In August 1968, a rather innocuous letter to the editor was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
ÅDr Ho Man Kwok had written in speculating on the reason he felt so ghastly after eating at a Chinese restaurant. Was it the soy sauce, or the cooking wine? Or perhaps, he offered up, it was the monosodium glutamate seasoning - MSG? The prominent symptoms, as he described them, were numbness at the back of his neck, general weakness and heart palpitations.
Surely Dr Kwok hadn’t just overeaten, or sampled a few too many beverages during the evening. There must be another explanation and something else to blame. The New England Journal, who clearly did a lot of background checking, thorough research and fact finding *ahem* decided to run with this madness and the term “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” was coined.
And so, the flurry of MSG bad-mouthing and hysteria took off.
Now, more than five decades later surveys suggest that a whopping 43% of Americans believe that MSG is bad for you. And we wouldn’t be surprised if Australia fell in line with this statistic. The “syndrome” has exploded to encompass symptoms far beyond Dr Kwok’s initial complaint. People report muscle tightening, burning sensations, and almost fainting. And, most notably, an irresistible urge to take off all your clothes.
We can certainly blame MSG for that...
But is this all bollocks? Are there any real studies from the whole of science that prove or disprove these theories? After a few sprinkles of MSG in their beer, Will takes Rod on a journey through racism, hysteria and deliciousness all in the name of acquitting MSG in the court of public opinion.
LINKS:
Previous Episodes Mentioned:
Jennifer LeMesurier’s Poroi (An Interdisciplinary Journal of Rhetorical Analysis and Invention) article: Uptaking Race: Genre, MSG, and Chinese Dinner
Ian Mosby’s: ‘That Won-Ton Soup Headache’: The Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, MSG and the Making of American Food, 1968–1980
Michael Blanding’s article in Colgate Magazine: The Strange Case of Dr Ho Man Kwok
Richard D Lyons article in the New York Times: ‘Chinese Restaurant Syndrome’ Puzzles Doctors. May 19 1968
Herbert Schaumburg and Robert Byck’s article in Science: Monosodium L-Glutamate: Its Pharmacology and Role in the Chinese Restaurant Syndrome
This American Life’s The Long Fuse
The Washington Post’s: Beware of musher's knee and hooker's elbow
Umami Information Center: Kikunae Ikeda
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Rod 00:00
So you're probably asking, and I asked myself to how bad is MSG? I'm not going to tell you. But Will just told me and I'll just tell you this. It involves racism to many pranks, or maybe none. And terrible, terrible science hit play.
Will 00:18
In an interview published eighth of October 1972
Rod 00:21
Oh another one. But you tell me in case it's different. I doubt it.
Will 00:25
Lauren green, the star of Bonanza, Battlestar Galactica, Bonanza,
Rod 00:30
Battlestar Galactica is even better. He was the original colour commander Adama. Okay, Lauren, freakin green. Love you, man.
Will 00:36
Both of these before my time, sadly, he tried to set the record straight about a recent hospitalisation he'd had. So he said, This is for the New York Times. I'd had a light breakfast that day, and practically nothing for lunch. And my wife and I went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. And the food was D goddamn delicious? Yes. They wrote that in the New York Times, which is described in the 70s Do you got devilish I'm surprised they weren't cared for shrimp, beef fried and sizzled and like an idiot. I put some more soy sauce on the rice and that stuff. That stuff is filled with monosodium glutamate. I kept talking and eating and talking and eating. And suddenly I felt my stomach saying action stations. And I knew I was in for a seizure of something. So that's how Adama would talk. Lauren green fainted as he was leaving the restaurant and was placed in the hospital for observation for the next four days. And when he got out, he blamed it. He blamed it on something that was very well accepted. At the time. It was something that everyone said Ah, okay, I get it. You had that thing and that's why it happened.
Rod 01:43
man's disease No. Chinese tumtum
Will 01:46
Chinese restaurant syndrome Welcome to The Wholesome show.
Rod 02:09
Tasting of all the flavours from the whole of science. Well done you There you go. That was a little gross. You gave me a little gross right? It's still a little one for sure. That means next time.
Will 02:22
Boom the double down. The Wholesome Show is me Will Grant
Rod 02:26
And me Roderick Gryphon. I bloody love Chinese restaurants and never had a syndrome
Will 02:30
never had a syndrome Lambert's. Well, as you can guess, because MSG doesn't hurt you. As you can guess this. This started with a sort of deep cultural bedrock. And then a chemistry professor came along and had some ideas about changing the world. And he kind of did, but it really kicked off with a letter to the editor
Rod 02:54
Dear Sir, I wish to complain about Chinese restaurants. Not far I have the wrong colour. And there are too many of them
Will 03:00
not far off at all. So this is a letter to the editor on the fourth of April 1968, the August pages of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Rod 03:10
Oh, yeah. Not a newspaper
Will 03:12
not a newspaper, but they had letters.
Rod 03:13
That's one of those known journals of augustinus. As you say,
Will 03:18
if you're talking medical journals, I am it is amongst the best ones.
Rod 03:22
I think it's in the top two of both of them.
Will 03:26
Of the two medical journals. I can name.
Rod 03:28
There's The Lancet. Yep. And the NEJM, New England Journal of Medicine, the NJEM it's a good one.
Will 03:35
It's a good one. They have done a whole bunch of really good stuff.
Rod 03:37
I do nine tenths of my medical research out of the journal
Will 03:40
"to the editor" Robert Ho Man Kwok MD Is this the editor? No, no, this is this is the person writing the letter. This is how he started, he said to the editor, Senior Research investigator, the National Biomedical Research Foundation wrote, For several years, since I've been in this country, I've experienced a strange syndrome whenever I've eaten out at a Chinese restaurant. The syndrome, which usually begins 15 to 20 minutes after I've eaten the first dish lasts for about two hours without any hangover effect, the most prominent symptoms, numbness at the back of the neck, gradually radiating down the arms and the back general weakness and palpitation. So he's just feels a bit weak and he's sweating, I'm sure 30 Guede, the symptoms, simulate those I've had from hypersensitivity to a suit of Salic acid, but a milder
Rod 04:31
That's aspirin to you and me kids.
Will 04:34
I had not heard of this syndrome until I receive complaints of the same symptoms from some Chinese friends of mine, both medical and not again.
