This must have slipped by when Google wasn’t looking!

About as rare as finding a flock of flamingos in Central Park is doing a search on Google for monosodium glutamate (a.k.a. MSG) where the top results don’t all sing the praises of MSG.

This article, found fairly high up on a Google search is headlined: “Chinese celebrity chef Ken Hom says ‘MSG is used only by lazy cooks.’

Ordinarily, a Google search for MSG will deliver pages and pages of articles that proclaim the safety and benefits of feasting on foods enhanced with MSG, sometimes authored by celebrity chefs who speak out on the glories of use of MSG. The claim that renown chefs use MSG in their cooking has long been a staple of glutamate-industry marketing. Often involved are well-known restauranteurs or celebrity chefs such as Andrew Zimmern, Grant Achatz, David Chang, Eddie Huang, Heston Blumenthal and Chris Koetke who celebrate the “wonders” of cooking with MSG.

Foodies will recognize the name of the legendary Julia Child, whose cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, is still a best-seller after 60 years. It’s well known that she would never use MSG in a recipe. Yet somehow the glutamate people got to her, and late in life she was heard on radio extolling the virtues of MSG.

More recently, Andrew Zimmern, celebrity chef & TV personality, served as Master of Ceremonies at the World Umami Forum, put on by the U.S. manufacturer of MSG. Zimmern is quoted from time to time talking about the virtues of MSG, but unless he has just started using MSG in new recipes, he doesn’t appear to cook with it.

Part of what sells MSG to consumers is the people making the presentations (a.k.a. sales pitches). The glutamate industry has capitalized on that fact, and certain celebrity chefs have seen value in testifying to the fact that MSG enhances the flavor of food while ignoring the fact MSG produced since 1957 is a toxic food additive.

Or, as chef Hom says, MSG is for “lazy cooks.”


If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. If you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, and we’ll put them up on Facebook. Or you can reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @truthlabeling.

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