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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Vault time.

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Speaker 1: It is Saturday. We're going to venture into the vault

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Speaker 1: for a classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind

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Speaker 1: from August about food additives. Yeah, this is the one

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Speaker 1: where we talked about MSG and the degree to which

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Speaker 1: it's been demonized as some sort of you know, nefarious

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Speaker 1: foreign um substance that's added to food when when really

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Speaker 1: it's far more mundane than that. As far as I

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Speaker 1: can recall, this is the only time I have ever

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Speaker 1: eaten on Mike, so uh, please be be ready to

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Speaker 1: get grossed out when you hear our chewing sounds. We

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Speaker 1: sampled some MSG in this episode, and in fact, the

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Speaker 1: MSG just took a bite out of a big old

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Speaker 1: hunk of it. Well, the shaker is still in the office.

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Speaker 1: I actually used it yesterday on some microwave lasagna. Was good. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: of course, it enhanced the flavor nice. So all right,

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Speaker 1: if you've listened to this episode before, then prepared to

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Speaker 1: experience it again. If not, be prepared to have what

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Speaker 1: you think you know about MSG completely turned on its head.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick and Robert.

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Speaker 1: What if I told you that a silent killer worse

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Speaker 1: than alcohol, nicotine, and drugs is likely lurking in your

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Speaker 1: kitchen cabinets and even your child's school cafeteria. Oh man,

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Speaker 1: that's that's rough, because silent killers are the worst killers.

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Speaker 1: I fire prefer the loud ones, so I know they're coming.

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Speaker 1: And of those substances that you mentioned, only some of

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Speaker 1: those are my favorites. So um yeah, I'm I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: instantly concerned. I'm going to start looking around in my

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Speaker 1: cabinets and trying to figure out where this nefarious force

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Speaker 1: is hiding. Now, lest I be accused of plagiarism, I

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Speaker 1: should give attribution. That is a quote from an article

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Speaker 1: on a on an alternative miss and website called Mercola

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Speaker 1: that is about MSG, the food additive MSG. You've often

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Speaker 1: heard of it associated with Chinese food. Probably it's monosodium glutamate,

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Speaker 1: and that's what we're gonna be talking about today. But

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Speaker 1: we wanted to start with some of the scare tactics,

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Speaker 1: because you had to hear it right here that MSG

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Speaker 1: is quote worse than drugs, worse than drugs. I love

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Speaker 1: that the blandness of that statement. Worse than all drugs,

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Speaker 1: worse than drugs, but but truly better than some drugs.

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Speaker 1: And then also, are we just talking about what drugs right?

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Speaker 1: The drugs that take our pain away or the drugs

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Speaker 1: that that ruin us? I mean, it's there. There's so

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Speaker 1: many different interpretations of that statement. Quick side note, Robert,

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Speaker 1: what's your favorite fictional drug from a movie or book? Oh?

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Speaker 1: You know, I have to go with the spice. But

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Speaker 1: I also like Samuda, which is the drug that they

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Speaker 1: that some individuals in the Dune universe take and then

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Speaker 1: they listen to some sort of weird music Simuda music

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Speaker 1: that can only really be processed while you're taking this

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Speaker 1: particular drug. Well, MSG is worse than that too, because

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Speaker 1: what does it do? I don't know, it does a

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Speaker 1: lot of stuff. Apparently, if you listen to to everyone

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Speaker 1: who has ever complained about MSG, it has ever proposed,

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Speaker 1: and you know, a negative symptom of taking MSG, then

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Speaker 1: it sounds like just the worst thing imaginable. Okay, So Robert,

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Speaker 1: tell me your MSG story. How did you become acquainted

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Speaker 1: with this killer? The silent killer chemical? All right, So

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Speaker 1: growing up I was I don't remember ever being privy

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Speaker 1: to any direct anti MSG messaging. Like, nobody had me

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Speaker 1: watch a video, nobody made me read a paper about it.

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Speaker 1: It was just this thing that you just heard. Oh well,

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Speaker 1: MSG is to be avoided. You go to the local

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Speaker 1: Chinese restaurant and your small American town, there's likely to

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Speaker 1: be a no MSG sign there on the wall, just

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Speaker 1: to let you know before you even think about coming

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Speaker 1: in the door that there is going to be no MSG.

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Speaker 1: And I and not even knowing what it was, I

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Speaker 1: just kind of had in my mind that it was

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Speaker 1: some sort of some sort of chemical, some sort of

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Speaker 1: cheating substance that allowed the the individuals that are making

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Speaker 1: the food to to trick you into enjoying something. It's

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Speaker 1: the anabolic steroids of food, the doping of food. But

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Speaker 1: as we're gonna discussing this episode, there's there's virtually nothing

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Speaker 1: to any of this. Uh, this fear of moongering, decades

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Speaker 1: worth of fear mongering that still refuses to completely go away. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think we will in the end. Probably be able

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Speaker 1: to speculate a good bit on where a lot of

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Speaker 1: this fear comes from. But I encountered it to when

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Speaker 1: I was growing up. So I remember one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite restaurants when I was a kid was this little

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Speaker 1: brick storefront Chinese restaurant in Chattanooga, Tennessee called China Lee.

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Speaker 1: I love going there. They made some delicious seguan beef.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if i'd still think it was good

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Speaker 1: if I went there today. I don't know if they're

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Speaker 1: still open. But at the time, I loved it, and

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Speaker 1: I would go there and I would you know, I

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Speaker 1: was a kid, but if you had this experience at

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Speaker 1: Chinese restaurants when you were a little where you just

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Speaker 1: like eat to the point of pain and then you'd

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Speaker 1: keep going. But I also remember this slight psychological taint

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Speaker 1: to the experience because I would hear adults talking about

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Speaker 1: Chinese food and MSG. There was this clear link in

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Speaker 1: my mind that I had overheard from adult conversation and

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Speaker 1: I didn't really understand it. But what I generally did

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Speaker 1: get was that MSG was some sort of dangerous chemical

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Speaker 1: and it was all in Chinese food. But if it

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Speaker 1: was so dangerous, why do we eat it? Why did

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Speaker 1: my parents take me? Yeah? And then the other side

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Speaker 1: of it too for me, is that, Okay, it's something

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Speaker 1: that they're using to cheat you into into the they're cheating,

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Speaker 1: they're making the food taste better than it is. But

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Speaker 1: the same thing can be said of pretty much every

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Speaker 1: food additive that has ever been. Every spice in your

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Speaker 1: cabinet is a way to cheat and make food taste better. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that's what that's salt, pepper, everything else like that. Just

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Speaker 1: the act of the art of cooking is, Hey, how

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Speaker 1: can we make this particular slab of protein, this particular

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Speaker 1: heap of vegetables, how can we make this biomass, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, taste better and and be more digestible for

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Speaker 1: the human body. Yeah, But of course I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I got this message somehow. So when I was a kid,

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Speaker 1: I do remember one instance where a friend of mine

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Speaker 1: was sick. He was like laid out on the couch

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Speaker 1: for a couple of days, and I remember it was

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Speaker 1: attributed to the msg content of some Chinese food he'd

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Speaker 1: eaten the day before. I don't know where that idea

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Speaker 1: came from. I don't know if their doctor told them

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Speaker 1: that or if that's just what a parent concluded. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's what they said. And then later I think I

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Speaker 1: softened a little bit on MSG, but in a in

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Speaker 1: another disgusting way, because the next time I remember encountering

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Speaker 1: it in my life, I was in college and a

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Speaker 1: friend and roommate of mine at the time time was

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Speaker 1: teaching me how to make a recipe for this dip

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Speaker 1: that came from his family. I think his grandmother had

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Speaker 1: made it or something. All the recipes you learned in

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Speaker 1: college tend to be going to be a little suspect.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't judge this friend of mine by this dip.

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Speaker 1: But the dip in my memory is a little gross.