Rod 04:40
So this is non-racist because everyone can get it from a Chinese restaurant. Okay, well, that's good. That's good. He's made it for everyone.
Will 04:45
So happily, the editors swooped in. I don't know I don't know if you know this, but when you write a letter to the editor, you don't normally get a title. He just said like Lord writer it to the editor. Here's this thing I'm wondering about, but they swooped in and said, well, obviously this is Chinese Restaurant Syndrome. The name is stuck pretty hard. Dr. Kwok speculated on what might be causing this sweating this general weakness that he was experiencing the numbness radiating down his arms. Could it be the soy sauce? No, we use the same stuff at home. So can't be that. How much could it be the cooking wine? He left that one open? He didn't he didn't give any evidence there
Rod 05:24
are any medic. Could it be the cooking wine?
Will 05:26
Or the monosodium glutamate a seasoning that's used to a great extent in this North Chinese food that we're experiencing that. And with that, Dr. Kwok's in a sense letter sparked a decade's long panic. Oh, I'll tell you a little bit about how that all happened. So just a note on sources as we go through this.
Rod 05:49
Do they MSG in them? Wrong sources. And I'm sorry,
Will 05:52
my god or sources joke. So a lot of this there's a lot of great articles on this topic. This one comes in particular, a lot of this come in particular from Jennifer LeMesurier’s Poroi article : Uptaking Race: Genre, MSG and the Chinese dinner
Rod 06:08
Uptaking race? That's the beginning taking rice. I don't even know what that means.
Will 06:12
In 1907. He doesn't believe me Kikunae Ikeda he was professor of chemistry at the Tokyo Imperial University.
Rod 06:19
Ah, see, that's already a problem
Will 06:21
Hmm might be. One evening he was sitting down to dinner with his family, when suddenly he stopped the dinner. It seems to have been what's called Kenchinjiru, which is vegetables and tofu and broth continued. Very, very Japanese dinner was always delicious. Always. Always but today, today it was extra good. He stopped and he stirred looked at this dish of Kenchinjiru. Wife. He said wife Yeah, you take Taser name. Take a cada why is this delicious? What have you done differently. She went to the cupboard and brought out some strips of dried seaweed that she kept in store. It was kombu kelp, seaweed kelp. She said you soak it in the hot water. And you get the essence of dashi the stock base that that Professor Ikeda was loving, just there. It was just a tiny bit of backstory on Professor Ikeda. For the previous few years, he'd been chemistry professor at Tokyo Imperial university, but he'd done a bunch of research tours around the world. He'd spent a few years in Germany, and a few years in the United Kingdom. In Germany in particular, there was a couple of things that really surprised him. First was the pretty liberal idea that you could use science to change people's lives, make their lives a bit better.
Rod 07:41
That was a liberal idea.
Will 07:42
It was not an idea.
Rod 07:44
What do you mean, you can use it.
Will 07:45
It's not an idea that he had before. So to Germans
Rod 07:49
with you use things you've learned for people.
Will 07:52
The other thing, and this is great, because I found some photos of him at the time. When he was doing his research trip in Germany.
Rod 07:59
did he grow big cars reveal him kind of moustache?
Will 08:01
I know he's got to be
Rod 08:02
a Japanese.
Will 08:04
He does have a moustache. He does have a moustache later on. And actually, maybe his early photo does have a lucky to find that one. But he was astounded at the size of the German people. He's like, Wow, you guys big. Guys are big people
Rod 08:21
And I need a letter to look you in the eye.
Will 08:24
This photo here and he's standing and his German professor is sitting and he's talking. Not quite. But he was he was quite shocked. He was quite shocked at the size. And he says we must send Why are you so big that you go? He said Why? Why? And well, he did wonder if it was some sort of nutritional difference. He's looking around and he's thinking, Okay, you guys are eating fairly different food from me. And he tried. I'm sorry when we were in the 70s So no, no, no, no, no. 1907 was oh, was when he had dinner. So in like 1904 1905 He had spent his time in Germany. And he tried a bunch of food. They tried tomatoes, asparagus, cheese for the first time, and schnitzel and sausage and in all of these he's starting to notice a flavour he's thinking what is this flavour? It's it's kind of nice kind of delicious. And he went on a bit of a quest to find this flavour to the
Rod 09:13
Did the question involve talking to the chef and going what's similar? Possibly, I mean, well, he did. Okay, he talked to his wife. I've just been to Germany. They're all these amazing flowers and jelly and asked my wife what was going on? You cook me some German from Elena and back in Japan. Can you tell me what was going on in Germany, where I just was
Will 09:31
so in both the tomatoes and the asparagus and the cheese that he had sampled in Germany but also the broth, the broth that his wife had just made in Japan. He's like that there is something there. It is not one of the four well known tastes. It is not sweet. It is not bitter. It is not sour. It's not salty. That's right, I was testing you? It's something else it's something else. It's a pleasant savoury. taste or just purely deliciousness,
Rod 10:04
so they should have a name for that
Will 10:05
he decided to have a quest for this. He called it umami. Yeah, you did. Fantastic word Japanese word meaning roughly pleasant savoury taste or just deliciousness. It's usually translated just as deliciousness because
Rod 10:18
now they have a word for that wishy washy.
Will 10:20
delicious, okay, by isolating umami, I key to hope that he might be able to help and this goes back to his idea about improving the lives of people through chemistry, science. Well, he thought he thought we could we could get better nutritional standards. We could maybe eat better we can eat more we can eat more healthy foods or we can eat healthy foods that taste nice. That was that was part of his question.
Rod 10:41
Becuase Japanese are renowned for eating absolute garbage all the time, particularly before America tainted them.
Will 10:45
It is very weird that he is criticising Japanese food culture is a very good food called
Rod 10:50
what the problem with our food is it's all full of unhealthiness it's the vegetables No no, no, it must be the really lean it must be the lack of cooking I don't quite understood to be the small portions
Will 11:01
look, they were in a different world back then. Were not alright, so firstly, food often they wanted more like I don't know, he wanted he wanted he wanted Japan to Japan's rural population to be healthier. And so he thought a pathway here might be
Rod 11:11
it was thrown at him Ross that's probably no good could have been what do you eat carbs? Well,
Will 11:16
it's raw rice with umami. So he sat down with the combo and chemistry professors he was he thought how can I how can I isolate what's going on here get the chemical composition and
Rod 11:27
analyse it's the equivalent of putting it
Will 11:29
into the computer. Yeah, exactly. Exactly help. It has done
Rod 11:32
his error analysis. Ingredients.
