Clip: MSG - from a symbol of culture and civilisation to "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" (ep 4)

What is Good Food?

"In Taiwan, MSG has been widely used as a flavour enhancing food additives and in the 1980s and 1990s, nutritional scientists appealed to the public to reduce their consumption of MGS and claimed it caused cancers and allergies and all these diseases - the most famous ones was Chinese Restaurant Syndrome. And this came from a letter published in a medical journal in 1968 from the sender who claimed he felt strange every time he ate at a Chinese restaurant, symptoms such as numbness in the back or the neck, general weakness and so on...and after that there were several reports of serious reactions to Chinese food across the United States and more and more people saw MSG as the cause of their symptoms. But it was exactly the opposite in the 1920s, MSG was considered a more advanced way of cooking. It was a symbol of culture and civilisation"