Pulver för smaksättning av kost-råvara

It's not surprising that the MSG-makers are so busy on their product's image, because MSG-phobia still shows no signs of subsiding. This despite the fact that every concerned public body that ever investigated it has given it a clean bill of health, including the EU, the United Nations food agencies (which in 1988 put MSG on the list of 'safest food additives'), and the British, Japanese and Australian governments.

In fact, every government across the world that has a food licensing and testing system gives MSG - 'at normal levels in the diet' - the thumbs-up. The US Food and Drug Administration has three times, in 1958, 1991 and 1998, reviewed the evidence, tested the chemical and pronounced it 'genuinely recognised as safe.

Despite the general perception that MSG is the causative agent of Chinese restaurant syndrome, studies have been inconsistent in demonstrating a specific syndrome associated with MSG.[4] A double-blind placebo-controlled crossover trial showed that large doses of MSG taken without food may cause symptoms, but the effects were not serious, persistent, or consistent.[5] Moreover, when MSG was given with food, the effects were not observed.

Instead of assigning the syndrome to one specific cause, one scientific review suggests that the Chinese restaurant syndrome is a name applied to a variety of illnesses which occur after eating, each of which may have independent causes.[6]