Will 11:36
Well he did he did chemistry analysis. Oh, which is fancy I assume involved chopping it up fine. Maybe some boiling it looking maybe some good looking at
Rod 11:47
definitely got to moisten is a microscope that moisture.
Will 11:50
Probably my microscope is what other chemistry things and within a year, he had isolated brown crystals of glutamic acid or glutamate a year, one year,
Rod 11:59
what else did he do? Nothing.
Will 12:00
Well, within one one more year, he had experimented with ways to stabilise it into a crystal form. So he tried like calcium, glutamate, potassium, glutamate, ammonium glutamate, magnesium glutamate, and then he landed
Rod 12:13
don't tell me Ultra sodium glutamate and he was so close. So close. So he tried multi sodium glutamate. Then he tried duo sodium glutamate.
Will 12:21
So the key thing the glutamate is, is the tasty thing that is the chemical that is contributing to Emami mono sodium and or the calcium version of the potassium. That's just a way to turn it into a crystal so that you can put it on the shelf. Like he's like these these brown crystals that I've got, they're cool, but they're not going to last on your shelf or in your pantry or anything like that. We're going to stabilise it. Yes. And so within two years, so there's he's stirring the dinner. And he's like, I wonder if I can get the essence of deliciousness out of that within two years. He's not only got it out, he's formed a company and it's on the market
Rod 12:54
Fuck yeah, okay, now I say within a mere two years now I'm impressed with it
Will 12:58
Within a mere two years. So he'd made monosodium glutamate, which he found was the most soluble so it dissolves in the water and the most palatable and and the easiest to make. So he's like,
Rod 13:09
simple as well, and it's the most stable and lasting.
Will 13:11
Yeah, you can put it on the shelf, and it's essence of deliciousness that he had made within just one so
Rod 13:16
Post nuclear war, cockroaches and MSG. What, that's what will last
Will 13:21
So he patented then he got a brand name and with the Suzuki brothers had gone into commercial production
Rod 13:26
THE Suzuki brothers?
Will 13:28
I don't know if there might have been some others but there are three other Suzuki's using the brand name Ajinomoto which means essence of tastes so does what it says on the tin it does. I mean that's it's a good name. So So what does MSG do? It doesn't have much of a taste on its own and here's Ajinomoto here. It just looks like it's it looks roughly like salt.
Rod 13:52
Stern and Panda salt shaker
Will 13:54
your standard pandas salt shaker the crystals are a little bit longer you can sprinkle some out and a bit
Rod 13:59
of fuel and I don't want to die What if What if I get a syndrome
Will 14:02
I'll just put it here and threatened you?
Rod 14:04
What am I get syndrome? ah tissue ah tissue I'm gonna taste it doesn't
Will 14:11
it doesn't have much of a taste as it is.
Rod 14:14
Yes, it does.
Will 14:16
What would you describe the taste test?
Rod 14:17
Umami
Will 14:18
okay, okay,
Rod 14:19
MSG. MSG is no there's definitely a flavour like I've got a thing in my mouth and like that's that's a flavour
Will 14:25
what is more doing is activating other flavours yes
Rod 14:27
there is I've added to our to make the beer taste better. Isn't I'm down. Yes. Can't believe we have a drink beer without it. You gonna cry now. It's so good.
Will 14:38
It did add a certain something I don't know if I worried about the syndrome. Not much of a flavour of Sonic but what it does do is it enhances savoury taste active compounds. So it's a catalyst? It's a catalyst, roughly a taste catalyst. Okay. And there's there's certainly optimum amounts you know, there's there's food researchers that look at in clear soup. The pleasure score falls rapidly With the addition of more than one gramme of MSG per 100 mils so there's there's an amount that is good. And then there's an amount that too much
Rod 15:07
the pleasure school plays at school. Can we talk about them for? What do you write this?
Will 15:12
I have no more information.
Rod 15:13
Is it a scale of how far the eyes are rolling back? Rather than numbers? You've just got emoji with the eyes rolling further and farther back,
Will 15:20
there is 100% of story, I will tell you in a bit about a pleasure school.
Rod 15:24
Oh my god, I'm so happy right now. That alone has given me pleasure. I'm gonna go nine iros on the pleasure score. I can still close that. But it's not terrible. But it's profound
Will 15:34
that you can certainly buy in big packets, that bottle, but there's a version that is really popular called Super salt, which is like nine parts salt to one pot. MSG. Okay. So it just it just makes salt, like sort of a chicken salt. It's basically that. That's what I thought back to Dr Ho Man Kwok’s letter. Yes. So this is in the New England Journal of Medicine. He finished the letter by saying, I'm interested in this syndrome. It's happening to me. I've heard my friends have got it. But because we lack personnel for doing research in this area, he wasn't a research institution, but they didn't have this kind of facility. I wonder if my friends in the medical field might be interested in seeking more information about this peculiar syndrome. I shall of course be happy to cooperate
Rod 16:17
syndromes a big call.
Will 16:18
And so Jennifer LeMesurier. So she published this 2017 She read this original letter from Dr. Kwok and thought, Ah, I wonder if he got any replies in the New England Journal.
Rod 16:27
What happened to Kwok?
Will 16:29
Did he get people responding? Did he get people helping out with the research? Or yeah, he got some replies.
Rod 16:36
That's not helping.
Will 16:37
Not Not Not quite what you think?
Rod 16:39
Dear Sir I have a comment?
Will 16:41
Well, here's a couple. So first, William C. Porter, MD, everyone in this journal Science at MD because that's also listen to who basically calls bullshit. He's like, the original author is certainly Dr. Human Croc. All straight to it. Yeah, it's got straight to it. So
Rod 16:58
fuck you non white guy. I'm gonna mess with your name. Sweet. Robert Homan Kwok what? And published in the New England Journal. Yes, yes. Not only is it terrible, yes. Put that in. Because we need clickbait.
Will 17:12
So, yes, certainly Dr. Human Croc. He demanded that the New England Journal reveal the original author of the imaginary home and Kwok as some of your less Crocky readers would like to congratulate him along with yourself as the perpetrators of such pertinent good humour. So he's saying basically it's bullshit. It's a made up name no one could possibly have this name and be a doctor but hilarious.
