The Culinary History of Monosodium Glutamate

Monosodium glutamate, popularly known by its brand name Ajinomoto, which is often
associated with Chinese cuisine, is vilified in Indian households as a ‘toxic element’1. The
negativity surrounding monosodium glutamate (MSG), however, dates back to mid-20th century
far away from its place of origin, Japan. This chemical compound, which acts as flavor additive,
over time, became associated with a set of physiological conditions known as “Chinese
Restaurant Syndrome” in medical parlance. From its origin in a laboratory, it

Origin of MSG and its Capture of Market

Kikunae Ikeda, a Japanese chemist, noticing the distinct flavor enhancing capacity of sea kelp,
decided to extract the taste-enriching compound. On determining that glutamate was
responsible for the scrumptiousness, he synthesized the compound by extracting glutamic acid
(an amino acid present in the human body) from sea kelp and stabilizing it with salt and water.
Ikeda patented the synthesized product and thereafter, founded the company Ajinomoto to
produce and market the flavor enhancer. This crystallized seasoning is chemically known as MSG,
but otherwise widely known as “Aji no moto” which translates to Essence of Food.

Ikeda recalled,” Having always regretted the poor diet of our nation, I had long contemplated
how it might be remedied… It then occurred to me that manufacturing a good, inexpensive
seasoning to make bland, nutritious food tasty might be a way to accomplish my objective”.
However, the manufactured seasoning had difficulty attracting consumers. The relatively high
price and the general skepticism, especially towards a new edible product, meant that MSG made
no profit in its initial four years in the market. Facing rejection from restaurateurs and soy sauce
brewers, the company shifted their focus to housewives.

The invention of MSG was at the confluence of chemical science and 19th century progressive
concern for health. The advent of MSG in domestic markets was during the final years of the Meiji
era in Japan. That was also a period when Japan was making rapid strides in industrial
development to join the elite club of Western powers. This also characterized a shift in the
Japanese social mindset. The educated Japanese reposed faith in modern science and its
miracles. Japanese housewives, who wished to identify themselves as modern and enlightened
by partaking in scientific cooking, were receptive to new culinary ingredients and devices.
Business historian, Louisa Rubinfien noted that Ajinomoto offered “predictability, efficiency,

1
Lead and MSG in noodles: How do these toxic elements affect your health. Retrieved from
https://www.timesnownews.com/health/article/lead-and-msg-in-maggi-noodles-toxic-elements-affect-your-
health/341168
convenience, and scientific guarantees of hygiene and nutrition—attributes consonant with the
Meiji-period goals of ‘civilization and enlightenment”.

The Meiji era (1868-1912) also saw the emergence of a new domesticity which was strongly
intertwined with class identity. Under the Meiji rule, the elite class had come to dominance. Their
attempts to carve out a lifestyle in accordance with their class identity spilled over to the
domestic realm. The enlightened bourgeois housewife was exhorted to take up the task of food
preparation herself as her family’s wellbeing could not be entrusted in the hands of lower class,
‘ignorant’ servants. She embraced the new role in the kitchen which she sought to manage with
scientific nutrition and hygiene. The tradition of kitchen work characterized with heavy tasks
involving multiple hands was replaced by 20th century Japanese women donning the roles of
culinary professionals in their domestic laboratories, the kitchens.

Ajinomoto’s success was tied with this newfound sense of domesticity. But women, in whom
frugality had been inculcated as the highest virtue, lacked conviction to buy an expensive
seasoning. The price of the product acted as a barrier even to women who were enthusiastic to
use the latest culinary innovations. Ajinomoto, in its attempt to convince that the unfamiliar
white powder is a requisite in the kitchen, marketed aggressively by targeting housewives with
several devices. The logo of the company featured a woman with a white apron and a Western
influenced hairstyle, both which are marks of the bourgeois modern housewife. The packaging
of the product was designed to aesthetically appeal to the bourgeois woman. It was sold in
slender glass bottles which resembled perfume bottles. Ajinomoto directly appealed to students
of the Japanese higher schools for women which was attended by the daughters of the elite.
Their home economics textbooks labelled Ajinomoto as a perfect substitute for kelp in traditional
broths. In the period between 1922 and 1937, the company gave a sample bottle along with a
cookbook to every graduating student from these higher schools. The Ajinomoto advertisements
emphasized that the seasoning was “pure white” to allude to its hygienic quality which accorded
with contemporary women’s education on disinfecting and bleaching.