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Speaker 1: So it had Philadelphia cream cheese, chopped up sandwich meat

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Speaker 1: which I believe was Buddig beef, and then sliced green onions,

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Speaker 1: and the fourth ingredient was a container of shakon seasoning

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Speaker 1: called accent. And I was like, what is this? I

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Speaker 1: think I might have seen this in my grandmother's kitchen cabinet,

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Speaker 1: but otherwise I didn't know what it was. And it

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Speaker 1: said wakes up food flavor. Well, that sounds good. You

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Speaker 1: don't want your food to be asleep, So I looked

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Speaker 1: at the ingredients, and the primary ingredient are actually the

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Speaker 1: one ingredient in this food flavor alarm clock was monosodium

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Speaker 1: glutamate in MSG, the stuff that had supposedly laid out

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Speaker 1: my childhood friend with a body leveling illness, and the

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Speaker 1: stuff that that I always heard these creepy rumors about. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you actually brought in a little container of accent. And

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Speaker 1: one of the things I love about it is that

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Speaker 1: first of all, there's there's no mention of MSG. Uh Um.

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Speaker 1: Monosodium glutamate is mentioned once on the back, and presumably

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Speaker 1: they don't have to say contains MSG because it is

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Speaker 1: pure MSG. You know, they save on the printing for

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Speaker 1: this thing because they don't have to print ingredients every time.

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Speaker 1: It just says ingredient and ends of the t pull

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Speaker 1: and monosodium glutamate. But they it's really an attempt to

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Speaker 1: rebrand it right accent instead of MSG, because MSG sounds

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's the letters are tainted for us

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Speaker 1: because of these just decades of negative connotations, which we'll

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Speaker 1: get into. And I would say it's also by the

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Speaker 1: general problem of chemophobia, people being afraid of chemical names

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Speaker 1: of things, which will get to in the end, and

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Speaker 1: I think we should end by number one having an

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Speaker 1: accent or monosodium glutamate if you want to avoid the branding,

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Speaker 1: taste tests on Mike and then see see if anything

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Speaker 1: horrible happens to us. And then also we should suggest

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Speaker 1: some rebranding. Yes, so as as we're going start thinking

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Speaker 1: of new names for MSG. Ways we can we can

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Speaker 1: reclaim this chemical for our tasting pleasure. Right, so we

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Speaker 1: should go back and tell the story of MSG, Like

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Speaker 1: where did this food additive come from? Yeah, let's do it.

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Speaker 1: Let's get to the origin story here. Mono sodium glutamate.

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Speaker 1: This chemical was discovered by Japanese chemist Kika Akada back

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Speaker 1: in nineteen o seven. So he was investigating flavoring and asparagus,

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Speaker 1: tomatoes and especially uh dashy seaweed soup that has a

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Speaker 1: strong umami flavor that that pleasant savory taste. Yeah, we're

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Speaker 1: much more familiar with you, mommy these days. We hear

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Speaker 1: about it all the time in in cooking shows and

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Speaker 1: stuff like that. Now. I think decades back, people were

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Speaker 1: way less familiar with the concept of ou mommy exactly

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Speaker 1: what it was. But ou mommy, what is it? It's

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Speaker 1: that deeply savory, meaty flavor. It's not the same as

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Speaker 1: something being salty, but it's it's that kind of deep

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Speaker 1: flavor that you get from cheeses and meats and tomatoes.

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Speaker 1: It's there in anchovies, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's almost There's some wonderful descriptions out there for huma umami,

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Speaker 1: and umami is such a wonderful one word description is

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Speaker 1: just rolling off your tongue once you've tasted it. Uh,

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Speaker 1: to just go perfectly together. Uh, but yeah, you kind

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Speaker 1: of have to have tasted you mommy, and most of

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Speaker 1: us have to really appreciate it. So Japanese cuisine obviously

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Speaker 1: had this concept of ou, mommy, they know what this

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Speaker 1: delicious savory flavor is. But what a Kato was able

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Speaker 1: to do was to pinpoint the chemical cause of this flavor,

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Speaker 1: which was this substance that we now know as glutamate

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Speaker 1: yes um. In particular, he pinpoint pinpointed glutamic acid. So

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Speaker 1: this isn't a meano acid non essential because the human

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Speaker 1: body and various plants and animals can produce it on

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Speaker 1: their own and in the body gluten Glutamic acid is

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Speaker 1: often found as Glutamate one of the most abundant neurotransmitters

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Speaker 1: in the body, and it plays an important role in

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Speaker 1: memory and learning, and according to the FDA, you can

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Speaker 1: probably consume thirteen grams of it of it a day

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Speaker 1: in the protein in your food. Right, So glutamate is

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Speaker 1: already there in your diet almost definitely you're eating foods

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Speaker 1: with glutamate in them. Yeah, if you're having tomatoes glutamate,

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Speaker 1: If you haven't parmesan cheese, glutamate um, and certainly if

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Speaker 1: you're having some of the more processed food items out there,

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Speaker 1: various potato chips, etcetera, you having glutamate. Glutamate is just

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Speaker 1: part of eating as humans. Yeah, so there's no there's

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Speaker 1: no magic going on, right that this is just a

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Speaker 1: standard dietary chemical and as such we do have receptors

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Speaker 1: that are sort of programmed to taste it. Yeah. All

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Speaker 1: that Ikeda did here is he took that naturally occurring

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Speaker 1: glutamate and he solved the problem of then, well, how

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Speaker 1: do I how do I synthesize it, how do I

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Speaker 1: mass produce it? How can I get this in a

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Speaker 1: form that's stable to the consumer. And basically what he

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Speaker 1: did here is. He figured out he could synthesize the

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Speaker 1: molecule by first extracting the glutamate from seaweed and then

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Speaker 1: mixing it with water and just common table salt to

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Speaker 1: stabilize the compound. Thus, mono sodium glutamate m s G.

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Speaker 1: It's born, it's table salt, and it's glutamate. Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: really can't drive drive that home enough that there's there's

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Speaker 1: no like extreme chemical um process here. There's no weird

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Speaker 1: magical ritual involved. This is just salt and glutamate that

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Speaker 1: come together into a stable form. So I have to

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Speaker 1: tell you that I don't know where I encountered this idea,

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Speaker 1: but years ago, what I heard about the way MSG

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Speaker 1: works in your mouth is that it literally quote tears

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Speaker 1: holes in your tongue to make you taste things more intensely.

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Speaker 1: I can't remember where I came across this, and I

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Speaker 1: know I passed on this piece of false information to

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Speaker 1: people plenty of time, like it tears a hole in

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Speaker 1: the fabric of our reality and then demon taste from

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Speaker 1: another universe comming. I never heard anything quite that extreme,

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Speaker 1: but I do remember hearing that it like opens up

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Speaker 1: the taste buds with the with the emphasis being that

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Speaker 1: it's doing so in an un natural way. In it

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Speaker 1: almost like a drug induced way, right. It would be

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Speaker 1: fascinating to find out where these rumors started about its

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Speaker 1: its mechanism of action. But anyway, so it went on

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Speaker 1: to become a popular commercial food additive. It wasn't just

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Speaker 1: anymore people putting glutamate rich foods into their foods to

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Speaker 1: season it. Like you could put parmesan cheese or or

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Speaker 1: seaweed or something like that into your food to boost

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Speaker 1: the glutamate content. Or you could just isolate monosodium glutamate

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Speaker 1: and add that to increase the zumami flavor without adding

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Speaker 1: the other ingredients. I mean basically, especially now with with

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Speaker 1: your mom a, I feel like it's been very much

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Speaker 1: a favorite keyword among foodies over the past decade, uh

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Speaker 1: you know, and maybe longer. But there are plenty of

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Speaker 1: ways to to glued up your food to get that

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Speaker 1: glue to mate in there without MSG. MSG is just

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Speaker 1: kind of a a quick and easy way to do it.

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Speaker 1: Um So, this this quick and easy way is rolled

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Speaker 1: out by the Japanese company h a Geno motto and

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Speaker 1: it it's you have this instant crystalline powder. That's uh,

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Speaker 1: that's ready to just sprinkle on your food, and it's

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Speaker 1: an instant hit. Of course, Uh. They they patented it

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Speaker 1: in nineteen o nine, and today the form that you

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Speaker 1: encounter tends to be made from beats and corn. It's

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Speaker 1: known as MSG in the States, but a Keita's name

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Speaker 1: still sticks elsewhere in the world. A geno moto or

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Speaker 1: essence of taste. You can still buy with under that

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Speaker 1: name at various you know, an anywhere you buy, you know,

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Speaker 1: your local Asian market should have it, uh with that title.

