MSG : Monosodium Glutamate

Have you cared about Monosodium Glutamate, MSG ? 

I often go for lunch at Japanese restaurants with my colleagues. One of reason is that I am Japanese so I want to eat Japanese food because I grew up in Japan and I'm still used to it. Second reason is that I want to expand Japanese food culture and want them to try it as much as possible. 

These days, some people says that they hesitate to go to Japanese restaurant so much due to MSG when I say that I want to go for lunch there. According to them, if they eat Japanese food much, they fell their tongue going numb. At first I did not know what MSG means, but I figured out what it is later by checking it on line. MSG stands for Monosodium Glutamate which is, what it is called, flavor enhancer for umani. It seems that it was paid attention to and became famous in bad meaning a few decades ago. What happend at that time is that many people complained that they suffered from headache, numbness, thirst and several symptoms after eating Chinese food, which is called Chinese restaurant syndrome. Chinese restaurants used to use much MSG, although Japanese restaurant use it much as well, so MSG was suspected to be a main cause of symptoms. At the time, many researches were done to prove that there is connection between MSG and the syndrome, but it was not proven scientifically. When I check the Wikipedia about MSG, I recalled something similar story. A few decades ago, peoples in Japan complained almost same symptoms after taking some essence which is called like "essence of umami" and is used for many Japanese food to make it tast better. It is also containing MSG most in terms of ingredients. It was before I was born, so I did not know it, but my mother-in-law told me so and she said that it's impossible not to take it as long as she lives in Japan but she tries to avoid it as much as possible. I also recalled another thing which happened to me, I often make home made ramen noodle at home. I once made Menma which is basically bamboo shoot boiled with many essences. At the time, I remember that I put much chicken flavor essence which contains much MSG. After eating home made ramen including it, I and my wife surprisingly felt our tongue going numb. I did not know what caused it, but now I understand. 

Wait a second !

How does it affect on our body ? How harmful is it on our body ? Does it reduce our life time ? Are we going to suffer from disease if we usually take it ?

We do not know accurately how MSG affects our body. However, if you look at Japanese food, many food surly contain MSG. But life expectancy is so long up to mid 80s. From this fact, it seems like it does not affect on life expectancy in Japan. Life expectancy largely depends on your eating habit so something might compensate it...