this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2026
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Personal anecdote from cooking for years for a variety of people of varying intelligence, background, and countries:
Most people claim it gives them headaches and nausea.
They "know" this because they feel it every time they eat (american) "Chinese food"
Not a single one has ever had either symptom after eating my cooking that has a little sprinkled in.
Now, I have tried to prove a point to some by informing them (many hours after the food, and asking about how they feel) that they in fact ingested MSG without issue and had no symptoms, usually to rounds of spontaneous nausea and headaches that had apparently gone unnoticed for hours until just then.
It could be that ingesting a shit-load of greasy, oily, carbs and over-eating that caused their nausea and headaches when they gorged themselves on "Chinese" food, but no, they know it's the MSG.
So, in short, they're heavily allergic to their own thought processing.
Some people do seem to confuse cognitive dissonance with being sick, and not that their fucking pathetic understanding of the world has just been challenged.
Another personal anecdote from a non-American: My parents never buy MSG. When I did, they freaked out a little then I have to explain it's not bad other than another source of sodium we need to watch. I need to point out that all of our staple liquid seasonings are filled with added MSG: soy sauce, vinegar, patis.
Despite being Asian, this happened because my shitass country often rely on shitass recommendations from the US health department. Another example is the ban on magic sugar, which is also propaganda by US sugar manufacurers.