Rod 17:34
Well done you punks.
Will 17:35
The kind of weird thing is fuck man kind of weird thing is he wrote in to say I got the joke. Please look at look at how well listen, this is this. I'm an MD who gets jokes. No, but if this was actually a joke, and I'll come to that and you have a chuckle and you go all right on the show.
Rod 17:52
I was the first person so I got the joke. There conferences fascinating.
Will 17:56
Also obviously very racist because there is nothing in there's nothing in Dr. Cox letter that is really saying this is this is a joke. There's clearly some letters as we'll come to in a bit. Very jokey. Nothing that really seems seems a little racist.
Rod 18:11
No, no, it doesn't seem or a little. Okay. So first is and a lot.
Will 18:17
So another letter. So this is from Herbert Schoenberg, MD, and Robert big MD. They decide to dial it up so they're not then they're not the problem
Rod 18:27
with this letter to the editor is it wasn't racist enough.
Will 18:30
Well, no, no, not quite.They're not being racist,
Rod 18:33
Do you want me to try?
Will 18:34
Oh, I don't I really, I really don't
Rod 18:37
emulate Dr. Schoenberg, MD. And the other bug there is carry on
Will 18:41
Yeah, just suppress the mounting hysteria and prevent the wholesale slaughter of Chinese restaurant owners. We feel impelled to present a preliminary communication on the aetiology, psychopathology and clinical pharmacology of the variously misnamed post sino Chiba syndrome. So they've gone they've gone Chinese restaurant syndrome, and they've they've Latinised you need to, this is what they're doing. They're silencing it by adding in shitty, big words,
Rod 19:08
Wholesale slaughter of Chinese restaurant tours.
Will 19:11
Don't worry about that.
Rod 19:12
I think there's a syndrome. Let's kill everyone
Will 19:15
as you might be able to guess. Yeah, these guys are going satirical. They're like, Oh, yeah, someone's having a joke or whatever it is. I'm just going to dial in with the joke and make it sort of science joke.
Rod 19:23
Oh they're the best. Do you know the only reason why we're letting in high school?
Will 19:27
Why? You're told to?
Rod 19:28
No, no, no, I was. I was getting to trust her in French, German and Latin. I had to pick two. I didn't choose French because everyone told me I should wish I'd chosen French. I chose just down the hill. A little bit of this. And I chose Latin. That's not a little bit. We'll just put 90 grammes of it in there. You're gonna get the syndrome. And I chose Latin because I thought it would help me understand Monty Python humour better. I'll really, that's, that's all it did. For me.
Will 19:53
It is really dissolving. That's beautiful. It's going off.
Rod 19:56
Are we going to die live on it? We're live pre recorded on here.
Will 19:59
This issued Schomburg and big argument has been known to experienced ologists and Chinese restaurant owners. They note that on three cores hanging out together on three occasions they themselves had experienced the tightening of my masseter and temporalis. muscles, sign cope, fainting, tachycardia, high heart rate, recrimination cry periorbital fest circulation, numbers of the neck and hands all while eating for circulation. Yes, that one. That's all I swivelling. Yes.
Rod 20:27
I've got the ice. We've all wanted to see an Optoma doctor,
Will 20:30
This all contributed to anxiety and pseudopostsinocibaldefaciation.
Rod 20:35
Fuck yes. Let's do that again.
Will 20:38
pseudopostsinocibaldefaciation.
Rod 20:41
So the Ciaccio kid was kid was his dinner kid and like, yeah,
Will 20:46
So. So it is fear of loss of face due to after eating Chinese meal.
Rod 20:53
So one of the symptoms is you lose your face.
Will 20:56
But they did say that up to it can be survived as many as eight episodes a day on personal experience. They also they then concluded their letter saying we'd be happy to submit a grant to study this perhaps with some foreign travel funds. So So basically, they're just having a bit of fun. They're dialling it up, making it more science.
Rod 21:13
I gotta say though, sprinkling a bit of that into the beer. Nothing. Knocking Dyson, I might have a syndrome. I don't know if it's right for beer, my face may disappear.
Will 21:23
I don't know if it's right for beer. Okay, then you get a couple of people, med students, frickin med students writing you can always rely on them. writing poems, Richard Evans a third year Tufts Medical Student wrote the poem. You hungry again an hour later, after his second florid patient with buzzing in his ears and egg foo young on his shirt. Mourn sweet and sour your last charisma mids painful jaw and flushed platysma of aetiology once inscrutable your syndrome now is irrefutable not mushrooms nor Tetra Doxon no more than bagels with their Loxone great havoc does your whim create with excess sodium glutamate your gas stations ginger peach though less digestible than the lychee what allergen come vile miasma. I'd sooner you than bronchiole asthma.
Rod 22:08
That's that's a big effort, though.
Will 22:10
So basically, Dr. Kwok wrote in a letter and said give me some help. Is this happening? What's going on? And everyone that wrote back is just hanging shit, they're being racist. And so you're saying you're not real haha. Or they're dialling it up just for fun and go this is this is much cleverer than you I am or they're making poems, but I don't know why because they're med students. Now, some people have said this fits directly in with the correspondence pages of the New England Journal that it was kind of a jokey place for doctors to make jokes to just frickin fraternity. Well, you've talked before about musical maladies. You know, when people would say there's like violinists elbow or cellists legs people? Well, our guitarist nipples guitarist Nick Well, yeah, yeah. So they would often write in these sorts of things. Like there was joggers, nipples, which is a legitimate thing,
Rod 22:55
where you want to know you've done a few marathons yourself without without tapes over the tits, but I am a believer on tape on tape. Yeah, I know people who've done half marathons of both of the biological representations of humanity. And both sides so oh my god, wrap those suckers up.
Will 23:12
Yeah, so there's a whole genre of these joggers nipple sports car Palsey that was from putting your feet up on the on the dashboard on a long drive to much ponderous purse disease. That was from having a heavy purse too much. It was sort of dragging you back or something. Disco digit was from.
Rod 23:29
Fuck yes, that's a badge of pride.
Will 23:32
So there's a whole genre of dumb little things. And it's just doctors just having a bit of fun. I'm describing a patient who has disco digit, he can't stop clicking his fingers and
Rod 23:41
This boy, he's crazy that the rhythm did end up getting him.
