MSG induced obesity?

**pokeroo** · Posted On: 1/06/2013 8:39pm

So I watched a documentary, honestly a pretty bad documentary about nutrition and diets, here is a clip:

Yeah, sorry to expose you to that. Anyway, it turns out that according to google the part about mice being induced into being obese via msg is true, but I'm not sure about the repercussions fore people. MSG is in a lot of processed foods, and glutamates occur naturally in the human body. I was wondering what the experts opinions are on this, and if there is something the movie is hiding, such as if it only works if they inject the mice and not feed it to them, or if maybe the feed the mice what would be the equivalent to a kg a day for a human. Because so far my favorite way to prepare pork tenderloin is to cover it in seasoning salts containing MSG, and baste it in bacon fat and red wine, and serve it with collard greens.

**thrutch** · Posted On: 1/06/2013 11:49pm

Originally Posted by pokeroo

my favorite way to prepare pork tenderloin is to cover it in seasoning salts containing MSG

and are you obese?

**pokeroo** · Posted On: 1/07/2013 12:24am

Originally Posted by thrutch

and are you obese?

My BMI is 28.5, overweight, although the BMI isn't so helpful for those who are taller than average (6 feet, 210 lbs). I have probably more fat than I should but it doesn't show a lot on my frame, but as I get older I think more and more about getting really slim. Anyway, was just wondering what the expert opinion on this forum is as I know there are about 4 or 5 contributors who are scientists in this forum (and why), and I was wondering if MSG is something that I should be really avoiding.

I had been previously under the belief that all the anti-MSG stuff was just hysteria, that MSG could produce short term side-effects in some but no valid scientific long term effects.

I have decided that its probably best to try and cut out aspartame because it might have bad effects on the liver and brain (although that is still a contended issue that the jury is still out on), and am now thinking that maybe I should apply the same principle to MSG.

**thrutch** · Posted On: 1/07/2013 5:45am

You can generally take food scares (and 99% of science scare stories) with a pinch of salt. Or Gourmet.

As you rightly said, we produce our own glutamate. It's also found in pretty much any food with a savoury taste:

Free glutamate content of foods (mg per 100g)
roquefort cheese 1280
parmesan cheese 1200
soy sauce 1090
walnuts 658
fresh tomato juice 260
grape juice 258
peas 200
mushrooms 180
broccoli 176
tomatoes 140
mushrooms 140
oysters 137
corn 130
potatoes 102
chicken 44
mackerel 36
beef 33
eggs 23
human milk 22

Given the fact that nobody's telling us to stop drinking tomato juice or grape juice, you can probably stop worrying about how you season your pork.

**EmetShamash** · Posted On: 1/07/2013 11:38am

MSG may be a very different form of glutamate than what occurs naturally, but it has been my understanding that there have been a **** ton of studies saying how safe it is since there was so much hysteria about it. I believe the same is true of aspartame since there was so much hysteria, people started testing it hysterically and found it to be super safe.