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Speaker 1: And I should also point out that that Akito was

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Speaker 1: like he was tremendously successful with this, It was apparently

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Speaker 1: fabulously wealthy uh in the early twentie century. Japan died

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties, but this was his He really

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Speaker 1: hit it out of the park with this fabulous flavor enhancer.

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Speaker 1: So what could possibly go wrong? What could what could

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Speaker 1: possibly stop this juggernaut of taste from just taking over

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Speaker 1: the world. Well we will answer that question right after

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Speaker 1: we get back from this break and we're back. So

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Speaker 1: Robert MSG glutamate big flavor success story in the history

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Speaker 1: of of food flavoring and additives. Yes, big big flavor

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Speaker 1: success story as a huge age, absolutely huge it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it it is immediately a hit just throughout Asia. Allows

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Speaker 1: that allows people to get of a meaty taste to

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Speaker 1: non meaty dishes. I've read that it was especially a

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Speaker 1: popular among Buddhists abstaining from meat during periodic absence periods

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Speaker 1: various meat related fasts and uh in America too and

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Speaker 1: in Canada. Elsewhere in the world it really gains popularity.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you especially have to look back to World

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Speaker 1: War two era post and pre war America to see

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Speaker 1: just how ready we were for a flavor enhancer like this.

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Speaker 1: On one hand, you had you had the military industrial

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Speaker 1: complex here all right. You had the US military needing

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Speaker 1: to to boost the flavor and otherwise dull soldier rations.

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Speaker 1: So they turned to MSG easy way just to enhance

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Speaker 1: some some limited food options there, easier than adding bacon

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Speaker 1: to everything, right, and then industrialization of of all that food.

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Speaker 1: It comes home with them after the war into the

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Speaker 1: American household. But even before World War Two, we were

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Speaker 1: essentially priming ourselves for such an advancement through the home

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Speaker 1: economics philosophy. So there was recently a wonderful um interview

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Speaker 1: on NPRS Fresh Air uh with Terry Gross married culinary

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Speaker 1: historians Jane Ziegelman and Andy co appeared to promote their

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Speaker 1: book A Square Meal, the Culinary History of the Great Depression,

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Speaker 1: which it's a great, great interview, definitely check it out. Um.

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Speaker 1: But they point out that the home economists of the

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Speaker 1: age that they were not really into flavor. They were

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Speaker 1: they were saying, all right, you needed, you need to

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Speaker 1: be fed, you need to be healthy. Uh, you have

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Speaker 1: limited means of pulling that off. Here are some strategies

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Speaker 1: to do it. You can worry about spice when when

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Speaker 1: when things are going a little better for you. So

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Speaker 1: they pushed pushed American science based ways to get the

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Speaker 1: best out of available food rations, often in bizarre dishes, uh,

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Speaker 1: such as the one that they discussed on in the

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Speaker 1: interview as being quote wrong in every possible way, was

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Speaker 1: a recipe that featured canned corn, beef, plain gelatine, can pies, vinegar,

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Speaker 1: and lemon juice. Oh boy, so so oh man. These

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Speaker 1: these old recipes you see from like magazines from the

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Speaker 1: World War two era where it's like, yeah, poor candle

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Speaker 1: lima beans and spam together there. But but you can

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Speaker 1: see where it's like they're engineering a meal. It's an

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Speaker 1: engineering approach to the American meal. And so MSG is

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Speaker 1: is perfect for that crystals that you sprinkle on there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's modernism brought to food. Yeah. And it was apparently

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Speaker 1: when it was first marketed, uh, to the American housewife,

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Speaker 1: it was in this slender little bottle, you know, full

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Speaker 1: of the flavor crystals. It seemed like the future had

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Speaker 1: arrived in the form of this, uh, this wonderful enhancer UM.

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Speaker 1: And here's another important little little fact that Ziegelman and co.

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Speaker 1: Point out. Though the home economist of the day, who

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Speaker 1: were creating all these strange rests a piece to make

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Speaker 1: the best out of the available rations they could have,

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Speaker 1: they could have found a lot of great, healthy and

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Speaker 1: flavorful ways to get the most out of those rations

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Speaker 1: if they turned to America's immigrant communities. But of course,

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Speaker 1: for a number of reasons, including implicit or even overt

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Speaker 1: racial bias or xenophobia, they didn't do it. And I'm

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Speaker 1: not just talking about um, you know, certainly Asian immigrants,

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Speaker 1: but even like Italian immigrants, Um, they they had they

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Speaker 1: had various tactics to to make the best out of

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Speaker 1: the available rations so with the with Italian immigrants, of course,

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Speaker 1: you know, depending up more on pasta. One of the

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Speaker 1: examples they point out is is using dandelion greens. That

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Speaker 1: Italian immigrants carried that tradition with them, and that would

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Speaker 1: have been a wonderful, uh, a wonderful tactic to to

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Speaker 1: educate the American public about, but they didn't. Instead, it's

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Speaker 1: more like gelatine and meat. So yeah, well, us who

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Speaker 1: live in big cities in America today, we're just so

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Speaker 1: used to international cuisine. I think it's a thing that's

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Speaker 1: become thoroughly part of American culture to have a Chinese restaurant,

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Speaker 1: a Mexican restaurant, a Thai restaurant in an Italian restaurant

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Speaker 1: and all that, and it can be kind of hard

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Speaker 1: for us to imagine what it was like firm, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, maybe a lot of Midwesterners or something like that,

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Speaker 1: to to see these strange foods from exotic lands. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I feel like we can all um. In many cases,

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Speaker 1: we can. We can look to older members of our family, particularly,

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Speaker 1: I remember, I think there are stories of this with

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Speaker 1: uh grandparents on my on both my side and my

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Speaker 1: wife's side of the family. Both of them had very

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Speaker 1: similar stories about going to an ethnic restaurant. Uh. In

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Speaker 1: my own grandfather's case, it was a Mexican restaurant, and

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Speaker 1: I didn't want to try any of the more exotic food.

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Speaker 1: They're ordered an American hamburger and complain for the rest

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Speaker 1: of his life that they served him at quote a

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Speaker 1: hot hamburger. It was a harrowing experience. But but I

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Speaker 1: feel like this is kind of a universal experience among

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Speaker 1: of among a lot of older Americans and now in

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Speaker 1: many cases deceased Americans, where suddenly there were all these

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Speaker 1: these more flavorful options, these exotic options, these new options,

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Speaker 1: and you know, it's only natural to approach those, uh,

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Speaker 1: those new flavors with a certain amount of skepticism, to

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Speaker 1: say nothing of you know, your your your own taste,

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Speaker 1: your own palate, being less inclined to enjoy those that

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Speaker 1: new Baraga flavors. But of course, as we have warned

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Speaker 1: you at the end of this great MSG success story,

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Speaker 1: did come some backlash. Yeah, and when we say success story,

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Speaker 1: we're not just talking about other Chinese restaurants. But it's

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Speaker 1: in it's being used in everything, it's in, it's in

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Speaker 1: children's cereals, soup, it's in soup, It's just all over

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Speaker 1: the place. It's just a become a standard part of

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Speaker 1: the industrialization of food. But also it's like just just

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Speaker 1: cooking in your kitchen. And then we enter a period

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Speaker 1: in the in the early sixties where people began to

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Speaker 1: uh to to question some of the chemicals in their food. Uh.

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Speaker 1: There's a big book that came out in sixty two

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Speaker 1: by Rachel Carson titled Silent Spring that kicked off a

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Speaker 1: lot of a great deal of backlash just against chemicals

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Speaker 1: and cooking in general. I mean, I don't think i'd

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Speaker 1: try to blame Rachel Carson for irrational chemophobia. Indirectly, it

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Speaker 1: might have had this unintended influence. It starts this, It

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Speaker 1: starts as narrative in many people's minds. It forces us

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Speaker 1: to to to to ask some good, some important questions

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Speaker 1: about how our foods coming together and where it's coming from.