Will 23:44
So the goal here seems really it's just it's just a bit of fun, mostly mocking the sort of straightforward, the straightforward science Enos but sort of setting up a boundary between those legitimately in the community people who get the joke, and maybe those on the outside who don't. And maybe, maybe Kwok, you might be surprised, might have been considered, maybe on the outside. Someone who didn't get the joke
Rod 24:07
surely because of his credentials, obviously, spotlights racism,
Will 24:11
but did not pick that. But then two unexpected things happened. Unexpected and dumb, I think. Better. I'll tell you about them after this quick break. So that was all in April 1968. The first letter went out. They responded in May 1968. And later in May 1968, The New York Times ran an article drawing directly from Cox letter and the discussion in the New England Journal of Medicine
Rod 24:41
went really well and it was quite respectful. Was like close...
Will 24:46
Headline goes with Chinese restaurant syndrome puzzles, doctors. We can read a little bit from this that could be worse until he came to the United States. Eight years ago, a Cantonese doctor named Robert Holman Kwok enjoy Chinese food. Now every time he eats in China his American restaurant, he develops a strange numbness of the neck back and arms that lasts for about two hours. So they don't go directly from his letter,
Rod 25:07
but not in his own town. Once he got there
Will 25:11
Dr. Kwok a senior investigator of the National Biomedical Research Foundation, said he had discussed Chinese restaurant syndrome with some Chinese friends who had been affected by it. They speculated about monosodium glutamate seasoning soy sauce or cooking wine might be the cause. The times then of course, added some nice local colour from your local Chinese restaurant. But I love this. I love that this is the most New York Times answer to a journalist ever. The only headaches I get from running this place and paying taxes. Dammit said Robert Kahn 53 year old owner of the Chinese Rathskeller but what are steady customers keep coming back if they got headaches, so
Rod 25:45
Chinese Rathskeller I don't know why it's called that. So rats killers like German beer cellar. Town Meeting.
Will 25:52
Looking some of these restaurants up I have no idea what's gonna we are the Chinese German meeting hall restaurant. Okay, why not? Another restaurant owner said are sometimes people come in with headaches because they drunk when they come in hungry and we get aspirins but never afterwards. No one guy, Steven H Wong from the great Shanghai restaurant on Broadway said he'd heard of a few cases of strange reactions to Chinese food, but like three or four among 1000s and 1000s. Okay, so that was all colour. The thing that New York Times then did is they grabbed all of the other letters from the New England Journal, not the poems, and they took them directly at face value. So remember the course they did the Schomburg one where they're dialling it up, and they're giving all of the science names. They're like another letter writer, Dr. Herbert H. Schoenberg and Bronx said that three times he had experienced the tightness of the face and temple muscles, numbness, weeping and even fainting after eating in my favourite Chinese restaurant. And then other newspapers, as Jennifer LeMesurier has noted, followed suit because it was all over the place that like other Times is reporting so we'll report on it too, isn't a good that doesn't happen anymore. All of the doctors jokes and inside terms are stripped and they're just taken at face value. It's science. They're recontextualized as laboratory tested facts,
Rod 27:07
Did people actually say that?
Will 27:08
The headlines are things like Chinese food make you crazy? MSG is the number one suspect make your makes you where they're going. No literally went with make you crazy that they did and this is the pleasure test. They told the story of a business executive who ordered shrimp with lobster sauce at his favourite Chinese restaurant, eats it with gusto and chopsticks and within 20 minutes gets dizzy. nauseas feels the onset of blinding headache and fears he may be having a heart attack, or a magazine editor sits down to order to an order of moo shu pork takes a few delicate bites and suddenly feels a burning a tightness a numbness in her upper arms, throat, neck and face. She also has an irresistible urge to take off all her clothes, which she manages to resist
Rod 27:49
in her defence who hasn't had that happen to them in a Chinese restaurant? Not the first bit, but the nudity. I've barely finished a Chinese meal in a restaurant with my pants on
Will 27:57
I don't believe that happened at all.
Rod 28:00
I don't know it may have happened but why? Nothing to do with the food? I just don't believe because earlier dude said they came in drunk. And that's true. Some of the drunkest restaurant experiences I've had in Australia at least I like Chinese restaurants restaurant because they'll accept us if they're open late at night. You know, it's going to be delicious. You don't have to use a knife and fork because it's all cut up for you. So just like a drunken idiot
Will 28:25
I did not know that you are choosing your restaurant. Lazy you can be about 94 when drunk. Four year old like a drunk four year old you're like I quite frequent. Have you
Rod 28:35
seen my handwriting? Not using a knife and fork anymore? Do you know how drunk I am? I have to. This is ridiculous. Don't get me scotch. But but it's true though. Like hands now. They're entirely accepting, like at least in my experience, they'll get drunk and fuckwits in no matter what I'm with you the food's easy. I only like it's got all the food groups, yum and yum.
Will 28:55
And the third is fun. And often there are some that will go just give me that one and I'm one of those and one of these and one of that one and get some vegetables and sometimes 10 more. And then and then you go oh, I didn't have to do any thinking this is great.
Rod 29:07
The food is fun. Or Chinese restaurants if they're a bit tacky. That should be the come to this fun. This Chinese restaurant the food is fun.
Will 29:14
Well no, it's true. Like it's true. I don't know if you're allowed to say words like this about cuisines but French food is not often fun, so delicious. It is Japanese food can be fun. Not always Chinese food is often fun. So there's a slew of headlines. Yes, a slow relief may be in sight for those who suffer from Chinese cooking. I know they're just going in this is whatever it is or isn't please pass the chop suey for scientists find Chinese food fans can avoid suffering candidate like so they're already at the point of how do I avoid suffering if I want to know that somehow you can live through this quick squeeze and Chinese Chow numbs some which wow i It feels like it's racist but Chinese Charles numbs some.
Rod 29:57
That's racist in the way that like the name slot He bought fonts from Douglas Adams. Yes isn't quite swear it's close
Will 30:03
to but not
Rod 30:05
just edges along. That's genius. Aside from the fact that is perpetuating something that
Will 30:09
is not racist shit, but it's extremely cunning racist Chinese Chow Nam some. It's a well written headlines you know what it is it's Wayne's World, I'd like some cream of some young guy. It's the same sort of thing. But then something also dumb and unexpected happens because first of all, science had not taken Chinese restaurant syndrome seriously. Shocked, I tell you, they said Look, come down. This is the same as joggers, nipples, or real disco digits. This is this is something funny. And well, maybe it happens. Maybe there are disco people that look really click their fingers to that point,
Rod 30:48
there is a way in modern society to get a repetition strain from anything that's popular.
