Maybe we were wrong about MSG

From  

John MahoneyBuzzFeed Contributor

The Notorious MSG’s Unlikely Formula For Success

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The FDA, while acknowledging “short-term, transient and generally mild symptoms” in “some sensitive individuals who consume 3 grams or more of MSG without food,” has never removed MSG from its “generally recognized as safe” list. So why, after almost five decades of science that is vaguely inconclusive or inaccurate at worst, or definitively affirmative of MSG’s safety at best, does the ingredient remain divisive?

 They sent samples to microbiologists from UCLA and Harvard who identified the strains of bacteria responsible for the fermentation. They also advised them on how glutamic acid works in the body. “We asked them, ‘So you’re positive that if I ingest MSG and I eat the same amount naturally, the body digests it in the same way?’ Chang recalls. “And they said, ‘100 fucking percent.’” 

I’m at home. It’s late. I’ve decided to run a study of my own — I’ve decided to make a glutamate bomb posing as a pasta meat sauce. .... 
I add the first half-gram of MSG to the ground beef as it begins to brown in olive oil, and it feels almost illicit. I feel a tingle of excitement, and take a deep whiff of the sizzling meat. Is it just that this beef is good ... or does this smell better than usual? I remind myself that MSG has no odor, and I continue. Out of the pan comes the beef, and in goes shallot and garlic, sautéing in the MSG-doused beef fat. Is it possible that MSG is making one of the best smells in the world (onions and garlic sautéing in fat) even better?