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Speaker 1: But but as we all know, a little information, uh

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Speaker 1: can can sometimes be just enough to spin off some

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Speaker 1: of some paranoia. Okay, Robert, where did this narrative of

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Speaker 1: Chinese restaurants syndrome come from? Well, it's everyone seems to

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Speaker 1: trace it back to one particular letter published in the

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Speaker 1: New England Journal of Medicine in nineteen all right, and

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Speaker 1: uh it's it's actually written by a Chinese American doctor

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Speaker 1: by the name of Robert home Man Quawk. And he

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Speaker 1: claimed that twenty minutes after eating at a Northern Chinese

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Speaker 1: food restaurant. So we're talking, you know, strong flavoring, seasoning,

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Speaker 1: wheat flour, as opposed to as opposed to, you know,

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Speaker 1: more of the spicy punch of Central Chinese cooking, or

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00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:34,919
Speaker 1: or any of the other various culinary traditions to be

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Speaker 1: found in China. I think a Northern Chinese cooking is

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Speaker 1: less rice centric, right, it has more like wheat noodles

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Speaker 1: and things like that. Yeah, yeah, rice South, know, wheat North.

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Speaker 1: So he's saying, all right, eight at this North Chinese

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Speaker 1: food restaurant, and that resulted in quote numbness at the

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Speaker 1: back of the neck, gradually radiating to both arms and

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Speaker 1: the back, general weakness and palpitation. Okay, so he ate

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Speaker 1: a big meal. That's the that's the thing, and that's

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Speaker 1: the That's one of the questions that keeps coming up

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Speaker 1: for me as I read any of these accounts, is like,

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Speaker 1: who among us has not eaten restaurant food, and in

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Speaker 1: many cases eating far more restaurant food than we should

417
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Speaker 1: have and paid a price. Yeah. You you gorge yourself

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Speaker 1: on some salty delights and then you felt kind of

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Speaker 1: bad afterwards. Yeah. Yeah, Oh it was salty and it

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Speaker 1: was rich and it was I mean, yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: we we all have those stories. It's a little much

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Speaker 1: to start looking around for the one secret ingredient that

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Speaker 1: caused it. Now, in uh, in Robert holmen Quo's letter,

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Speaker 1: he's had a couple of theories. He said, Well, maybe

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Speaker 1: it's a certain cooking line that they're using. Maybe it's

426
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:44,439
Speaker 1: just that high sodium content, which certainly would not be

427
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 1: unheard of in North Chinese cooking. Or perhaps it's that MSG.

428
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:55,639
Speaker 1: Now not everyone bought this right away, as as Ian

429
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 1: Moseby points out in his his his excellent paper that

430
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:02,520
Speaker 1: Wanton sup Headache for Chinese Restaurant Syndrome MSG and the

431
00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:07,240
Speaker 1: Making of American Food. Uh. There was actually one reader

432
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 1: who wrote in and congratulated the journal for fooling its

433
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: readers and suggested that the real author of the letter

434
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:18,119
Speaker 1: was surely one Dr hu Man croc As. Then I guess,

435
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:20,800
Speaker 1: like a croc of of uh. I guess that's a

436
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:24,600
Speaker 1: play on Homeman quak homan quak. Yeah, but instead of like, yeah,

437
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:27,080
Speaker 1: it's it's not a great joke. I'm not putting it

438
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:29,879
Speaker 1: out as a great joke. But certainly here's an example

439
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: of someone saying, hey, this is this sounds like malarkey, Um,

440
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:35,560
Speaker 1: why did you even print this letter? Well, even if

441
00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:37,480
Speaker 1: this guy was correct, that's no need to make fun

442
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:42,040
Speaker 1: of somebody's name exactly. Yeah. Um. But the thing is,

443
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:44,040
Speaker 1: this is not the only person who wrote back in.

444
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 1: Others wrote in with shared experiences, though not all about

445
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:50,880
Speaker 1: Chinese or even Japanese cuisine. There were even some who

446
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 1: wrote in about kosher Deli's where they were having this

447
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:58,119
Speaker 1: this experience. So almost immediately there's this just this sense

448
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:03,359
Speaker 1: of of other there's a sense of xenophobia in the equation. Now, Robert,

449
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 1: I have a hypothesis that I think maybe we should

450
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 1: I don't know if we were tricky enough to test this,

451
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:12,479
Speaker 1: but sometime we should try out something like this. Just

452
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: say like, hey, have you ever noticed after you and

453
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:20,160
Speaker 1: then name some common but not all too common phenomenon,

454
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:24,440
Speaker 1: like you ever notice how after you eat uh lamb

455
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 1: or you know something like that. I guess I thought

456
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:30,200
Speaker 1: of that because your name, uh you you have this

457
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 1: strange feeling. We will get people writing in saying like, oh, yeah,

458
00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:37,200
Speaker 1: I've had that before. Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure

459
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 1: we'll get it. Like I anytime I drink a lot

460
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 1: of fizzy water, I feel like I am going to

461
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,119
Speaker 1: float up towards the ceiling and uh, you know, and

462
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 1: grind up in a fan. Have you ever noticed that

463
00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 1: every time you drink one of those energy drinks that

464
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:52,159
Speaker 1: has taurine in it, you start to see over the

465
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 1: dunes of time. Yeah? Yeah, I mean if enough people

466
00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 1: just sort of raised the question, then we we begin

467
00:26:59,880 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: to to define the answer on our own recollection. And

468
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 1: I'd say, yeah, that's happened to me. I did feel

469
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 1: a little weird after that last big meal I ate

470
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 1: at that Chinese restaurant. But that's one level, right, just

471
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:12,440
Speaker 1: a bunch of people talking about it and saying, hey,

472
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 1: did that did you? Did you feel weird after you

473
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 1: had general sauce chicken, which they wouldn't have at this point,

474
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: I don't think, uh is it had not quite been

475
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:24,160
Speaker 1: infitted yet if I'm remembering the timeline correctly. But But

476
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 1: what complicates things is that science then enters the scenario

477
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 1: as well it should, right, I mean, science enters the

478
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 1: scenario to answer questions, to get to the bottom of what,

479
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 1: if anything, is going on here? Right, So it looks

480
00:27:36,320 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 1: like we needed to to have some some studies, some

481
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 1: organized scientific investigation of whether MSG is really causing people's

482
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: eyes to fall out and they're to bleed from the

483
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:51,160
Speaker 1: ears and their arms to leap out of their sockets. Well,

484
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 1: I mean, you're you're exaggerating, but not but not too much. Um. Yeah,

485
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 1: So that basically the whole episode here gains legitimacy when

486
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 1: nero neurologist Robert Bick and pharmacologist Herbert H. Schomberg at

487
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:08,680
Speaker 1: Albert Einstein College of Medicine published an article in Science

488
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: on February nineteen sixty nine. In this experiment, they administered

489
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:19,439
Speaker 1: MSG orally and intravenously to test subjects and then concluded

490
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:25,399
Speaker 1: that MSG could produce the Chinese restaurants syndrome in typical

491
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:30,560
Speaker 1: recipe dosages. So that's essentially the big first scientific shot

492
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: fired here where suddenly there's a study that seems to

493
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 1: back up what everyone is feeling and reporting about their

494
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 1: there's their symptoms following consuming Chinese food. Wait a minute,

495
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 1: you said administered MSG orally and intravenously. Yeah, how many

496
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 1: foods can you think of that are fine when you

497
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 1: eat them and meet them all the time, But if

498
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 1: you were to administer them intravenous lee would be a

499
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: big problem. Yeah, exactly. It's not hooked me up to

500
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 1: the soy sauce ivan indeed. And that's uh, that's that's

501
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 1: one of the problems that continues to to to to

502
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 1: raise its head throughout the scientific investigation of MSG is

503
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: like what kind of dosages are we talking about? And

504
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 1: then how is it being consumed? Is it being consumed

505
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 1: at an empty stomach? Is it because it's on food

506
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 1: you wouldn't like really be taking just straight MSG? And

507
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 1: then on top of that, are you shooting up with

508
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 1: MSG something that nobody nobody is doing it. It's not

509
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: on the menu at any restaurant, I guarantee. I guess

510
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 1: they're trying to, I don't know, anticipate the scenario where

511
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: somebody accidentally stabs himself with a fork and then an

512
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:46,080
Speaker 1: MSG container spills into the wound, and well, and there's

513
00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 1: there's also a larger problem here, and that is as

514
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:53,240
Speaker 1: as they laid out, MSG was widely used in Asian cooking,

515
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 1: but it was also all over the U S food industry.