Will 30:52
No doubt, no doubt. So is it worthy of medical proper investigation? No. Is it worthy of a funny conversation? Sure. So that's how they were treating it originally. But since the media picked it up, the popular media picked it up and said, Well, maybe this is actually something. But here's the weird thing. It came back to the researchers. Once the New York Times had run it, then a whole bunch of medical doctors, including literally some of the people that wrote the jokes went fucking maybe we should study this seriously. Yeah, there's the Schomburg guys, Schoenberg and Beck. They wrote the joke. straightaway. They were quoted in the New York Times. And then about six weeks later, they're like, Ah, maybe we should actually investigate this. And so they went and ran the first actual experiments exposing subjects to MSG.
Rod 31:39
And was the paper called maybe joke's on us calling it ministry and shoot. It's a
Will 31:43
boring title, published in Science, which is a journal one of the big journals. I've heard of monosodium glutamate. It's pharmacology and role in the Chinese restaurant syndrome.
Rod 31:52
Monosodium el so it's chiral left or right handed matters.
Will 31:58
Science Guy. Fuck yeah. They begin their night there February 1969. So the next year your article in science with this pretty simple assertion. The proof that MSG is the cause of the Chinese restaurant syndrome was arrived at with the cooperation of two subjects. Cool, both of whom had symptoms in the same restaurant. We found that 202 subjects one restaurant 200 mils of wonton soup alone was sufficient to provoke an attack. The restaurant also prepared a soup without MSG, and it failed to provoke an attack. The subjects then invested ingested each of the seven components of the wonton soup separately, only MSG caused the symptoms. So like we were positive, we've done it we've got two people positive and someone got it and someone
Rod 32:38
How many participants in your research, both of them? We're not idiots. We didn't do it on one person.
Will 32:46
You know, I do wonder if it was them themselves. Like they might be doing the job. Right? They they did that then? Maybe they did it. They did a proper slightly proper study afterwards. Epidemiology I don't know. So they went and did a study with 69 people after in the same study, so they went further than just the study of 69. Do they call it the 69 study? No, they didn't. They gave MSG intravenously to 13 people,
Rod 33:13
which is exactly how you'd have it in restaurant. It is like some soup and some IV MSG and a beer.
Will 33:19
We'll come back to the intravenous Welcome back to How do we find it?
Rod 33:23
We put it in the vein because everyone knows the way humans absorb food is in that molecular form strain to the blood, it bypasses the stomach.
Will 33:31
I also like the idea of bowel I like the idea do you take any food and you inject it straight into It's true. I tried to inject a sandwich very bad it's not gonna work didn't work well Suddenly I put an injected a sandwich straight into my heart and I got really bad it was not good and you know what else
Rod 33:47
still hungry.
Will 33:51
It's a double negative I know double neck
Rod 33:53
Terrible research. Fuck
Will 33:57
So yeah, they gave it to intravenously to 13 orally 256 litre none because and again from not double blind. So they recorded symptoms including burning facial pressure, chest pain, headache,
Rod 34:09
Embarrassment, confusion, and we believe
Will 34:12
they concluded that Chinese restaurant syndrome was real. Of course, a bunch of other scientists followed suit in 1969, John Olney at Washington University, injected and force fed newborn mice with huge doses of up to four grammes per kilo of body weight. Now that's that's roughly the equivalent. That's roughly the equivalent i just spoiler alert, but a lot of the Vegemite Promate Marmite they have a lot of naturally occurring glutamate Yep. So it's not MSG, but it's the it's the same glutamate protein. Yeah, so this is 380 grammes. So they injected four grammes per kilo of body weight to the mice, which is the equivalent of me being injected with a whole tub of Vegemite, which
Rod 34:55
can we try that later? Inquiring minds want to know
Will 34:59
I don't want to encourage junkies out there but injecting it.
Rod 35:05
I'm curious what this does. So I'm gonna put it straight in the main vein
Will 35:08
in the newborn mice, subcutaneous injections of monosodium glutamate induced acute nuclear neuronal necrosis in several regions in the developing brain. So it blew their brains. It blew their brains, right? They got holes in the brains, but you put that volume of anything into a newborn
Rod 35:25
We took another newborn and we just put water in it at the same volume. And it's and it's brain blue.
Will 35:29
Exactly. Anything. There is a line here of doing studies that are shockingly over the top and going out. We've we've shown it, we've seen it as me
Rod 35:35
This means as an eight year old experimenting on the weed bugs that grew in the pool when not enough, chlorine was in there. And my experiment was, I stripped them out in water, then I put milk in the other one, what do you know they died? What I know. Well, I know you scientist. That's my science. And that's also their science. Very,
Will 35:51
they were published in Insight. I know this guy wasn't published in
Rod 35:55
those experiments on the water buckets. Totally published.
Will 35:57
So they did, he did the same thing with adult mice. And injecting huge amounts showed daunted skeletal development marked obesity and female sterility, pathological changes a whole bunch of things. He claimed that the MSG found in just one bowl of tinned soup would do the same to the brain of a two year old, which is just friggin wild. Like he's saying, if you let your two year old, eat a bowl of wonton soup, eat, not ingest. And he's saying it's gonna it's gonna fry their brain.
Rod 36:25
And one thing we know for sure injecting food and eating it exactly the same impact on the body, no question in my mind.
Will 36:32
So it continued, a whole bunch of scientists are injecting heaps of MSG into mice into monkeys, and then a lot alleging long term effects.
Rod 36:41
I can summarise the science, if we poison the shit out of creatures at a crazy level, they respond as if they've been poisoned. In order to refer in the defence in various ways,
Will 36:51
interestingly, throughout all of these articles, they kept going with Chinese restaurant syndrome. It's got a label, why would you let go of that have the food shoe Even when they start, you know what they're investigating is MSG, but they're like not, but the reason for this is to understand the Chinese restaurant syndrome, which is obviously a thing, yes, obviously a thing. And so both of those ideas that MSG is dangerous, and cause Chinese restaurant syndrome got set in stone, you get a whole bunch of people, you get the lawn green. So he was the Bonanza guy at the beginning. You know, he had had a Chinese meal. You know, this is the one he'd had nothing for lunch, nothing for breakfast, and he went and ate and ate and ate in a Chinese restaurant.
