The Facts About MSG
MSG has a reputation problem. You may hear many tall tales out there about "Chinese restaurant syndrome" and "MSG symptom complex," but the short version is this: MSG is the sodium salt of glutamate, an amino acid your body makes on its own and that shows up in everything from parmesan to breast milk. Regulators in the US and Europe consider it safe at the amounts people actually eat. The longer version is below.
By Travis Leleu. Last updated October 23, 2026.
What is MSG?
MSG, which is short for monosodium glutamate, is found naturally in some foods, including cheese and tomatoes. People also commonly use it as a flavor enhancer, especially for Asian meals, although it's super versatile and can be used in a variety of dishes. MSG creates a meaty umami flavor in whatever foods it's added to. Umami, which means "a pleasant savory taste," is Japanese and is considered one of the five basic tastes, along with salty, sour, bitter, and sweet.
This delicious flavor enhancer is a white, crystal-like powder that resembles sugar or salt. It's derived from glutamate, or glutamic acid, an amino acid that occurs naturally in the human body and serves many important functions, including the formation of proteins. Glutamate also doubles as a neurotransmitter that helps send signals between nerve cells in the brain. It is essential for learning and memory.
That last part worries people, so it's worth a sentence of context. The glutamate you eat is mostly burned as fuel by the cells lining your gut. Very little reaches the bloodstream, and your brain makes and tightly controls its own supply. Eating glutamate doesn't flood your brain with it.
One more distinction, because it's the whole flavor story. Glutamate locked inside a protein has almost no taste. Glutamate on its own is what tastes savory. Cooking, ripening, curing, and fermenting break proteins down and set it free, which is why aged cheese, cured ham, and a long-simmered stock taste so much deeper than the raw ingredients did.
Is MSG Bad for You?
Although you may hear many tall tales out there about "Chinese restaurant syndrome" and "MSG symptom complex," MSG is not actually bad for you. In fact, the FDA categorizes MSG as "generally recognized as safe," alongside popular spices and food ingredients such as pepper, basil, salt, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, peppermint, and vanilla.
The FDA has also had independent scientists look harder. In 1995, a review by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), commissioned by the FDA, found no evidence linking MSG to serious or long-term health effects, including brain damage or Alzheimer's. What it did find was a short-lived "MSG symptom complex" in some people, reported after 3 grams or more of MSG consumed without any food.
Europe's reviewer is more cautious. The European Food Safety Authority re-evaluated glutamates in 2017, found no evidence of genotoxicity or carcinogenicity, and set a conservative acceptable daily intake of 30 mg per kilogram of body weight per day, derived from animal studies with a large safety margin built in. EFSA noted that heavy consumers of glutamate-rich foods can pass that cautious line, which says more about the size of the safety margin than about normal use being dangerous.
Since the early reports, countless studies have shown there is no link between MSG and this complex of symptoms for most people. Blinded trials are the telling ones: when people don't know whether they ate MSG, the symptoms usually don't show up, even in many people who believed they were sensitive. Some people have reported symptoms of MSG sensitivity, such as tingling, palpitations, and flushing, but this has been after 3 or more grams of MSG without any food. The typical serving of an MSG-enhanced food includes fewer than .5 grams of MSG, so it's unlikely that you'll ever consume enough to experience such a reaction.
The Problem with the Term "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome"
Kikunae Ikeda, a Japanese chemist, discovered MSG in 1908 when he was investigating the properties of several foods, including his wife's seafood soup broth. He eventually patented MSG and the rest was history. By the 1950s, MSG had made its way to the U.S. and was used in many packaged foods, such as baby food and popular snacks. The MSG sold today is made by fermentation, with bacteria converting sugars from cane, beets, or cassava into glutamic acid, much the way yeast makes beer. The glutamate that comes out is chemically identical to the glutamate in a tomato.
In 1968, a doctor published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine complaining of what he called "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome," a myriad of symptoms including heart palpitations, weakness, and pain radiating down his arms. And thus, this term was born. Soon followed an outpouring of similar complaints from people who'd consumed Chinese food, and yet, when researchers studied the effects of MSG, they found that most people, even those who claimed they had an MSG sensitivity or allergy, didn't experience any negative side effects when they weren't aware they were eating it.