516
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:58,440
Speaker 1: So where we're why were there not widespread accounts of

517
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: these symptoms um popping up because someone had a bowl

518
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 1: of soup? Why are there not cases all over Asia

519
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 1: where the stuff had already had like a had a

520
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 1: couple of decades head start, right, body, you know, why

521
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 1: why didn't Why didn't everybody in China? Why did everyone

522
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:18,120
Speaker 1: in Japan suffer these symptoms when they were eating food

523
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 1: with MSG in it? And why not the foods naturally

524
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 1: containing glutamate? Yeah? And is is that? Ian Moseby pointed

525
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 1: out in that article. As early as nineteen nine, fifty

526
00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: eight million pounds of MSG were being produced per year

527
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: in the United States. So it's in every It's in breakfast, cereal,

528
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 1: TV dinners, frozen vegetables, condiments, baby food, can soup, it's

529
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 1: it's everywhere, and nobody's talking about it except in reference

530
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:49,719
Speaker 1: to Chinese restaurants and occasionally kosher delis. Well, it sounds

531
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 1: at that point like some cultural concerns might be as

532
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: strongly motivating this this worry as any scientific or health concerns.

533
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And of course their studies also came out

534
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 1: pretty early to sort of spend this uh further out

535
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:11,280
Speaker 1: of control. In May nine, psychiatrist John W. Only published

536
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:14,320
Speaker 1: a study in Science that saw large doses of MSG

537
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 1: and injected into mice, which subsequently suffered a host of

538
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:21,960
Speaker 1: distressing symptoms. Yeah. I bet they did. Yeah, And he

539
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 1: specifically raised the question of MSG and human pregnancy, and

540
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: by July only Bick and Schaumberg to Schomberger, the two

541
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 1: gentleman from the previous study. They joined up with the

542
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 1: consumer advocate and future presidential candidate Ralph Nader to urge

543
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 1: a Senate committee to ban the use of MSG in

544
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 1: baby foods, and they got a number of companies to

545
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 1: drop MSG that way, but the National Research Council ruled

546
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 1: that it was fit for human consumption, but not necessarily

547
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 1: by infants. Yeah, so we want to emphasize that, as

548
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 1: I've read in multiple critiques, a lot of these early

549
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 1: studies of MSG were just plagued with flawed method knowledge.

550
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 1: So I've seen claims that they, of course that there's

551
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 1: the problem of injecting it intravenously in huge quantities into

552
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 1: mice and then saying like this seems like what would

553
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 1: happen if you ate some with you. I've seen some

554
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:16,479
Speaker 1: reviews that also claimed that early studies were just not

555
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 1: properly blinded. You tell people like, hey, we're gonna give

556
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 1: you some of this creepy chemical called MSG. Tell me

557
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 1: how you feel after you eat it? Yeah, and and

558
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: plus you know, just think again, think of your your

559
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: spice rack, your spice cabinet, virtually anything in there. If

560
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:34,960
Speaker 1: you're taking a high enough dosage, you're gonna hurt yourself.

561
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: I mean nutmeg for instance. Cinnamon challenge. Yeah, cinnamon challenge

562
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 1: is another one. Like these are both substances where if

563
00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:44,840
Speaker 1: you take the right amount, then it's either that it's

564
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 1: just tasty, maybe it's even has some slight beneficial qualities,

565
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 1: but if you take a lot of it, you're gonna

566
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 1: make yourself sick. In the case of nutmeg, you might

567
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 1: have like the worst high of your life. Do not

568
00:32:56,720 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 1: try it, really the worst, one of the worst, Like

569
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: all the ounce I've read of nutmeg induced um uh,

570
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:07,959
Speaker 1: you know, psychological effects. They it's it's dreadful, it's not

571
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 1: worth worth trying. But it's been pointed out so when

572
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: they say MSG is worse than drugs, is it worse

573
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 1: than nutmeg? I can't see that it would be. I mean,

574
00:33:18,560 --> 00:33:21,600
Speaker 1: I don't know that. Basically, bottom line, you take you

575
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 1: take too much salt, you're gonna hurt yourself. You drink

576
00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 1: too much water, you're gonna hurt yourself. And certainly if

577
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 1: you take too too much monosodium glutamate you are probably

578
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 1: gonna hurt yourself. But it comes down to the question, though,

579
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 1: how are typical amounts of MSG impacting people? Well, this

580
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 1: does bring me to a question that I was curious about,

581
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 1: not necessarily about the long term effects or or the

582
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 1: supposed Chinese restaurants in Rome, but I was like, what's

583
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 1: the acute toxicity of this stuff? Surely it's food additive,

584
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: this has to have been studied. Uh. So acute toxicity

585
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:58,240
Speaker 1: is expressed in terms of LD fifty. You know, what's

586
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: the dosage per body weight that kills fifty of lab

587
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: animals that take it? Uh? And so I looked that

588
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 1: up and there there is, indeed a study on the

589
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 1: acute toxicity of MSG from called Monosodium glutamate Toxic effects

590
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:17,360
Speaker 1: and their implications for human intake. A review and I

591
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 1: just want to read quote. According to a joint inquiry

592
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 1: by the Governments of Australia New Zealand in two thousand three,

593
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 1: a typical Chinese restaurant meal contains between ten and fifteen

594
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:30,839
Speaker 1: hundred milligrams of MSG per one grams. I guess that's

595
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 1: the hundred grams of serving. The oral dose that is

596
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 1: lethal to fifty percent of subjects l l D fifty

597
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 1: and rats and mice is fifteen thousand to eighteen thousand

598
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:47,160
Speaker 1: milligrams per kilogram of body weight. That's fifteen to eighteen

599
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:51,960
Speaker 1: grams of this stuff for every kilogram of your body.

600
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 1: By comparison, salt, you know, table salt sodium chloride has

601
00:34:56,760 --> 00:34:59,839
Speaker 1: an l D fifty of three thousand milligrams per kilo

602
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 1: a body weight, So as far as acute poisoning goes,

603
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: the LD fifty of MSG is more than five times

604
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:09,399
Speaker 1: greater than that of regular table salt. You can kill

605
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,359
Speaker 1: yourself with a fifth as much salt, and at this rate.

606
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: I did a little math. I hope my math is

607
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 1: right here. If it is a one hundred and sixty

608
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:20,880
Speaker 1: pound or seventy two point five kim adult, h would

609
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:24,240
Speaker 1: have to eat at least one thousand, eighty eight grams

610
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:27,440
Speaker 1: or about two point four pounds of MSG to attain

611
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:34,399
Speaker 1: lethal toxicity. Okay, so that's a lot of accent. Yeah,

612
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:36,719
Speaker 1: that's that is a lot of av accent, certainly. I mean,

613
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:38,960
Speaker 1: how how much is in the continuity you brought in here?

614
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 1: Let's see this is two ounces or fifty six grams,

615
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 1: six grams to one thousand and eighty I mean, you'd

616
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:57,239
Speaker 1: be eating a lot of these, alright. So there's a

617
00:35:57,239 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 1: lot of back and forth. It takes place after these

618
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:02,920
Speaker 1: initial old studies. Dozens of studies come out in the

619
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 1: nineties seventies, some confirm, some contest on these findings. The

620
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 1: harshest critics accused him of fearmongering and exaggerating his findings. Uh.

621
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 1: And you also see a split overall, with some studies

622
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:19,200
Speaker 1: looking at supposed long term consequences of MSG, others looking

623
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 1: at for short term uh CRS symptoms. All over the

624
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:29,319
Speaker 1: studies were inconclusive. And uh, A strong vein, if it's

625
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:32,239
Speaker 1: not a hardie obvious of strong vein of xenophobia runs

626
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:34,880
Speaker 1: through all of this. Um and any and mostly does

627
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 1: a great job pointing this out in his article, which

628
00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 1: i'll link to on the landing page for this episode.

