Monosodium glutamate (MSG)

Episode notes

Alex Schmidt is joined by writers/podcasters David Roth (Defector, ‘The Distraction’ podcast) and Andrew Ti (‘Yo, Is This Racist?’, Sub-Optimal Pods) for a look at why monosodium glutamate (aka MSG) is secretly incredibly fascinating.

Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week’s bonus episode.

LINKS FOR THE GUESTS:

• Sub-Optimal Pods
• Yo, Is This Racist?
• David Roth’s writing for Defector
• The Distraction: A Defector Podcast (Stitcher)

RESOURCES USED TO INFORM THE EPISODE’S LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

• native-land.ca
• U.S. Department Of Arts And Culture
• Museum of Durham History

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine by Sarah Lohman 
• An MSG Convert Visits the High Church of Umami (The New Yorker) 
• If MSG is so bad for you, why doesn’t everyone in Asia have a headache? (The Guardian) 
• ‘This American Life’ Episode 668: “The Long Fuse” 
• It’s the Umami, Stupid. Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow (Smithsonian)
• How a short letter in a prestigious journal contributed to the opioid crisis (The Washington Post) — this verifies what David brought up about a letter (and not a study) sparking a crisis.
• IMDb page for Safe (1995)
• Why is ketchup so delicious? Science answers the big food questions (The Guardian)
• The Hell-Raising, Cocaine-Snorting ’86 Mets: Craziest Team in Major League Baseball History (The Daily Beast)
• the piece in the Colgate University school magazine (“The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok”) that claimed Dr. Howard Steel wrote the 1968 MSG letter. ‘This American Life’ pretty much debunks this.