pretty sure their legal team is excluded from the free beer...must be...or else they'd be broke...even if their legal team didn't drink it they could sell it on ebay

btw the idea of a libertarian spock on ass-jihad is pretty scary

/me stands off v.kemp with a lirpa

> Zarf BeebleBrix wrote:

> Most terrifying fish ever!

Piranhas are more terrifying...

> ~Wornstrum~ wrote:

> Mate...I can understand dislike for other aspects of Asia...in fact, there are tons of things I don't like...but never can you deny that Asian countries have come up with some of the MOST flavoursome foods out there (maybe a bit strange...but I can't believe how delicious the food is here)....

It's called monosodium glutamate.

You're going to die of ALS and cancer.

Is legit Asian cuisine packed with it? I thought that was just "Asian" food sold in Amerika.

Meaning if you mentioned it in its supposed Asian country of origin they wouldn't look at you funny. A lot of Amerikan "Chinese" food has never been heard of in China. Or so I hear.

Thank you for your 20 year old mini literature review hosted on a government website. It was vague, simple, and lacked any specific information: My simple mind could understand it. I know big brother is looking out for me and can't be bought off for a share in corporate profits.

"Thank you for your 20 year old mini literature review hosted on a government website."

Oh I see. It's on a government website and therefore mustn't be true.

Never mind 1.3 billion Chinese people don't complain about Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.

Never mind glutamate is naturally occurring in milk, eggs, beef, and whatever else.

> Simon wrote:

> "Thank you for your 20 year old mini literature review hosted on a government website."

Oh I see. It's on a government website and therefore mustn't be true.

Never mind 1.3 billion Chinese people don't complain about Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.

Never mind glutamate is naturally occurring in milk, eggs, beef, and whatever else.

Still, I get allergic reactions to MSG - increased blood pressure, which, if I were to eat meals with MSG everyday 3 times a day, would cause serious problems. This made eating out regularly in China, especially with Chinese people, problematic.  All the dishes at the table would be shared, and I couldn't ask everyone to go without MSG for my sake.  I simply had to limit going out to eat to only occasionally.

Simon,

I didn't claim that the page being on a government site by itself was some sort of conclusive refutation. It was supportive evidence of a greater point.

I didn't claim it was super harmful in small amounts. Many things are harmful if consumed in quantity but nobody calls them harmful in and of themselves. Take red meat, for instance. Anyone eating a lot of red meat vs eating none has a significantly increased risk of cancer. Billions of people eat red meat and don't complain about it. But it's still not particularly good for you and may contribute to giving you cancer if you continually eat it in significant quantities.

Do we have access to China's ALS numbers? Do the Chinese people? I would imagine that something which take decades to end someone's life would have to be identified to be complained about. I have a suspicion the Chinese government wouldn't be telling us about it if they noticed a statistical anomaly. That the Chinese aren't complaining isn't much in the way of evidence.

~Wornstrum~ makes an important point. We're talking about statistics: Correlation and causation. And over a significant period of time. Everyone who dies of a heart attack or cancer before they had a chance to get ALS isn't contributing to accurate numbers. That many behaviors (e.g. fast food nom nom nom) which lead to a high MSG intake also cause heart disease and cancer (which typically kill much quicker) only makes accurate numbers harder to come by. Any study only examining a brief period of someone's life isn't contributing to accurate numbers either.

The "review" you linked, Simon, is just an abstract. "Free full text" is not a link. Nothing under "Display Settings" offers the full text either. You linked an abstract which provides evidence of nothing.

"The toxicity/safety of processed free glutamic acid (MSG): A study in suppression of information"
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08989629908573933

If we were reading abstracts like they're evidence of anything, this abstract would effectively nullify yours.

I have no interest in reading scholarly articles on the topic for hours. I don't care about your health. It's mostly how defensive you are about believing what your government tells you to which alarms me. From linking an abstract as a "review," I'm going to presume you haven't read any peer-reviewed articles either, let alone enough for a decent lit review to frame the topic objectively.

I'm not claiming much knowledge of the field or interest in obtaining it, but everyone posting as if they're sure it's safe is a good sheep.

"No you didn't say it directly. In context if which it was presented however, it can and was interpreted that way."

I'm very direct. I say what I mean. I generally do it very clearly. Bullshitting that you "interpreted" it as something other than what I said is an error on your end.

I said "hosted on a government website." That's it. And I explained why this is relevant. You chose to pretend I claimed more than I clearly did.

"You also seem to misunderstand the purpose of an abstract.... "

I merely remarked that what you linked is not evidence of anything. You providing a link to a single article would not make up for the fact that neither of us has read remotely enough on the topic to compose a decent literature review to have any basis for what's honest/dishonest and what's comprehensive and what's cherry-picking.

"And no, the abstract you posted nullifies nothing."

My point, again clearly stated, was simply that your linking an abstract provided us no evidence with which to further the discussion or support one position or another.

"Again, I make no claims to "know" or not know the safety of MSG in short term or long term. But the fact that you brought up ALS in this discussion on the safety of MSG clearly supports my claim, and that is, MSG is given undue vilification."

Seeing as you're a self-proclaimed expert and apparently claim to have a working knowledge of all material posted on the subject, I must bow to your expertise. If there is, in fact, a wealth of legitimate research finding MSG has no connection or ALS, you're probably right. If it is the case that no research connecting MSG to ALS is legitimate (ie, sound scientific research actually measuring what it purports to measure), you're probably right.

If you are, however, simply trusting government-approved sources and dismissing anything which provides contrary evidence, then my previous hypothesis that you're a sheep is only further supported.

There's nothing to debate.