629
00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 1: UH says that, you know, the notion here that MSG

630
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:46,719
Speaker 1: is is so harmful doesn't really resonate as much um

631
00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:50,959
Speaker 1: in Canada, UH, and certainly not outside of Chinese restaurants

632
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: in the in the United States. And you see this

633
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:56,880
Speaker 1: tangent that runs through some of the studies, some of

634
00:36:56,880 --> 00:36:59,160
Speaker 1: the critics who are saying, well that the Chinese are

635
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 1: just miss using it, Chinese Americans, Chinese immigrants are misusing MSG. Yeah,

636
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 1: if the Campbell's company wants to put a little MSG

637
00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:11,239
Speaker 1: in the soups, I'm sure they're doing responsibly. But I mean,

638
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 1: those Chinese restaurants, they can't be trusted. Yeah, clearly they're

639
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 1: they're tricking us into loving their food so much by

640
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 1: using a reckless amount of this this this additive so

641
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:24,480
Speaker 1: I mean, which is just completely nuts. Um. You know,

642
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:28,520
Speaker 1: I forget the fact that cases of of any kind

643
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:33,160
Speaker 1: of like CRS were virtually unknown in China and Japan. Uh.

644
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:38,160
Speaker 1: No Chinese cooking was somehow excessive or bizarre. Both of

645
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:41,200
Speaker 1: those UH descriptive terms were thrown out in some of

646
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:45,400
Speaker 1: these these papers, enough to make ms G seem like

647
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:48,239
Speaker 1: a problem. Along with the idea that the MSG was

648
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 1: used in these establishments to perhaps conceal inferior food. That's

649
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 1: another labo is that, oh, well they're they're they're cooking

650
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:56,879
Speaker 1: bad food. And I think I got that mean when

651
00:37:56,880 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 1: I was a kid. These Chinese restaurants they use cheap

652
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 1: and greedy ins and people put MSG on it in

653
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:05,240
Speaker 1: order to trick you into thinking it's good. Yeah. Plus,

654
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:08,320
Speaker 1: just to give you an idea just how varied the

655
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 1: the symptoms of Chinese restaurant syndrome become. Again, they kind

656
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 1: of run the gamut of anything you might complain of

657
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:21,120
Speaker 1: after a meal at a restaurant. Um, it was, you know,

658
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 1: just depended on who was reporting the symptoms. According to

659
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 1: to Mosby is the paper, they range from you know,

660
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:31,759
Speaker 1: mild headache to depression to sexual arousal and quote an

661
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 1: irresistible urge to undress. Now that may have been a

662
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 1: misinterpretation of people unbuckling their belts after taking a large

663
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:42,879
Speaker 1: meal at a Chinese food restaurant. Yeah, if you eat

664
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:46,399
Speaker 1: an enormous plate of general sauce chicken. Once it became

665
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 1: established in the nineteen seventies as the the the American

666
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:56,120
Speaker 1: vary with the with the emphasis on American Chinese dish. Uh. Yeah,

667
00:38:56,200 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 1: you might have to undress a little bit to make

668
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 1: it home, You may sweat a little bit. You may

669
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:03,799
Speaker 1: in some cases feel a little ashamed, as I have

670
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:08,839
Speaker 1: at times for eating a dish uh so inauthentic at

671
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:13,120
Speaker 1: a restaurant that has more authentic dishes available. Uh. I'm

672
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 1: sure they don't judge, you know, they're just they're just

673
00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:19,160
Speaker 1: happy that I'm there. I'm sure, but but but but still,

674
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:22,400
Speaker 1: they're just just to drive from the fact that just

675
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: about anything you might experience after a meal was thrown

676
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: at this just sort of elusive amorphic idea of Chinese

677
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 1: restaurant syndrome. So to this day, studies continue to be

678
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 1: inconclusive regarding the the the additive health effects here. Um,

679
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:45,920
Speaker 1: there's a passionate debate on either side of the issue,

680
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 1: and that's true. I mean, food is one of those

681
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: things that gets people really animated, especially online. I just

682
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:58,400
Speaker 1: noticed people have incredibly intense opinions about food and food additives,

683
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: maybe even as much is their political opinions. Oh yeah,

684
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:05,280
Speaker 1: and it doesn't help either that, you know, the scientific

685
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:08,799
Speaker 1: studies continue to look into the the benefits, the pros

686
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:12,520
Speaker 1: and cons of everything from wine to coffee, to salt

687
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 1: to various you know, various types of calories. I mean

688
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 1: it it's hard to keep up, right, because one thing

689
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:21,319
Speaker 1: that seems there's a study that comes out and says

690
00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:23,160
Speaker 1: one thing is bad for you one year, and then

691
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:25,400
Speaker 1: you just wait a few years and it's flip flopped

692
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:28,800
Speaker 1: in another study that manages to rise to the surface

693
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,400
Speaker 1: of media attention. Yeah, and I think you know, we

694
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 1: should also headge here and say that any food substance,

695
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:40,320
Speaker 1: anything that's part of your diet, may have interesting effects,

696
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 1: good or bad, that we can find out about. Now

697
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 1: us saying that there is not a clear picture that

698
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:47,840
Speaker 1: there's anything to worry about with normal levels of intake

699
00:40:47,920 --> 00:40:51,480
Speaker 1: of MSG. Uh. That that isn't to say that you

700
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 1: can't use MSG in ways that could be harmful. We

701
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:57,279
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, maybe if you're eating huge quantities

702
00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:00,720
Speaker 1: of this stuff, or maybe future research will will discover

703
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:03,520
Speaker 1: effects we don't know about yet, but as of today

704
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:06,240
Speaker 1: that there is no special reason to be concerned about

705
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 1: moderate intake of MSG, right, I mean, maybe of a

706
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 1: racial stereotype pro wrestling manager were to throw it into

707
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:16,839
Speaker 1: your eyes, that would be harmful, but but as far

708
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 1: as anyone anyone can tell, the consensus seems to be

709
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: that a very few select individuals may react to large

710
00:41:25,200 --> 00:41:27,880
Speaker 1: quantities of MSG on an empty stomach, but otherwise it

711
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: is safe for the vast majority of people. So stop

712
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:36,320
Speaker 1: with those spoonfuls of MSG before breakfast. It's just not good. Yeah,

713
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:40,200
Speaker 1: but yeah, the major food and health organizations don't say

714
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:42,279
Speaker 1: that there's anything to worry about, right The f d

715
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:47,880
Speaker 1: A and World Health Organization too. Yeah, In FDA issued

716
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 1: a large scale review by the Federal Federation of American

717
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:56,359
Speaker 1: Societies for Experimental Biology UH and an international research review

718
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:59,840
Speaker 1: in ven by the World Health Organization and the Food

719
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:03,920
Speaker 1: and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations all ruled on

720
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 1: this as well, and they said, yeah, it's safe for

721
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:09,120
Speaker 1: the vast majority of people, which is you know, something

722
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 1: that you can say for a vast number of additives

723
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:17,319
Speaker 1: out there. People have differing reactions to certain things. But

724
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:20,759
Speaker 1: but yeah, we're not throwing out the salt because of it,

725
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:23,800
Speaker 1: and UH and and we want to drive home again

726
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:26,799
Speaker 1: to that glutamates are in other foods. There are other

727
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:30,960
Speaker 1: ways to glute up a food product that don't involve

728
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:35,560
Speaker 1: actually using monosodium glutamate. If you've seen recipes, and more

729
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:38,240
Speaker 1: of them are popping up these days as more people

730
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:41,359
Speaker 1: come to understand food science. You know that beef up

731
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:44,480
Speaker 1: a pot of soup or something like that, by adding

732
00:42:44,560 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 1: one of these glutamate rich ingredients to it. They say,

733
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:51,800
Speaker 1: you know, add anchovies or add marmite, or add soy

734
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:57,040
Speaker 1: sauce or something like that, you're adding glutamates. Yeah. So,

735
00:42:57,400 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 1: I mean it's even if every we're not putting ms

736
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:02,799
Speaker 1: you directly, and you're doing pretty much the same thing, right,

737
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 1: And there's and as far as we can tell, there's

738
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 1: nothing significantly different about about it being carried by the

739
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 1: salt crystals as opposed to you being in the food

740
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:14,280
Speaker 1: in other ways. Uh. Julia Moskin wrote an excellent article

741
00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:16,239
Speaker 1: on MSG for The New York Times back in two

742
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, and she pointed out that while the

743
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 1: USDA U s d A requires labeling for MSG, they

744
00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 1: don't for all other glutamates in your food, especially processed

745
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:30,919
Speaker 1: foods like chips um. She uh, there's a quote from

746
00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:34,840
Speaker 1: her article. She says, alternatively, there may also be included.

