I grew up in Hawaii and two things were ubiquitous in every local kitchen: a rice cooker on the counter and a jar of 'Aji-ni-moto' to season everything.

I live in the SF Bay Area with hundreds of decent to good regional-specific Chinese restaurants, and hundreds of crap Chinese restaurants as well.

People tend to get overworked about MSG. I don't prejudge a restaurant if they put "NO MSG" on their menu/sign or if they don't. Personally I prefer if the restaurant doesn't use MSG or uses minimal amounts. MSG is just an easy method for the cook in the kitchen to produce umami flavors. But depending on the dish, I won't eschew it either.

Many people who complain about MSG often proceed to dump lots of soy sauce (natural glutamates) all over their food. Some people also dump tons of tabasco or sriracha hot sauce all over their food Doesn't matter what you eat if all you taste is soy sauce-sodium or hot sauce.

Just took a closer look at Maggi sauce to see what it contains. MSG is a major ingredient which may explain why it, a German/Swiss product is so popular with east Asians. I guess those who don't like fish sauce...

Lovage is agood substitute for the bouquet.

Pho without msg taste good.

agreed !

MSG has one-third the sodium of salt and is a flavor enhancer. Despite the fears about MSG years ago there seems to be no credible scientific evidence that it is harmful and is quite common in processed food. MSG is not banned by the FDA, Health Canada, Food Standards Australia/New Zealand or the EU and the culinary world seems to be revising its attitudes toward it.

Instead of cooking blander, low-sodium food is anyone using MSG to improve food taste while staying under 1,500 mgs. of sodium per day?

Given the widespread use of MSG in processed foods and the lack of complaints one wonders if there are other motives behind the accusations behind MSG-induced "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome." Any time I've felt sick after eating in a Chinese restaurant it was the result of too much baijiu.

It doesn't seem to bother me although I only consume it on rare occasions that I know of. But I had a neighbor who would request all his Chinese food to be MSG free. He claimed it gave him headaches. He described it as a sensitivity.

I wouldn't be surprised if many of these symptoms are caused by the 5000 mg of sodium some people are eating during a gluttonous Chinese meal, and would occur with or without the MSG.

I think MSG is just an earlier version of "gluten intolerant" Most people aren't affected by either - and I just think of it as another version of "being fussy".

MSG is in everything from cheese to tomatoes. Growing up I'd see my mom and grandma add about half a teaspoon of it to a family-size dish, and I think that's all you really need for it to work its magic. Enjoy!

Does he do the same in a Japanese restaurant? MSG was discovered in Japan and "ajinomoto" is a common ingredient in their food too.

I have acquired some MSG which was a bit hard to find in my part of Canada. I'm going to start cooking with it as a salt replacement and see what happens.

Accent Flavor Enhancer is widely available on the internet, Amazon, WalMart, etc. It is primarily MSG with a few other ingredients. It's pretty much all my Grandmother used and she was one of the best cooks in the world