“Second shelf, just behind the fish sauce,” Mum orders. We are making canh cải, a simple “green soup” consisting of long strands of boiled water spinach that our family will eat with rice for dinner. Eternally a novice in Mum’s kitchen, I still haven’t graduated from microwaving pizza in the early 90s – I fetch the ingredients while she manages the cooking.
The water spinach softens and bleeds green into the water, leaves curling like seahorses. Mum shakes a little salt into the broth and then a bit of pepper. I hand her the little silver tin, the one living on the second shelf of the pantry cupboard, just behind the nước mắm. Mum pops off the lid and fishes out a red plastic spoon with its handle snapped in half so that it fits neatly inside the tin. Fine white crystals pour from the tip of the spoon and dissolve into the bubbling broth. Monosodium glutamate. MSG.
In many East and South-east Asian cultures, my own included (Vietnamese), MSG is a normal part of our lives. In 1908, a Japanese chemistry professor named Kikunae Ikeda extracted glutamate from seaweed broth and upon finding its ability to impart a savoury taste, he then filed a patent to produce the substance with commercial production starting the following year.
Today, I have a little jar of the stuff on my spice rack. However, in my early 20s I became obsessed with Instagram and YouTube’s clean-eating content, which rated or excommunicated foods based on their perceived “cleanliness”. No eight-abbed, shiny-haired, detox-tea-drinking influencer put MSG in the “clean” basket. According to these social media personalities, should be avoided at all costs. During this phase, simply seeing my mother use MSG rendered me dizzy and numb, as if I actually had a case of “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”.
In many East and South-east Asian cultures, my own included (Vietnamese), MSG is a normal part of our lives.
Food historian Ian Mosby documents that “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” was . This was spurred by a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1968, where a doctor claimed to have experienced concerning symptoms after dining at Chinese restaurants. The piece sparked several other readers to write in, claiming to have experienced the same symptoms after eating Chinese food.
In 1993, the Merriam-Webster dictionary added “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” to its repertoire, defining the condition 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.
An conducted by the University of Hohenheim in Germany and cited by , has concluded that the general use of MSG as a food additive can be viewed as “harmless”. Highly esteemed chefs such as have both pointed to the lack of scientific evidence in proving whether MSG is toxic.
In Australia, New Zealand and Europe, MSG is considered to be . According to the , MSG can also occur naturally in foods such as tomato and cheese, products which do not cause mass panic in the public eye. As public health journalist Anna Maria Barry-Jester puts it, the anxiety surrounding MSG is “”.
This kind of xenophobia stings on a personal level. During my attempts at “clean eating”, I refused to join in with my family on our special bánh mì breakfasts. With a pair of chopsticks, I dissected the pork roll my father bought from Bankstown. The bread roll, spread thickly with mayo and patê was shoved to one side of the plate along with slices of hot pink pork loaf, transparent rinds of fat intact. On the “acceptable” side of the plate were a few slivers of cucumber, pickled carrot and sprigs of coriander. That’s what I allowed myself to eat. In that period of my life, I weighed 45 kilos. My hair fell out in clumps. I fainted at my own university graduation ceremony.
During my attempts at “clean eating”, I refused to join in with my family on our special bánh mì breakfasts
Last year, Vietnamese-American celebrity Jeannie Mai and Taiwanese-American celebrity Eddie Huang joined a calling on Merriam-Webster dictionary to redefine the racist term “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”. Thousands joined them, with #RedefineCRS gaining . Merriam-Webster has since of CRS: A group of symptoms held to affect susceptible persons eating food heavily seasoned with monosodium glutamate. The new definition also notes that no credible research has proven that MSG causes adverse symptoms.
With a term like “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” enshrined in popular memory for the past six decades, a target has been placed on the backs of Chinese restaurateurs and the fear has been extended to other Asian restaurants. Responding to the pressure, many Asian businesses have placed “NO MSG” signs in the windows of their venues. “Chinese restaurants with no msg” remains a popular search phrase on Google. One of my favourite ramen joints in Sydney has “MSG-free” printed on the front page of the menu and “NO MSG” written in bold on their website.
While there have been in recent years dispelling the myths around MSG, in an Australian context, we have yet to see major conversations unpacking the misconceptions surrounding the ingredient. capitalises on our collective ignorance with its latest TV commercial titled “No Secrets”. The ad begins with a young white woman arriving home. Her heeled boots knock against the wooden floorboard like a hammer calling for order in a courtroom. She finds her white husband on the couch about to bite into a burger.
The hysteria in the ad presents the complex intersection between long-standing xenophobic perceptions of MSG in the Western world and today’s diet culture of food shaming
“Did someone say MSG?” she asks, cocking her head to one side and gazing at him. The background music starts up like a soundtrack to a brightly lit studio spin session and shrill vocals cry out “MSG!” The camera zooms into the husband’s face. He stares into his burger, the horror dawning on him.
While Grill’d’s main aim is to expose KFC for using MSG and other additives in its products, it upholds the problematic perceptions of MSG. The hysteria in the ad presents the complex intersection between long-standing xenophobic perceptions of MSG in the Western world and today’s diet culture of food shaming.
When I woke up on the cold wooden floor of a university hall, I saw my parents’ amber faces. It was meant to be a proud day. Instead, my Ba and Mẹ wondered whether to call an ambulance. I was hungry to return to a life where I did not obsess over every calorie. That evening, we ate in Bankstown at our favourite phở restaurant. As we slurped noodles and crushed basil leaves over our soup, my mother teased me, “Not worried about the MSG?” Her question made me pause. If MSG was lethal, then the entire first generation of Vietnamese-Australians would be the ones fainting at milestone events. Extreme clean-eating had alienated me from my own community.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian diaspora communities have faced . In a time like this, it is crucial that Australians examine and challenge the many ways in which Asian-Australian communities are dehumanised and marginalised. Shifting the conversation surrounding MSG is one way we can do this.
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