747
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:38,280
Speaker 1: There may also be included under certain terms like vegetable

748
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:42,360
Speaker 1: broth or chicken broth. Thus, these ingredients are now routinely

749
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 1: found in products like Cantuna vegetable broth is listed as

750
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:50,399
Speaker 1: an ingredient. It contains hydralicized soy protein, caned soup, low

751
00:43:50,440 --> 00:43:53,920
Speaker 1: fat yogurts and ice creams, chips, and virtually everything ranch

752
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:57,919
Speaker 1: flavored or cheese flavored. Thus, the richest source of your

753
00:43:57,920 --> 00:44:00,880
Speaker 1: mommy remains your local convey in its store. Grab a

754
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:05,840
Speaker 1: tube of pringles or a bologna sandwich, and glutamic acid

755
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 1: is most likely lurking there somewhere. This whole thing about

756
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:13,799
Speaker 1: the labeling of ms G it kind of makes me

757
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 1: think about the GM foods labeling issue because in both cases,

758
00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 1: so some people want there to be a law where

759
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:26,319
Speaker 1: any food that is produced by an organism that has

760
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:30,920
Speaker 1: been genetically modified in well through laboratory procedures, because of

761
00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:35,279
Speaker 1: course all crops have been genetically modified through agriculture is

762
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:39,239
Speaker 1: just a less accurate form of genetic modification. Uh So

763
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:43,200
Speaker 1: people want these foods labeled, right, so you you label

764
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:45,919
Speaker 1: them so people know what they're getting. And on one hand,

765
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:48,640
Speaker 1: I kind of can't be opposed to that because I

766
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 1: don't know I mean having giving people more information about

767
00:44:53,239 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 1: the products that they're consuming. I mean that seems like

768
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,839
Speaker 1: there's hard it's hard to disagree with that right right

769
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:04,560
Speaker 1: transparency information. The only hesitation I would have to it

770
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: is that it does tend to send a signal that

771
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:11,560
Speaker 1: there's something inherently to be worried about. With genetically modified foods,

772
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 1: it's almost as if the government is telling you, like,

773
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: this is something that's maybe dangerous and you should be concerned,

774
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:21,719
Speaker 1: when there's no indication that's the case. And the same

775
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:24,319
Speaker 1: thing is true with with MSG. I mean, I guess

776
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 1: I'm in favor of labeling just because I'm in favor

777
00:45:27,280 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: of all forms of transparency. But I do kind of

778
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 1: worry that when you make foods containing MSG have some

779
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: kind of special label, it stigmatizes it in a way

780
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 1: that you know is unfair. There are other food additives

781
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:43,160
Speaker 1: we have no indication or any safer than MSG that

782
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:46,399
Speaker 1: don't require a special label. Oh yeah, I agree. I mean,

783
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:48,480
Speaker 1: I mean certainly too, when you get into like the

784
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:53,560
Speaker 1: fear of chemicals with MSG, chemical itself becomes this bad

785
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:56,719
Speaker 1: word where we're ignoring the fact that, of course all

786
00:45:56,760 --> 00:45:59,319
Speaker 1: food is made of chemicals. We are chemical beings. We

787
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:02,960
Speaker 1: live in chemical world. Um our terms have a way

788
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:06,840
Speaker 1: of getting ahead of us, rolling out of control. Now, Robert,

789
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:11,080
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Would you ever eat a piece of

790
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:16,440
Speaker 1: chicken fowl flesh that has been saturated in a bath

791
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 1: of dihydrogen monoxide and sodium chloride. Well you put it

792
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:25,759
Speaker 1: like that? Um, Then I started asking questions. Yeah, I

793
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: mean that sounds pretty sick. But obviously what I've just

794
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 1: described as chicken that has been brined in water and

795
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 1: table salt. And you know most good chicken is brine.

796
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:37,239
Speaker 1: It helps it stay juicy when you cook it. So yeah,

797
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:40,399
Speaker 1: these we know that these chemical names bring a lot

798
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:43,120
Speaker 1: of stigma with them. Like, here's a good one. Do

799
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:46,240
Speaker 1: you know the I U P A C name for

800
00:46:46,680 --> 00:46:52,320
Speaker 1: lactose milk sugar, Uh, lactose milk sugar, just milk sugar, lactose.

801
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:58,359
Speaker 1: It's beta de galacto pyrano sill one four D glucose.

802
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 1: That sounds like something that would in effect an astronaut

803
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:03,919
Speaker 1: when they learned it on a on a doomed world. Right,

804
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:07,000
Speaker 1: it's this, It's this demonic preon that comes out of

805
00:47:07,040 --> 00:47:10,239
Speaker 1: the rocks to take over your brain. So anyway, I

806
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 1: think we should try to come up with a simple

807
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:18,960
Speaker 1: rebranding of glutamate that can allow people to consume it

808
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:22,960
Speaker 1: without this chemical stigma. Right, so you just called hydrogen

809
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 1: monoxide water. Of course, dehydrogen monoxide isn't the primary name

810
00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:29,880
Speaker 1: anybody uses. It's like a it's a hoax name that

811
00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:33,359
Speaker 1: people came up with to make a joke, but of

812
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:37,799
Speaker 1: course it does accurately describe the content of water. Yeah,

813
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 1: I think to to come up with some some some

814
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:42,960
Speaker 1: rebranding here to come up with a better, better name

815
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 1: for msg. Uh. We should we should sample some we

816
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:48,880
Speaker 1: have We have some here on the table. While you

817
00:47:48,920 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 1: were a speaking, I just cut up an avocada here,

818
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 1: so uh and I and hey, I even have some

819
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:58,520
Speaker 1: shops tips sticks here if you want to get you know,

820
00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 1: semi authentic. Well, let's cut a couple of pieces of

821
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:06,160
Speaker 1: avocado here and then put let's have a regular piece first,

822
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 1: and then put some accent. All right, I'm gonna I'm

823
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and eat the second one. Eat a

824
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:18,880
Speaker 1: normal piece and unaugmented flice here. It's good. Some buttery

825
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:22,919
Speaker 1: definitely definitely right, Avocado is always good. Now I'm going

826
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 1: to sprinkle some of our additive on there. Mm hmm.

827
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:34,720
Speaker 1: Now you know it's we didn't properly blind this test,

828
00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:36,919
Speaker 1: did We know that this is not a very scientific

829
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:41,839
Speaker 1: so we know the difference. But I I would say

830
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:44,360
Speaker 1: that I think I can naturally taste the difference. The

831
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:48,520
Speaker 1: one with the accent on it has a kind of deeper,

832
00:48:48,760 --> 00:48:53,440
Speaker 1: richer meteor flavor. Yeah, there's there's definitely a salt salt

833
00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:56,879
Speaker 1: nous to it as well, though less salty than if

834
00:48:56,880 --> 00:49:00,840
Speaker 1: I had just poured salt on it. It makes sense, Um,

835
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 1: yeah it is. I mean, I'm definitely getting a sense

836
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:06,960
Speaker 1: of the mommy and the salt as if it has

837
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:09,520
Speaker 1: almost been like almost like it's been misted with soy

838
00:49:09,600 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 1: sauce in some almost invisible way. No, I'm sure you

839
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:15,320
Speaker 1: can edit out some of these gross mouth noises. No,

840
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 1: no more more gross mouth noises. It's what we need

841
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:22,280
Speaker 1: if he can can find someone one of those websites. Okay, Robert,

842
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 1: any irresistible urges to undress or how long do we

843
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 1: have to wait irresistible urge to undress? My normal, like

844
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:33,879
Speaker 1: my base level of of of feeling like I need

845
00:49:33,920 --> 00:49:36,400
Speaker 1: to take my clothes off is it remains the same

846
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:40,640
Speaker 1: as virtually virtually not changed at all thanks to the

847
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:43,000
Speaker 1: MSG scale of one to ten. What is that base

848
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:46,160
Speaker 1: level um in the summer? I guess it tends to

849
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:51,440
Speaker 1: be like a five. You know. That's the yoga and

850
00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 1: you talking. Is there a special word for this naked yoga?

851
00:49:56,160 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 1: Naked yoga? There's like hot yoga. I don't know together.

