The Monosodium Glut'debate'

As a researcher, I am trained to assess the information in front of me to the best of my ability. I will never take anything at face value, no matter what journal published it or who wrote it. This can often lead to crucial giveaways of the biases and motives behind such information and those who produced it. It can open up pathways for further investigations where the threads of our scientifically, politically and socially "robust" sweaters start to unravel. If scrutinising academic papers isn't your profession or first-time hobby, it's not always an easy task, but if you enjoy it, see the challenge in it, and know, from first-hand experience, that in many cases, not everything is what it seems, it gets easier and more automatic to do. It can even be quite fun, that is, until it's not and your efforts at intellectual vigilantism in the pursuit of truth fall into a vortex abyss of disinformation, misinformation and societal cognitive dissonance. Only to get further ignored, twisted and manipulated into confirmation bias or, worse yet, weaponised and propagandised to perpetuate a dangerous and coercive narrative.

We have all seen this and know it from the history books, but we should recognise it in present-day life. Countless articles link to references that many have no idea how to scrutinise. By the nature of the beast, you are being bamboozled by long, complex academic journal titles, university names, publisher access paywalls and dazzling DOIs. It's very easy to attach a link to a blog post, X post or newspaper article, that may or may not defend your argument. Hardly anyone will check it (and its authors). And you will ultimately perpetuate complete nonsense — or at least a version of it. ChatGPT does this even more so, hallucinating papers, references, and authors that never even existed. Parroting, much like Midjourney giving you six fingers or a massive head, a cluster of loose information pointing to a subject, that at times, is beyond any real human comprehension.

In many regards, we rest on intuition and habit to guide us. We are comfortable and automatic; our existence is easy and straightforward. We don't want to change. Why should we? Nothing we are doing is wrong. Surely?!? If something upsets us, it's because that something is bad. Not because the source of that something knows us and all our automatic push points; That we are often lazy and eat all information we are fed; or that our time is stretched and we care more about getting the kids to school and being at work on time than we do about questioning the trust we put into our media outlets.

Modern technology has followed our gradual behavioural patterns through the very simple, easy access points we provide it - certainly through our often complete lack of digital hygiene and openness to providing endless data. Everything we do is data in today's world. Everything. And a large portion of that is online. Systems of information processing and distribution know how to upset us – in our own very unique, personal, social, familial and cultural way. In the wrong hands, that's powerful.  We are concerned with protecting our privacy, yet entirely naïve for how easy it is for someone to access it and use it against us. Now, I might sound harsh and unfair; it's impossible for many to comprehend this, let alone find a way to get a handle on it. I’m certainly not trying to fear monger. I get it. I used to be the same. I can barely find the time to clean out my inbox, let alone implement stringent technological safety barriers. In essence, we can't. We can be clean with our data, we can be sensible, but we can also know that having complex passwords and VPN's is no mean feat for adept hackers. If they want to listen, they can, and those with the skills are everywhere. It has become a deeply effective form of social manipulation that we are effectively encircled in.

So, where am I going with this?

Back in the 60s, reports came out of California of a new food additive being used in Chinese restaurants. The paediatrician Robert Ho Man Kwok, had reportedly eaten at one of these restaurants and developed a variety of unpleasant physiological symptoms. Blaming his experience on none other than monosodium glutamate (MSG), a flavouring additive, frequently used in Asian cuisine, amongst many others. What followed was a Pied Piper tale of MSG reputation destruction, spreading across the globe, coining the term "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome". Kwok had cultivated a movement against this mysterious additive, and these sentiments weren't going anywhere. Worse yet, the Chinese restaurants were then targeted, and waves of boycotting began, impacting businesses and employees, to the point of xenophobic attacks and ostracism. And for what? A salt-based, naturally occurring, umami-flavoured additive that has absolutely no valid scientific claims to its apparent harms. Monosodium glutamate forms naturally in foods such as avocados, soy sauce, tomatoes and cured hams (also known as 'free glutamate'). There is no correlation suggesting harm, any more than eating two tablespoons of salt in one go might (I'll let common sense prevail here). The hype was completely absurd and frighteningly carries on to this day. Ken Lee, a professor and the director of food innovation at The Ohio State University concludes - “It’s wacko, it’s weird; it’s not true that MSG has any kind of toxic or causative role in food allergies.”,  yet people were and continue to be completely entranced.

The FDA tried hard to tackle the sudden PR crisis over MSG. Nothing was working; people were convinced, actively rejecting foods that had featured it on their labels, impacting sales and the structure of international cuisines in the Western world. Something had to shift, and the FDA decided to campaign a different sentiment – if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Or, at least, trick 'em!

Monosodium glutamate began to hold social currency. If you were seen to be eating it, you were judged; if you bought it or cooked with it, you were considered actively harming your family. Brands were ensuring the packing design declared its absence—or at least stated they had refrained from adding more of it. Different names such as 'natural flavours' started to replace MSG where it couldn't be removed from products. Yet this too all backfired, causing further legal cases, mainly due to the presence of free glutamate in things like soy sauce and an apparent misrepresentation of the all too criminally mysteriously, dangerously non-bad, deliciously salty flavouring. I'm no marketeer, but tackling this embedded hatred becomes a social issue, not a scientific one.

