doing that, and some of them suggested that
44:48
Speaker 1: it was a fake letter and the name home man
44:51
Speaker 1: Quawk was a pun human croc and it was all
44:55
Speaker 1: just cooked up, right, So that's the foundation. Then in
44:59
Speaker 1: two thousand teen, Dr Howard Steele, Uh, this guy put
45:04
Speaker 1: a response to, I know, to an article about this controversy,
45:08
Speaker 1: and he called a reporter and said, you know what,
45:10
Speaker 1: I wrote that letter way back then. He said, I
45:13
Speaker 1: was trying to win a bet to see if I
45:15
Speaker 1: could get a fake letter in the New England Journal
45:18
Speaker 1: of Medicine. So that became the story for a while
45:22
Speaker 1: that this one letter that had kicked off this potentially
45:27
Speaker 1: totally unfounded fear of MSG and Chinese food restaurants UM
45:33
Speaker 1: had was not only like baseless, but it had been
45:37
Speaker 1: written as a prank by a white doctor who made
45:40
Speaker 1: up a funny sounding Chinese name, and UM that he
45:44
Speaker 1: had basically pranked everyone everyone in America for the last
45:48
Speaker 1: several decades. That's how it stood for a little while.
45:51
Speaker 1: But it turns out that even that wasn't correct. And
45:54
Speaker 1: we have our friends over at this American Life, our
45:57
Speaker 1: friend slash Rivals over at this American Life, UM to
46:01
Speaker 1: thank for exposing this, Howard Steele dude, because they dug
46:04
Speaker 1: in a little further. Yeah, who are you gonna turn to?
46:07
Speaker 1: The Podfather? Yeah? Mr Glass, dr Ira Glass the Podfather?
46:12
Speaker 1: I thought that was maren No. I always called Ira
46:16
Speaker 1: Glass the Podfather. Really, Yeah, I always thought you were
46:19
Speaker 1: referring to Marin every time. It makes a lot more sense.
46:25
Speaker 1: Isn't Adam Curry the podfather? Well? I think technically probably
46:28
Speaker 1: is that an urban legend that he was the first podcaster? Yeah,
46:32
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that's gotta be true, right,
46:35
Speaker 1: I don't know. It sounds great, so yes, of course
46:37
Speaker 1: it has to be true. I mean, Jesse Thorne was
46:40
Speaker 1: around before Maren. Sure, well we were around before Marin
46:44
Speaker 1: were we barely? Just barely. He'll never live it down.
46:50
Speaker 1: So in Uh, this was this year in two thousand nineteen.
46:54
Speaker 1: As we record this, this American life poked around like
46:57
Speaker 1: they like to do. They found out that Dr Steele,
46:59
Speaker 1: who was dead at this time, was it was kind
47:03
Speaker 1: of a real jerk because doctor Quake was a real
47:06
Speaker 1: person who was now also dead, and his children are
47:11
Speaker 1: not too happy about all this. They confirmed, like, no,
47:14
Speaker 1: my dad was doctor Quak. That is his real name. Yeah,
47:17
Speaker 1: it's not a joke name. No, he wrote this letter.
47:20
Speaker 1: He did work. There is a really a place called
47:22
Speaker 1: the National Biomedical Research Foundation, Because I guess Steele said
47:26
Speaker 1: that wasn't even a real thing, right, he said he
47:28
Speaker 1: made up the whole thing, and and this daughter was
47:32
Speaker 1: a sort of exasperated, was like, no, that was my dad.
47:35
Speaker 1: He worked there, he wrote that letter, and this doctor
47:38
Speaker 1: Steele sort of uh like, what's his what's his problem?
47:42
Speaker 1: Basically his So his daughter explains on This American Life that, Um,
47:48
Speaker 1: her dad was the kind of guy who would just
47:50
Speaker 1: play a prank like this, and when he was finally
47:52
Speaker 1: found out, we just refused to apologize because you should
47:55
Speaker 1: have had your head on straight better and shouldn't have fallen.