852
00:50:00,719 --> 00:50:02,879
Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen it. You can go to naked

853
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:06,759
Speaker 1: yoga classes here in Atlanta. Um, I've never been the one,

854
00:50:06,800 --> 00:50:10,000
Speaker 1: but you can go. I mean it. Uh, you know,

855
00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:15,040
Speaker 1: issues of you know, shared nudity, nudity in a semi

856
00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:19,920
Speaker 1: public and environment aside, Like if you want to really

857
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 1: feel what your body is doing and see what your

858
00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 1: body is doing in these various posses, it makes sense, right, Okay,

859
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:30,359
Speaker 1: So rebranding of ms G. What's your word? I came

860
00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:32,360
Speaker 1: up with one, but my wife actually came up with

861
00:50:32,360 --> 00:50:34,640
Speaker 1: a better one. So the one I've tried to do

862
00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 1: was savor. Kind of makes sense. It's savory, put some

863
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:40,480
Speaker 1: savor on your food. But we can see it in

864
00:50:40,520 --> 00:50:45,800
Speaker 1: the advertisement to savor savor, my wife Rachel suggested, umami salt.

865
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:48,439
Speaker 1: I think that's perfect. That's the best one. I mean,

866
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:50,879
Speaker 1: I think to all the fancy salts you can buy

867
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:53,839
Speaker 1: these day, like the Himalayan pink salt. At our house

868
00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:56,880
Speaker 1: we have this like mushroom and fuse salt salt, so

869
00:50:57,120 --> 00:51:00,440
Speaker 1: mary salt. Yeah, so why not just marketed as mommy

870
00:51:00,520 --> 00:51:03,319
Speaker 1: infused salt? Like that sounds perfect. It sounds a little

871
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:06,840
Speaker 1: bit uh, a little bit sciency, but steeped in in

872
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:09,960
Speaker 1: culinary terms, not chemical terms. And I think that's that's

873
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 1: what a lot of it comes down to, Like the

874
00:51:11,800 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: terminology for your food. Is it are you defining it

875
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:21,520
Speaker 1: by you know, it's it's exotic aspects and and then

876
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:26,799
Speaker 1: drawing in whatever you're your opinions are regarding the the

877
00:51:26,960 --> 00:51:29,279
Speaker 1: foreign nature of the food or is it or is

878
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:32,239
Speaker 1: it based in in in human chemicals or is it

879
00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:36,719
Speaker 1: something compy and and uh and mouth shaped like o mommy. Well,

880
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:39,920
Speaker 1: food always tastes better when it's got a nickname, right,

881
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:41,560
Speaker 1: you know, you never want the name of your food

882
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:45,280
Speaker 1: to be all that descriptive, like just accurately descriptive food

883
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:49,800
Speaker 1: names or not appetizing. You don't want chicken packs with broth,

884
00:51:50,680 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 1: you know you want I don't know, uh uh uh

885
00:51:57,080 --> 00:52:00,759
Speaker 1: happy foul package like schnitzel sound is great, right, it's

886
00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:03,719
Speaker 1: fun that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but it's

887
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:06,399
Speaker 1: a fun word. Sounds better than like meat that has

888
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:10,000
Speaker 1: been beaten and fried and smothered. Right. So yeah, there's

889
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:12,600
Speaker 1: a lot there's a lot in in in the words

890
00:52:12,600 --> 00:52:14,879
Speaker 1: we choose to describe our food. And I think that

891
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:19,080
Speaker 1: the story of MSG are continuing story of MSG really

892
00:52:19,160 --> 00:52:22,440
Speaker 1: drives that home. Now. I know, in the wake of

893
00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:24,040
Speaker 1: this episode a lot of people are going to be

894
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:27,360
Speaker 1: very angry with us because we we have not accurately

895
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:30,440
Speaker 1: described how all the scientists are bought off Hills and

896
00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:34,560
Speaker 1: how it's there's some evil industry that wants to poison

897
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 1: our bodies to get us addicted to drugs that they

898
00:52:37,719 --> 00:52:40,680
Speaker 1: also sell. I don't know what is the conspiracy theory

899
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:45,360
Speaker 1: with MSG um the Illuminati created MSG in order to

900
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:51,279
Speaker 1: fake the rapture so that believers would would ignore the

901
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:53,399
Speaker 1: second coming of the Savior. You're you're getting us back

902
00:52:53,440 --> 00:52:56,960
Speaker 1: into surgery of getting my notes confused a little bit here. Well,

903
00:52:57,000 --> 00:53:00,200
Speaker 1: if you do actually want to get in contact with us,

904
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:03,480
Speaker 1: you can always do so as usual. And hey, pretty

905
00:53:03,520 --> 00:53:06,080
Speaker 1: soon we're going to be in New York we should

906
00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:08,840
Speaker 1: mention this. That's right. We're going to be at Star

907
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:12,040
Speaker 1: Trek Mission New York. Yeah, that's gonna go from September

908
00:53:12,120 --> 00:53:16,280
Speaker 1: two to four. It's going to be in New York City,

909
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:19,680
Speaker 1: and our panel is going to be on Friday afternoon.

910
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:22,279
Speaker 1: So if you're interested in seeing us, you can come

911
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:25,200
Speaker 1: check us out there. Yeah yeah, see us here us

912
00:53:25,239 --> 00:53:27,239
Speaker 1: and you know, there'll be an opportunity to chat with

913
00:53:27,320 --> 00:53:30,479
Speaker 1: us um after the presentation as well. And it's gonna

914
00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:32,200
Speaker 1: be fun. It's gonna be a little star treky, but

915
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:35,440
Speaker 1: not like so star treky that that you're going to

916
00:53:35,520 --> 00:53:37,960
Speaker 1: know all the answers already. Personally, I'm afraid that we

917
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 1: are not star trekky enough for the stark just the

918
00:53:41,160 --> 00:53:44,160
Speaker 1: right level of star trekking us. You know, it's like

919
00:53:44,920 --> 00:53:47,920
Speaker 1: people going to a dessert bar, right and we are

920
00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:50,759
Speaker 1: offering something where people look at they're like, huh, well

921
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:52,839
Speaker 1: that I didn't expect to see that in the dessert bar.

922
00:53:52,920 --> 00:53:54,839
Speaker 1: I will get that instead of putting that's the way

923
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:58,400
Speaker 1: I'm kind of looking at it. We're like the surrounded

924
00:53:58,400 --> 00:54:01,560
Speaker 1: by cookies. We're gonna be the brown ut or nut muffin. Yeah. Yeah,

925
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:06,840
Speaker 1: we're the fig the fig bar of of dessert delights

926
00:54:07,239 --> 00:54:09,960
Speaker 1: at this particular conference, and there, you know, if you're

927
00:54:09,960 --> 00:54:12,080
Speaker 1: into Star Trek, it seems like the place to be

928
00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:15,920
Speaker 1: because tons of tons of gas, tons of cool panels

929
00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:18,880
Speaker 1: and talks definitely worth checking out, all right, So Robert,

930
00:54:18,960 --> 00:54:20,680
Speaker 1: in the meantime, if they want to find us, where

931
00:54:20,680 --> 00:54:22,760
Speaker 1: can they do that? Oh, head on over to Stuff

932
00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:25,640
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com, which should have a

933
00:54:25,760 --> 00:54:29,719
Speaker 1: facelift by the time this episode comes out. Come check out,

934
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:32,600
Speaker 1: see how it's all working, let us know what's not working.

935
00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:35,960
Speaker 1: All the joys of a new website. Uh. And also

936
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:37,759
Speaker 1: you will find links out to our very social media

937
00:54:37,760 --> 00:54:42,719
Speaker 1: accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, uh, Tumbler, Instagram. We are

938
00:54:42,760 --> 00:54:45,000
Speaker 1: blow the Mind on both on all pretty much all

939
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:46,759
Speaker 1: of those. But you can also generally find us on

940
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:49,239
Speaker 1: those platforms by just searching for Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

941
00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:51,080
Speaker 1: And as always, if you want to get in touch

942
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:53,480
Speaker 1: with us directly, you can email us at blow the

943
00:54:53,520 --> 00:55:05,600
Speaker 1: Mind at how stuff Works dot com for more on

944
00:55:05,719 --> 00:55:08,200
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff

945
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 1: works dot com? Little Big Believe, I think the differ