Rod 37:29
They didn't mention the nine lines of cocaine or
Will 37:31
no, they didn't. They didn't they didn't mention that at all. And he could just say, I had Chinese restaurants, food and everyone was like, Oh, of course he got the Chinese restaurants and let him off the hook. No cocaine. They're
Rod 37:42
The toxicology report. How did that go? I didn't have one.
Will 37:45
Yeah, because Because Chinese restaurant we don't need to know in your in do you don't do toxicology? Chinese restaurant you don't. Ralph Nader lobbied Congress to ban MSG in baby food
Rod 37:54
Yeah, he's very sincere, though.
Will 37:56
Do you ever could you stop be sincere about actual things. Not spoiler. It ain't real.
Rod 38:02
I did not know you're going to end up there.
Will 38:04
It's weird. It's weird. You get up? No, I don't want to go and you've ruined everything for me like, Oh, I was gonna end up with real A whole bunch of Chinese restaurants putting up no MSG signs in the menus. And yeah,
Rod 38:14
all over the world. Well, at least here and there. Absolutely.
Will 38:17
All over the place. Something like 42% of people in America currently think MSG is bad for you. But I don't know if that is. I wouldn't be surprised if if at least that here. You know, there's people that get health gurus, of course, saying that MSG causes migraines or makes kids hyperactive or is the cause of autism.
Rod 38:37
Yeah, and death.
Will 38:38
So the MSG truth website. Ah, MMR vaccines first came under scrutiny in the UK due to autism rates in Scotland climbing, blah, blah, blah. The ingredient list of the MMR vaccine includes free glutamic acid got it so, so that there's another one, the MSG myth website, one must ask if autism is directly related to genetic predisposition that is activated due to the ever increasing amount of processed free glutamic acid basically, MSG must work. No one. No one must not like
Rod 39:12
One must ask, if the existence of tyres makes children confused. I mean,
Will 39:18
So it's, you know, it's pretty clear. Yeah. The MSG at this point in the 80s and 90s. Still, today now is sown as a cultural bad, like it just inherently bad. And you would not want to do that. And, and what all of these things are doing, you know, they get the crackpots that are looking for what's the cause of autism vaccines, and they go oh, within vaccines, it must be MSG. It's just Could you could you just know,
Rod 39:42
because mercury doesn't matter. You know, they care about Mercury. Because they missed the boat. Start with him. Is it just me or is there a connection?
Will 39:50
I spoiled it for you before. It's all fucking bullshit. It's It's all bullshit. Like since the 1970s a bunch of scientists like literally so studies were in 1969 from the 1970s you get people saying fucking do some good science. Yeah, and actually have a look at this
Rod 40:08
and a bunch of is the former collective noun for scientists. So that's, that's very well used
Will 40:12
and all of the better versions have found no evidence of harm in MSG. So in 1970 Like this is not very long into the people ate not injected up to 147 grammes of the stuff every day. Oh, for six weeks now I've got a little jar here. That is, I think this is a couple 100 No, I don't know that. That might be 100 that Vegemite, sir. 380 Yeah. So so you'll be eating probably two of those.
Rod 40:36
That's a couple of 100 I reckon. That's glass. So 70 grammes. Okay,
Will 40:41
so you're 70 grammes eating two of those per day, every day for six weeks without any adverse reactions
Rod 40:47
without any adverse reactions related to the mythical Chinese restaurant syndrome. Well, maybe they didn't eat it in a Chinese restaurant. No, but there may be other reactions are gonna feeling the white taste and I can still taste it. I can't do it suggests it has strength. What that is,
Will 41:01
I don't know if they sat down with a teaspoon and shovelled like just just just eating eating
Rod 41:08
before you sign the consent for 100 and
Will 41:11
they had a delicious soup that was very flavoured more recent studies using placebos as Bloody do here. Spanish guitars have have no have shown no difference in effects on people eating food with or without MSG. Zero, right? Yeah, no, no difference in 1995. And so this is basically the Global Food and Drug also the US Food and Drug Administration. But most Food and Drug Administration's around the world pretty much agree. They commissioned the Federation of American societies of experimental biology. To study the safety doesn't matter. It found that only a small number of people experienced any side effects. And it was only after consuming six times the normal serving on an empty stomach.
Rod 41:50
Long Green was run well, empty stomach, it
Will 41:53
seems it seems there might be some tiny allergic type reactions, but nothing serious. And it is literally a small component of the population. If you eat huge amounts going out
Rod 42:02
on a limb, someone's allergic to everything. There is someone out there who's allergic to anything you can no and
Will 42:06
it's it is tiny. It is not hyperbole that most of you and one of the one of the Schoenberg the original guy said, we don't think this stuff is harmful, but it definitely has a pharmacological effect if you take it intravenously.
Rod 42:20
If I'm going to shoot something, it ain't MSG.
Will 42:23
Since the 90s, the FDA has given MSG what they call the generally recognised as safe designation or transfer because there's no such thing as safe basically the same as salt, pepper or vinegar or something like that. We could turn handle and in fact, there's a bunch of people you remember Professor Ikeda
Rod 42:39
Yes, I do.
Will 42:40
He wanted to he wanted to help people. And so there's a bunch of people looking at the health benefits of MSG, you know, and there's, there's people the same potential positives include increasing energy consumption from eating, nutrition intake balance for overweight individuals. There's others that say, you know, this is this is pretty much Ikeda's version, it can promote healthy eating by making shitty greens taste better, you know, so like, if you don't like UK on true if you don't like your kale, MSG might actually make it taste a bit better. And that,
Rod 43:06
doesn't it? Also, I don't know if I'm gonna make it shinier.
Will 43:09
I don't know that
Rod 43:10
I thought part of the thing with industry is it makes food look brighter. Like the Greens look greener and stuff. I may be wrong.
Will 43:17
I didn't notice that anywhere in my research, but I didn't I didn't look for that.
Rod 43:20
Make no mistake. I could be terribly wrong. But that was one of the impressions I have. I have another one. But we'll see if you come to it. First.
