MSG is harmful to health

What we know

Monosodium glutamate is the sodium salt of glutamic acid, a naturally occurring amino acid present in many everyday foods including tomatoes, cheese, mushrooms, and seaweed, as well as in the free glutamate naturally present in human breast milk. The human body cannot distinguish between glutamate that occurs naturally in food and glutamate added as MSG, since both are metabolized identically once ingested. The FDA classifies MSG as "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS), the same regulatory category applied to salt, sugar, and baking powder, following extensive review of the toxicological literature.

The belief that MSG causes adverse symptoms, historically labeled "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome," originated from a single letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1968 by a physician describing personal symptoms he experienced after eating at Chinese restaurants, speculating that MSG might be the cause without any controlled testing. This anecdotal letter, combined with pre-existing racial stereotyping directed at Chinese cuisine and immigrant-owned restaurants in the United States, generated widespread public concern that outpaced the actual scientific evidence for decades. Food historians and public health researchers have specifically documented the racialized dimension of how this myth spread and persisted, noting that MSG use in Japanese, Italian, and other cuisines rarely attracted comparable scrutiny despite equivalent or higher glutamate content in some dishes.

Subsequent double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials designed specifically to test whether MSG causes the reported symptoms, including headache, flushing, and chest tightness, have consistently failed to demonstrate a reliable, reproducible link between MSG ingestion and these symptoms when subjects do not know whether they have received MSG or a placebo. A comprehensive safety review conducted for the FDA by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) in 1995 found that while a small subset of individuals may experience short-term, mild, and self-limiting reactions to very large doses of MSG consumed without food, no evidence supported a causal relationship between typical dietary MSG intake and any serious or chronic health condition.

The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) has established an acceptable daily intake for glutamate that is generous relative to typical consumption patterns, and the European Food Safety Authority's 2017 comprehensive re-evaluation of glutamates as food additives similarly concluded that current exposure levels do not raise safety concerns for the general population, while recommending some exposure monitoring for high-consumption subgroups. Multiple national dietetic and medical associations have since publicly worked to correct the Chinese Restaurant Syndrome framing, describing it as an outdated and largely unsubstantiated concept rather than a recognized medical condition. In recent years, some manufacturers and restaurants have begun reversing decades of stigma by openly advertising MSG use as a flavor-enhancing ingredient, a shift food writers and nutrition scientists have described as part of a broader public reassessment of the additive's reputation. This shift has been supported by chefs and food scientists highlighting glutamate's role in producing umami, the fifth basic taste alongside sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, and by renewed public communication from health authorities aimed at correcting decades of unsubstantiated fear.

Common claims

• MSG causes headaches and 'Chinese Restaurant Syndrome'Not supported in controlled double-blind trials
• MSG is a dangerous synthetic chemicalFalse, MSG is the sodium salt of glutamate, an amino acid naturally present in many common foods
• The FDA considers MSG unsafeFalse, FDA classifies MSG as generally recognized as safe (GRAS)

Evidence hierarchy

All sources

• Questions and Answers on Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)US Food and Drug Administration · 2023
• Re-evaluation of glutamic acid and glutamates as food additivesEuropean Food Safety Authority · 2017
• Chinese Restaurant Syndrome: A Racist MythNPR Code Switch · 2016
• Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives evaluationsWHO/FAO JECFA · 2023

Related terms