47:59
Speaker 1: He was that kind of guy. Um. And on the
48:01
Speaker 1: one hand, I mean, he was an important physician. He
48:04
Speaker 1: apparently invented some um, some orthopedic surgical techniques that are
48:09
Speaker 1: still used today. Um. But he was also uh kind
48:12
Speaker 1: of a jerk from what I can tell. He's pull
48:16
Speaker 1: out the chair from under you and you fall on
48:18
Speaker 1: the floor, and he's like what you don't reach back
48:20
Speaker 1: to see if your chairs there? Basically that's kind of
48:23
Speaker 1: how his daughter portrayed him in a certain way, lovingly
48:26
Speaker 1: because it's her dad. But you should you know, did
48:29
Speaker 1: you hear that that segment episode? So yeah, it's real
48:33
Speaker 1: cringe inducing to hear. Um. Lily Sullivan on This American
48:37
Speaker 1: Life break the news to Dr Steele's daughter that like,
48:40
Speaker 1: he didn't make up that letter, that he was lying
48:43
Speaker 1: about that all these years, She's like, oh God, what
48:47
Speaker 1: has he done now? So the uptake of or the
48:51
Speaker 1: upshot of all of this is that there was like
48:55
Speaker 1: steel really confounds everything. But if you take steel out
48:57
Speaker 1: of the equation, what your left was is a Chinese
49:01
Speaker 1: American um doctor I think a pediatrician who wrote a
49:04
Speaker 1: letter back in from what I can tell, very earnestly
49:09
Speaker 1: and with good intentions, saying, hey, don't you think this
49:12
Speaker 1: is weird? What is this kind of thing? Um, Here's
49:15
Speaker 1: here's what happens to me when I eat Chinese from America.
49:17
Speaker 1: Here's what I think it is that just set off
49:20
Speaker 1: this uncritical and um kind of pretty racist examination of it,
49:26
Speaker 1: that that the whole country just kind of took on
49:29
Speaker 1: as fact for decades. And your beloved accent, Chuck, how
49:35
Speaker 1: does that play into this? Well, I mean I don't
49:37
Speaker 1: use it, you well know, but it had been around
49:41
Speaker 1: for a good twenty years before um doctor Quake's letter
49:47
Speaker 1: was published, Right, I'm sure American has been using that
49:49
Speaker 1: stuff for ages, right, And no one had ever complained
49:52
Speaker 1: of any symptoms from MSG It wasn't until that one
49:55
Speaker 1: single letter, and that fascinating. What an odd story? You
50:01
Speaker 1: got anything else? Now? Okay, Well, if you want to
50:05
Speaker 1: know more about MSG, go try Maggie or Combo or
50:10
Speaker 1: what was it? Oysters? Sure, tomatoes, cheese. Go try all
50:14
Speaker 1: that stuff. You're gonna love it. And since I said
50:17
Speaker 1: that it's time for listener mail, well you got a
50:22
Speaker 1: listener mail follow up, don't you? I do. I have
50:24
Speaker 1: two things, Chuck. First, I want to give a little
50:26
Speaker 1: heads up to everybody in my Chicago End of the
50:29
Speaker 1: World show is coming up on September twelve, and there
50:33
Speaker 1: are tickets still available. I'll be at Lincoln Hall and
50:36
Speaker 1: you can get tickets at lh dash st dot com. Uh.
50:41
Speaker 1: Don't be a jerk and spell out dash. It's just
50:44
Speaker 1: the dash symbol. Uh. And then yes, I have an
50:47
Speaker 1: update for a listener mail. Do you remember the listener
50:49
Speaker 1: mail author Kate who wrote in at the end of
50:54
Speaker 1: the Nuclear Semiotics episode. Sure she had said that she
50:59
Speaker 1: had under gone like a big breakup and drove from
51:02
Speaker 1: Phoenix to Charlotte and listen to us the whole time. Well, uh,
51:06
Speaker 1: when we read that, almost immediately we got an email
51:10
Speaker 1: from another listener named Jeremy who lives in Charlotte, who said,
51:15
Speaker 1: sorry to hear about your breakup, but welcome to Charlotte
51:18
Speaker 1: from another S Y s K listener, it's a great
51:21
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. It's a great city, and
51:24
Speaker 1: I hope you have a new start, a great new
51:26
Speaker 1: start here, which I just thought was so nice that
51:29
Speaker 1: I found Kate's original email and got in touch with
51:31
Speaker 1: her and just just forwarded just that part, copied and
51:33
Speaker 1: pasted it and forward Jeremy's whole email because you know, no,
51:38
Speaker 1: and I'm glad I'm not trying to pay play matchmaker
51:40
Speaker 1: because in response, I got an update from Kate and
51:44
Speaker 1: she says, thank you. I'm doing so well now. I
51:49
Speaker 1: made a new group of friends at my own apartment,
51:51
Speaker 1: a new teaching job, and I'm even dating someone new.
51:54
Speaker 1: It ended up being the best decision I've ever made.
51:58
Speaker 1: She said, thank you for sharing my sener mail. You
52:00
Speaker 1: guys rock and then the metal fingerhand emoji. Is she
52:05
Speaker 1: dating the guy? I don't think so. That would have
52:08
Speaker 1: been really fast, right, but but um, yeah, well you're
52:13
Speaker 1: the one who introduced it. I never said that. I
52:15
Speaker 1: think I would just being nice. I think it clearly
52:17
Speaker 1: was headed towards a romantic ending. Now, oh oh, sorry,
52:21
Speaker 1: I didn't realize. I've seen too many movies. I guess
52:23
Speaker 1: I think you have to. You're like, come on, you've
52:26
Speaker 1: got mail. All right, Well, I'm glad everyone's happy. Uh.