Will 43:25
There was one study that looked at MSG and children's brains in the 1970s. And the only takeaway was that it might improve readability. We don't want that because then they'll learn shit. a food scientist Steve Witherly said MSG is pretty darn safe. We had research at Davis when I was there. We drank tumblers of it at about 25 grammes and nothing happened. So so what what caused
Rod 43:48
and the third arm in the middle of your chest? Unrelated?
Will 43:50
no nothing? What caused Chinese restaurant syndrome?
Rod 43:53
Culture born language borne illness?
Will 43:55
Yes. Or racism? Like it's similar. It is literally entered Anthony Bourdain has got a good summary of this and
Rod 44:04
God rest of your soul and also you bastard because I was convinced I was going to meet him and then he went and stopped existing he did.
Will 44:09
I think MSG is good stuff. You know, what causes Chinese restaurant syndrome? Racism. Yeah. And that's and that's basically it. All of the science here has anything that is against MSG, largely appears to be poor studies that seem to be motivated by detecting something that isn't actually
Rod 44:27
right food and a place with people who don't look exactly like me. It must have been that
Will 44:31
in 2021 activist launched a campaign called redefined CRS Chinese restaurant syndrome
Rod 44:37
in 2021?
Will 44:38
Yeah, and people are still fighting this and this is this is the thing that you know,
Rod 44:42
It's 2022 and I'm just hearing about it.
Will 44:45
It was run by the Ajinomoto company. They urged that the Merriam Webster Dictionary changed its entry on Chinese restaurant syndrome to reflect the scientific consensus on MSG, Chinese restaurant syndrome horseshit it horseshit. Yeah, but cuz obviously there's it's affecting public perception of Asian cuisine,
Rod 45:03
not just Chinese because I've never heard it associated with any other Asian restaurant or any other Asian cuisine. I've only ever heard it relate to Chinese food.
Will 45:11
But MSG is used all over the place today MSG, it's mass produced not from kale anymore, not seaweed. Now from sugar cane, or beets, or the ocean, the Ajinomoto Company, which was you know, the original guys company, Professor Akita now employs 32,000 people, and msg ranks as one of the globally top flavour enhancers after salt and pepper. In 1985, the Japan Patent Office selected Professor Akita as one of the top 10 greatest ever Japanese inventors. Okay, so I'll accept that. Here's the thing. All of the arguments are just against MSG, or just food racism. There is no definable harms from this product, it is probably actually healthy for you, you could guzzle a whole bunch of it, it is not likely to do any problems in the way that if you guzzle the whole bunch of anything else, it would do that kind of problem as well. There's nothing unique to salt. Yep, yep. Don't inject it.
Rod 46:09
Well, that's ruin my afternoon. Also depends where you inject blood vein eyeball between the toes. So you work it out.
Will 46:15
Before I tell you something, yes, I just read the list of the sources that are really useful here. So Jennifer LeMesurier’s, is I'm taking race genre MSG and Chinese dinner. Ian Mosby’s: ‘That Won-Ton Soup Headache. Really good stuff. Michael Blanding’s article in Colgate Magazine: The Strange Case of Dr Ho Man Kwok, I'll come to that in a second. Richard Lyons article in The New York Times that was the Chinese restaurant syndrome, Herbert Schaumburg and Robert Byck’s article in Science, the one I said before, This American Life’s The Long Fuse, The Washington Post’s: Beware of musher's knee and hooker's elbow and the Umami Information Center: Kikunae Ikeda mushes knee mashes knee, I didn't bring them up because they needed an explanation. mushes knee is like for Mosh Mosh if you're a dog dog sled. In the far north, you get a certain knee from it. I've always wondered, there's a weird little addendum to this. That came up and I when I read it, I thought, Holy fuck, and then then I was like, no, that's just weird. That's just alright. We're about a year after she published her article, Jennifer LeMesurier. She got an unexpected voicemail. The caller in debt, identified himself as Dr. Howard Steele, who was an old alumnus of the University. She Howard still is a Spy's name. It's great name.
Rod 47:28
I'm Howard Steele,
Will 47:29
he's an alumnus from the university. So he might have seen some sort of publication from the university saying, here's this interesting publication. He said, boy, have I got a surprise for you? I am Dr. Homan Kwok No. LeMesurier called him back. She's like, I gotta fucking do this dude. And he said, he said, Well, back in 1968. He'd written the letter as a joke with a friend. The friend said, you can't get an article in the New England Journal. He's like, you watch that. Watch those hold my beer. And basically like the other letter writers, he reckons he was having fun. Once the drama it was causing, he saw what was happening. He apparently tried to get it retracted by the editor, but the editor wouldn't do it. I called the journal editor and told him it was a bunch of bunk, that it was all fake that it was made up and he hung up the phone on me. He wouldn't talk any further. He was a jackass. So I kept calling him and finally apparently he gave a message to the phone girl in the office, that if anybody named Howard called up, hang up,
Rod 48:23
that's insane. It's insane. But it's not what you expect. No, because Because Because if you did that to me deliberately,
Will 48:31
no, I know, I wanted this to be I wanted this to be because LeMesurier's unit team at Colgate uni set sent this to This American Life and said hey, you guys gotta check this out. This is a 97 year old 97 at the time Howard Steel Jesus because it was back in 1968. He just admitted to this huge prank that has caused one of the biggest mass panics in history. But they dug and they found that there was a real Robert Homan Kwok, who who worked at the Research Institute. Sadly, by that time, both Howard Steele and Robert Homan Kwok were both dead so that we can't get confirmation for from either of them who wrote them so I can double so it's a funny, so they spoke to both of their daughters. They spoke to Howard steals daughter and Robert Homans daughter. I'm in crocs daughter and how it steals daughter's like, oh, yeah, he's thinking all the time. That is his thing. He was praying, but here's the thing. That's Dad. Was he pranking back then? Or was he pranking now? And so she reckons she reckons. Now he's pranking now, he has seen this the fuck is gone? Fuck it. I'm gonna claim that it may. So as as This American Life note, so it seems like how it didn't write the fake prank letter back in 1960. His prank was that he had said he had written the letter. He was claiming credit for chaos that he didn't create.
Rod 49:44
Ah, I have a new ambition. Double prank. I love that. Oh, that's gold. That's fantastic. That's fantastic.
Will 49:53
MSG ain't bad.
