The stats about MSG listed in the picture below are nothing short of alarming.
It hadn’t occurred to me to include this information about MSG before, thinking by now it was clear to everyone they should stay away from MSG (no, not Madison Square Garden: I wish; monosodium glutamate) with a vengeance, until my son in law Meir recently reported mysterious and repeated blinding headaches. Concerned, we recommended complete tests, and, just to be thorough, asked him what changes might have taken place in his diet. Oh, not much he said… except maybe some big bowls of soups served at catered affairs (in catering halls where he works as photographer) he started eating daily and was happy to find, since his late working hours so often mean eating on the fly and settling for institutional fare. Well that did it. We urged him to stop eating them altogether, and needless to say, the headaches disappeared after a couple weeks, and thank G-d never came back. Interesting information: in case you started getting headaches, rule out the MSG first: It may well be the culprit, I simply cannot get anywhere near it. Same goes for frequent Chinese Restaurant goers: an alarming number of reckless Chinese Restaurant Chefs add MSG to just about all their dishes, ostensibly to add some Ta’am (a quest that would never ever come up if they were cooking with good fresh stuff, which of course has no end of flavor), no doubt to mask their inferior flavors and quality. So, I beg you: think long and hard before you add those nefarious commercial bouillon cubes, powders, the stuff euphemistically called stock, broth or consommé, which so many cookbooks list with so much abandon, and which, forgive me, make my skin crawl! How good can they be if they rely on MSG as flavor enhancers? Think before you snap open one of those instant heavily processed powdered just-add-water soups. Besides, how will MSG “cooking” ever beat cooking with the real thing?