In 1993, Merriam-Webster added "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" to its dictionaries, a phrase defined as "A group of symptoms (such as numbness of the neck, arms, and back with headache, dizziness, and palpitations) that is held to affect susceptible persons eating food and especially Chinese food heavily seasoned with monosodium glutamate." This definition has contributed to the stigmatization of Asian cooking for decades.
Known as the #RedefineCRS campaign, activists have been calling for Merriam-Webster to set the record straight, and in 2020 the dictionary updated the entry to identify the term as outdated and disparaging. The campaign was created by Ajinomoto, a Japanese company that is the worldwide leading producer of MSG. And it's a valid campaign, because singling out Chinese food was never really about the ingredient. MSG can be found in tons of popular fast foods, condiments, and snacks, which means the term "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" is both incorrect and misleading.
What Foods Include MSG?
MSG naturally occurs in many foods and food products, such as cheese, tomatoes, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, yeast extract, hydrolyzed yeast, soy extracts, and protein isolate. Some natural sources are remarkably concentrated. Approximate free glutamate per 100 grams:
- Kombu seaweed: about 2,240 mg, among the highest of any food
- Parmesan cheese: 1,200 to 1,680 mg
- Dried shiitake mushrooms: about 1,060 mg
- Soy sauce: 400 to 1,700 mg, depending on the brew
- Cured ham: about 340 mg
- Tomatoes: 140 to 250 mg, more as they ripen
Ketchup deserves its own line, because people ask about it constantly. Yes, ketchup has glutamate. It's made from tomatoes, and the glutamate concentrates further when tomatoes are cooked down into paste. What a typical ketchup doesn't have is added MSG: the label reads tomato concentrate, vinegar, sweetener, salt, and spices. The umami was already in the tomato.
MSG is also commonly added to delicious foods such as Chinese food, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Chick-fil-A, Pringles, Doritos, seasoning blends, frozen pizzas, canned soups, bouillon seasonings, salad dressings, ketchup, barbecue sauce, soy sauce, and processed meats like beef jerky, sausages, hot dogs, pepperoni, and lunch meats, as well as many low-sodium products. When MSG is added directly, US labels have to list it as "monosodium glutamate." Ingredients like yeast extract and hydrolyzed vegetable protein carry free glutamate naturally, which is exactly why manufacturers use them. If you're avoiding glutamate entirely, those are the names to scan for.
Three Myths That Won't Die
"MSG is an allergen." A true IgE allergy to MSG has never been established. Reported reactions are sensitivities at most, and usually only at doses far above a normal serving.
"MSG damages the brain." This one comes from 1960s experiments in which newborn mice were injected with enormous doses. Regulators reviewed that work in depth. Dietary MSG in humans doesn't reproduce it, and no link to neurodegenerative disease has been found.
"Only Chinese food has MSG." See the list above. Fried chicken chains, ranch dressing, and canned soup never got a syndrome named after them.
Questions People Ask Us
Is glutamate the same thing as MSG?
Almost. Glutamate is the flavor-active part. MSG is one convenient, shelf-stable way to deliver it, using sodium. Potassium and calcium glutamate exist too, and free glutamate shows up naturally in foods like parmesan and tomatoes.
Can you replace salt with MSG?
Partly. MSG carries about a third of salt's sodium per gram and adds savoriness, so swapping some of a recipe's salt for MSG keeps food satisfying with less sodium overall. It can't do everything salt does, so think blend, not replacement, which happens to be exactly what Super Salt is. The blend also leans on glutamate's party trick: paired with inosinate and guanylate, two compounds found in meat and mushrooms, the umami effect multiplies several times over.
How much MSG is in a typical meal?
Usually less than 0.5 grams in a seasoned serving, against the 10 to 20 grams of glutamate most people eat every day as part of ordinary protein. The studies that produced symptoms typically used 3 grams or more, taken without food.
Where to Go Next
Curious how a pinch of glutamate ends up in our own seasoning? Read the story behind Umami Super Salt on our About page. Ready to use it well? See how to cook with Super Salt. And if you'd rather taste than read, you can request a free sample.