In Japan’s colony of Taiwan, Ajinomoto’s pervasion took a different route from that of Japan – it
was widely used in the public sphere before being accepted in the private realm. It was used
profusely in Taiwanese restaurants and noodle shops and hence, resulted in unsolicited
marketing of the product. Taiwan being a small island colony, provided Ajinomoto with a
confined market of manageable size. The company flooded the streetscape with its enamel signs
on every lamppost of Taiwan’s major cities, so much so that other advertisers complained.
Ajinomoto held a distinct cultural position different from that in Japan. It has established itself as
a cheap seasoning that found commonplace in their diet and did not require the rhetoric of
hygiene and efficiency. Taiwanese cuisine, and Chinese cuisine in general required a wide variety
of ingredients to produce complex flavours and used powdered spices for the same. Hence, the
white powder was more acceptable to them and Ajinomoto became a good fit in Chinese cooking.
A combination of social and culinary factors was conducive for MSG’s wide acceptance in Taiwan.
Ajinomoto’s expansion was confronted with greater impediments in China, in spite of Taiwan’s
and China’s cuisines being similar. The company had carried out an advertising blitz in China akin
to that in Taiwan. But in China, its conspicuous billboards were viewed as a symbol of Japanese
imperialism and became a target of protest. As a nationalist response, native equivalents were
developed which undercut the sales of Ajinomoto. When attacks on retail shops and boycotts
impeded Ajinomoto’s sales in China, they responded by selling under a Chinese name and
imitating the packaging of its Chinese competitors. However, the Chinese-managed imitators
triumphed over Ajinomoto in terms of cumulative sales.

The largest Chinese manufacturer was the Tian Chu company founded in 1923. Tian Chu, which
translates to Heavenly Kitchen, touted its product as “Better than Ajinomoto and fairly priced…!”
and “An entirely domestic product”. As the Tian Chu seasoning became popular, the company’s
founder, Wu Yunchu became a national hero. This is an example of commodification of
nationalism where Japanese imperialism was thwarted by Chinese commodities. Tian Chu’s
marketing was markedly different from that of Ajinomoto. The brand was called “Buddha’s Hand”
and its label was of blue and gold colour, which were symbolic of paradise and immortals.
Because the Chinese abstained from eating meat periodically, MSG found relevance as a cheap
vegetable substitute. As a flavour enhancer in vegetarian meals, it became a common household
item among the Chinese diaspora before the second World War.

MSG’s Acceptance and Rejection in the United States

MSG made its way from East Asia to other Chinese population centres in Asia and eventually, to
the cities on the West Coast of US via Chinese immigrants and their settlements. Chinese
restaurants in US copiously used the food additive. Coupled with invoked sympathy for the
Chinese during the Japanese invasion, more white Americans were visiting Chinese restaurants.
Also the official recognition of China as an ally, which was ruled by Chiang Kai-shek then, helped
in changing American attitude towards Chinese food as culturally acceptable.

The United States, especially after World War II, saw technology transfer from high-tech military
to developments in food processing. US boasted of the highest industrialization of food in the
world. American consumers, by and large, preferred manufactured ready-made foods. With
advancements in the food industry, MSG came to be commonly used by processed food
manufacturers and fast food purveyors. Manufacturers of canned foods in US like Campbell’s
Soup Company, were abundantly using MSG that United States became the largest market for
Ajinomoto outside Japan and Taiwan. Ajinomoto, thus, underwent packaging reforms according
to its market needs - glass bottle shakers for Japanese households, one kilogram containers for
Taiwanese shopkeepers, and ten pound tins for American industrial customers. American
consumers were unwittingly consuming MSG in mass quantities, from chop suey to baby food to
KFC fried chicken.
Consumer trust in the food industry deteriorated massively in the 1960s. There was scathing
public attention to on the risks posed by chemicals in the food industry. New warnings about
food additives were issued. This period saw the banning of an artificial sweetener, cyclamate,
resulting in the recalls of soft drinks worth millions of dollars. The apparent discovery of the
Chinese Restaurant Syndrome (CRS) also coincided with this period of food additive scare when
American customers were turning against the food industries. The term was then picked up and
then followed by a cascade of prejudiced research in the pursuit to pinpoint the cause of this
combination of physiological conditions which included numbness and palpitations.

Dr. Robert Ho Man Kwok, a Chinese immigrant himself, wrote a letter to the New England Journal
of Medicine (NEJM) in 1968, complaining of a strange set of symptoms when he ate at certain
Chinese restaurants. The NEJM published his letter under the title “Chinese Restaurant
Syndrome”. The response to it was immense – there was a flurry of letters and reports being sent
to the NEJM contributing to an ever-expanding list of symptoms which was attributed to Chinese
cooking. Studies demonstrating a link between MSG and CRS were published in 1969. This fed
the growing frenzy about the horrors of Chinese cooking. MSG, and Chinese cooking in general,
was vilified and demonized. ‘The mysterious powder of the Orient’ was pilloried as the cause of
this intangible condition.

Ironically, processed foods and fast foods weren’t on the receiving end of the scathing attack
against MSG. Though MSG was used in abundance in these foods, the CRS problem was identified
as strictly Chinese in nature. The widespread acceptance of Chinese, their culture and their
cuisine, changed when Chairman Mao seized control in China in 1949. Suddenly, there was an
aura of fear and negativity around anything that had to do with the Chinese. The American
response to the Maoist revolution fed this hysteria. The association between health problems
and Chinese food was considered as legitimate connection by the Americans, because the
Chinese were threatening; they were Communists.