For example, in today's post-truth world, how can we help people think critically, tap into common sense, and stand far enough away from the collective so that fair human opinion prevails? It's tricky; we have to help them care less about the collective or use the collective to change the narrative. Nothing I'm saying is rocket science. It already exists. For example, encouraging hotel guests not to rewash their towels every day does not come easily from appealing to their good nature, but instead from reminding them that the majority (60%) of guests will keep their used towels for another day. “Well, I say yes! I will join the force for positive change. I will keep my damp towel. I will change the world”. It's simple behavioural economics. The sense of "I want to do what everyone else thinks is right" kicks in. The rational decision to take a warm, dry towel is overridden by the somewhat irrational decision to keep a used, cold, damp one, with the conviction that washing the towel would be irrational (which, in a way, it is). Would it change the world? Maybe, maybe not. There is no doubt that that very same hotel guest will contradict their gallant efforts elsewhere – probably in driving, flying, meat consumption, and most certainly in the clothes they wear and where they’re made, but that's another story for another time.

We see the same with recycling. What better way to tackle a significant aspect of climate change management than by guilt-tripping the general public into taking on the monumental task of sorting through trash on behalf of rubbish sorting companies or our local councils, and, better yet, giving their mates a hard time if they don't? Financial incentives, such as in Germany (money for returning plastic coke bottles), are one way; or do as the British do and embark on a spot of public shaming for partaking in such abhorrent recycling madness; or, better yet, eat the wrong kind of salt. Now I know I sound tough, and you should certainly take what I say with a pinch of salt. It’s good we hold each other to moral standards, it’s what keeps us stable and functioning as a society and able to abide by the law (most of the time).

What I'm getting at is that we most certainly extrapolate this way of being to other larger and pressing issues like war, identity politics, immigration, freedom of speech and so on, where what we think, how we learn about it and how we perpetuate that message has lasting influence. And we sometimes have our hands tied in how to intentionally consider this in depth. Of course we do, because, as much as I love researching and I know I'll do more of it, I do it for a vocation and for a doctorate. For me, there is significant secondary gain, and I have gone through the arduous process of making sacrifices and allowances to create that time. For my friends juggling work, kids, divorces, health issues and so on, this due diligence can feel like too much to ask. We thus rely on the powers that be. Or so it seems. Our personal agency and those powers that be have, however, changed over the course of the last century and it is up to us, as individuals, to keep things in check. This is where I want to flirt a bit with this sense of agency.

If we are offered radical new healthcare interventions or hear of something beneficial to others, we want in. We are careful to consider things that benefit us through self-serving bias; we might use the collective to gauge its reliability, but by and large, if the aversion to personal loss is great, we're all in. For example, a new drug that helps us lose weight (Ozempic comes to mind), we buy Volvos because we’re told they’re safe or drink milk alternatives because apparently they’re better for us and the planet. There are trade-offs; the decision isn't totally logical, but we are in. So how can we emphasise the importance of critical thinking for the individual so that time for crucial intellectual self-development, independent of the group, becomes a priority — not just for our wellbeing, but for our tribes, our kids, and the wider world we live in?

There is no system that we are a part of where we don't all play an individual role. We do hold choice in how we interact and occupy time and space within that system. There will be limitations to our ability to move around within that system, some imposed by the outside, but many created by ourselves and thus manageable to overcome. We have to decide and do. Ten years ago, I would not have thought I would embark on a PhD, but I took microsteps, with the support and guidance of some pretty incredible people, to get there. I chose this. Now I'm thinking about what to do next and whether I'm completely barking mad to consider doing another one. People have as much choice about what they want to do with their bodies and their diets as they do about how they conduct themselves in the streets, what they choose to believe, whether they stand up for something important to them, or whether they choose not to. There are always consequences to everything. If you take your pants off on the tube, people are likely to get upset. If you beat up someone for taking their pants off on the tube, people are also likely to get upset. If you decide to eat cakes every day, your waistline will eventually start to tell you, and perhaps maybe even so will the people in your life (or not), but at the same time, if those cakes bring you unfettered joy and you're not bothered, then go you, ignore the haters and own it. It’s your life.

All of these steps require varying levels of courage, but if we start to let courage slip away, we risk undermining everything it means to be human. Every choice has to be owned, even the ones that live in tension. You may want to break up with your girlfriend because you're bored, but you also don't —you love her, there are some good bits, and the grass is not always greener. Can you be in the duality of both? Can you choose it every day? Over and over? Or is it too much? Can you open the relationship and approach your curiosity with a new maturity bringing in others to enhance the fun? Maybe, maybe not. Likewise, can I eat monosodium glutamate without really caring what some friends of mine think of me? Probably. The same way that I can slow down and ask about whether I fully believe statistics in papers written in an obnoxiously presumptuous and flamboyant way, there is often always a catch. As American writer Richard Bach would say, "the simplest things are often the truest" and hyper intellectualism is certainly not simple.

So, with that in mind, I say, eat the salty noodles! You'll probably be fine. Enjoy some delicious food, say what you feel is right and, who knows, you might even kickstart a new revolution - the monosodium glut'debate'.