Can you be allergic to MSG?

By and large, reactions to MSG are sensitivity reactions to a toxin, not allergic responses.  That’s probably why the Glutes suggest seeing an allergist if you think you’re having a problem with MSG because allergists have no tests for sensitivities.  The only test for MSG (or any other sensitivity) is a challenge — ingesting the substance and waiting to see what happens.  So, most allergists will tell you that you’re not allergic to MSG, which would be true.

We’ve had reports from a handful of people who said they tested positive for an MSG-allergy but it’s not common.

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.

Recognizing or diagnosing MSG adverse reactions

Identifying MSG sensitivity is extremely difficult.

The strangle-hold that chemical, food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, fertilizer, and pesticide industries have on the lives of Americans are nowhere better illustrated than in the glutamate industry’s ability to guarantee that MSG be hidden in food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, dietary supplements and fertilizer/pesticide products.

These industrial giants have promoted the fiction that the pollutants and carcinogens poured into our food, drugs, cosmetics, fertilizers, and pesticides are not pollutants and carcinogens. They, through their wealth and positions of power, are ultimately responsible for medical school curricula that minimize the extent of the toxic effects of numerous pollutants and carcinogens – and are ultimately responsible for physicians’ failure to look to these pollutants and carcinogens as a basis for much of the disease that currently plagues us. It is they who make generous contributions to universities and medical schools that carry out their research designs. It is they who send friendly scientists on junkets around the world. It is they who are directly responsible for the refusal of the United States government to regulate the use of processed free glutamic acid (MSG) in food.

There is no straightforward way to identify MSG in food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, or dietary supplements. A consumer may have an MSG-induced adverse reaction, but since MSG in food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and dietary supplements is not identified as such on the label of the product, the consumer may not realize that (s)he has come into contact with MSG.

Making matters worse, the glutamate industry (the glutes) have sold the medical community on the fiction that reactions to MSG are allergic reactions–which is not true. The glutes urge physicians to give allergy tests to people who might be MSG-sensitive, knowing full well that the MSG adverse reaction is a reaction to a toxin, not a reaction to an allergenic substance, and, as such, is not IgE mediated. Traditional allergy tests only identify reactions that are IgE mediated.

The only way to determine if a person is sensitive to MSG is to feed MSG to that person and observe him or her for as long as 48 hours after feeding; or to have the person keep a record of food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and dietary supplement use and any MSG reactions.

Learning to pinpoint MSG as a reaction trigger, recognizing reactions that might be MSG-induced adverse reactions, and understanding where MSG is hidden in food, are essential to recognizing or diagnosing MSG-induced adverse reactions.

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.