A MSG related study pointed out that regardless of the contents of the meal, people experience
unpleasant symptoms after particularly eating food that is associated with a different culture.
This is attributed to the nocebo effect emanating from apprehensions about other ethnicities.
But the Chinese Restaurant Syndrome found exceptional scrutiny in academic circles and public
discourse. Historian Ian Mosby described it as an “obviously racialized discourse that framed
much of the scientific, medical and popular discussion surrounding the condition”.

In 1969 however, the discussion around MSG took a different turn. Dr. John Olney of Washington
University published an article in the Science journal that claimed that MSG caused brain lesions.
His further studies found similar results in infant primates. MSG was then not just viewed as the
culprit of headaches and nausea, but a potent killer, especially of babies. The chair of the White
House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health, Jean Mayer, recommended that MSG be
banned in baby foods. His recommendations were based on Olney’s studies.
Olney and consumer-advocate Ralph Nader led a public battle to ban MSG, but were
unsuccessful. MSG is still on the Federal Drug Authority’s list of products that are that are
“Generally Recognized as Safe.” The maximum they did was to suggest that MSG is “fit for human
consumption but not necessarily by infants.” Mosby argued that “this seemingly contradictory
ruling reflected the tenuous middle-ground that regulatory agencies and other oversight bodies
would continue to walk throughout the 1970s between the interests of consumers and the food
industry”. This ruling strengthened public discourse that the FDA was colluding with the MSG
industry to cover up the life threatening reality of MSG.

To the general public, it seemed a plausible logical conclusion that the regulatory body looks out
for the interests of the corporates rather than the consumers’ health, that the FDA isn’t a pure
champion of public health but balances public health interest with the economic well-being of
corporations. Furthermore, it does not help the cause that the Ajinomoto company has been
previously embroiled in anti-consumer practices. Some argue that every study in favour of MSG’s
safety is corporate funded. The latest expose that Coca-Cola kills research which does not yield
conducive results2 further affirms the public theory that positive studies on corporate goods are
supported by the corporate machinery. Consumers are inclined to be suspicious of food
corporations whose production methods are incomprehensibly complex and business methods
are invisible.

Though it is reasonable to be skeptical of the vast food corporations and regulatory authorities,
bad science should be differentiated from bad science. It is evident that the initial medical
concerns over MSG were sparked by racial biases. The anti-MSG sentiment that stemmed from
these prejudices coloured scientific researches. The conclusions reached by scientists and
doctors crumbled under scrutiny. Though research conducted by scientists like Olney were
spurred by the racist hysteria surrounding MSG, they were less tainted by racist prejudices. On
the other hand, researches failing to reproduce Olney’s results shouldn’t be seen solely as
products of corporate research. The social and cultural position of a researcher will influence
their research despite best attempts at neutral research designs. The undertones of the existing
research works should be identified in studies on MSG so that further enquiries are not layered
by racist prejudices.

With bodies of research debunking MSG’s reputation as a health hazard and the identification
of racist undertones in research maligning MSG, there is an attempt to reclaim MSG and its
flavour enhancing capabilities. A new cultural understanding is being called for by celebrity
chefs3. Since food is a significant part of culture, outright shunning of a food is akin to rejecting

2
Coca-Cola funds health research—and can kill the studies it doesn’t like. Retrieved from
https://www.popsci.com/coca-cola-funded-study-health-ethics

3
The Notorious MSG's Unlikely Formula for Success. Retrieved from
https://www.buzzfeed.com/johnmahoney/the-notorious-msgs-unlikely-formula-for-success
their culture. MSG is an inherent part of Chinese and Japanese cuisine. The rejection of MSG is a
subconsciously aggressive act whereby the unintentional statement made is to keep Chinese
culture to themselves. However, if the health concerns are valid, then this becomes an
unfortunate necessity.

Born of scientific research agendas, nationalist politics, marketing campaigns, culinary systems,
and funding institutions, MSG has evolved to be a part of the global cuisine. As it evolved in
response to its environment, tastes also got acquired and evolved over time. The global trajectory
traversed by MSG is closely linked to the history of 20 th century society. In tracing the culinary
history of MSG, we can conclude that the science of food alludes to food culture.

References

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of Industrial Organization, 18, 5-21.

Germain, T. (2017). A Racist Little Hat: The MSG Debate and American Culture. Columbia
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Kazmi, Z., Fatima, I., Perveen, S., & Malik, S. S. (2017). Monosodium glutamate: Review on clinical
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Mahoney, J. (2013, August 16). The Notorious MSG's Unlikely Formula For Success. Retrieved
from BuzzFeed: https://www.buzzfeed.com/johnmahoney/the-notorious-msgs-unlikely-
formula-for-success

Mosby, I. (2009). ‘That Won-Ton Soup Headache’: The Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, MSG and
the Making of American Food, 1968 –1980. Social History of Medicine, 22(1), 133-151.
doi:10.1093/shm/hkn098

Mosby, I. (2012). Ethnic Food Fears and the Spread of the Chinese Restaurant Syndrome in
Canada, 1968-80. Culinary Chronicles, 62, 5-7.

Sand, J. (2005). A Short History of MSG: Good Science, Bad Science, and Taste Cultures.
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Times Now News. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.timesnownews.com/health/article/lead-