52:30
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to end like a Meg Ryan movie. Uh. No,
52:34
Speaker 1: it doesn't, but it sounds like it came pretty close. Actually,
52:37
Speaker 1: all right, I love it. Uh So, way to go
52:40
Speaker 1: Kate and making a bold decision that paid off. So now,
52:45
Speaker 1: listener mail or should we or does that count? Should
52:49
Speaker 1: we just end? Um? I don't know, man, that's up
52:52
Speaker 1: to you. How good is the listener mail? That's pretty good.
52:55
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and read it. Okay, Uh this is
52:56
Speaker 1: from Veronica. She's she said, hey, guys, on the content
53:00
Speaker 1: of your show that I love, I hold a special
53:03
Speaker 1: place in my heart for the community your show has
53:05
Speaker 1: fostered that I experienced at your Chicago show this summer,
53:08
Speaker 1: which was just a few weeks ago. I attended that
53:11
Speaker 1: show during and by the way, she started listening to
53:13
Speaker 1: this show when she was in the sixth grade and
53:17
Speaker 1: now she's like a working adult. That's cool. Yes, it's
53:23
Speaker 1: it's the best I attended the show in a very
53:25
Speaker 1: particularly difficult week. My childhood dog of seventeen years had
53:30
Speaker 1: passed away that day. I had just moved across the
53:33
Speaker 1: country for a job with a lot of new responsibilities
53:36
Speaker 1: and challenges, and I was trying to establish some new
53:39
Speaker 1: routines in a big city where I knew no one.
53:42
Speaker 1: I was sitting in the third to last row of
53:44
Speaker 1: that theater with anxiety heavy in my heart, and then
53:47
Speaker 1: seeing both of you guys for the first time and
53:50
Speaker 1: hearing your voices made me feel like everything was gonna
53:52
Speaker 1: be okay. It's hard to put into words how tangible
53:56
Speaker 1: the happiness and that theater was, And people, if you
53:59
Speaker 1: don't go to these live shows, there's tangible happiness there,
54:03
Speaker 1: really there is, you know. Yeah, well you have not
54:05
Speaker 1: paid this listener to say this or give this testimonial. Yeah,
54:08
Speaker 1: come for stuff, you should know. Stay for the tangible happiness, right,
54:12
Speaker 1: you can squish it through your fingers like jelly. She said,
54:15
Speaker 1: I've never been to any sort of event with such
54:18
Speaker 1: a joyful crowd. This is amazing, and she capitalized joyful.
54:22
Speaker 1: At the end of the show, Chuck talked about his
54:23
Speaker 1: late dog Buckley. Remember the last question the night was
54:26
Speaker 1: this cute little girl who said, which dog who was
54:30
Speaker 1: dead do you miss the most? She said it nicer
54:33
Speaker 1: than that, But I said Buckley, And she said that
54:36
Speaker 1: brought me to tears in the theater, not only because
54:39
Speaker 1: this was the same name as my own dearly departed
54:42
Speaker 1: dog who died that day. This has just descended into
54:47
Speaker 1: like joyful chaos. I know, right, I can barely hang
54:50
Speaker 1: on man. She said. Also, it felt like such a
54:53
Speaker 1: weird coincidence of this universe, and I couldn't explain it.
54:56
Speaker 1: Having recently graduated college, I'm starting my first job as
54:59
Speaker 1: a teacher in fall and attribute a large part of
55:02
Speaker 1: my desire to go into education to you guys. Thanks
55:05
Speaker 1: for instilling me a love of learning, pursuing intellectual curiosities,
55:09
Speaker 1: and sharing those curiosities enjoys along the way with others.
55:13
Speaker 1: And she shouts out some friends Caroline VZ in Philadelphia,
55:18
Speaker 1: Joanne l and Ava Maria Florida. They are two fellow
55:22
Speaker 1: stuff you should know enthusiasts. And her name is Veronica,
55:26
Speaker 1: newly transplanted to Chicago from California. Well, welcome to Chicago, Veronica. Yeah,
55:31
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to hear about Buckley, but I'm glad that
55:33
Speaker 1: you could help grieve that loss with friends, joyful friends.
55:39
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh, Man, that was amazing. Thanks a lot
55:43
Speaker 1: for that letter of Ronica. That was great. Uh. If
55:45
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with this, like Veronica
55:47
Speaker 1: did or Kade or Jeremy, you can go on to
55:50
Speaker 1: stuff you Should Know dot com and check out our
55:52
Speaker 1: social links, or you can send us a good old
55:54
Speaker 1: fashioned email, Wrap it up, spank that puppy on the bottom,
55:58
Speaker 1: and send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio
56:02
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
56:08
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
56:10
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H