Real life thread

[vesicles]

That's my point. Calcium in diet comes in a form that's loaded with other nutrients and is ensured that you most likely won't get too much of it. Calcium from supplements come in little pills that get directly absorbed and it's very easy to make dosage mistakes.

Same thing for MSG. I'm not talking about breaking down MSG, I'm talking about breaking down that steak which contains the glutamate. First, the sodium in MSG is already a strike against it in our society of sodium-saturated foods. Second, although glutamate is an essential amino acid, nobody *needs* MSG to maintain good health. Therefore, any additional MSG added to dishes is unlikely to be absorbed in moderation.

For example, if you eat a steak, you're getting a ton of vitamins in addition to your glutamates. If, on the other hand, you put MSG in your soup, you're getting a bunch of glutamates where it shouldn't be. And since it's only soup, chances are you'll want to eat a steak afterwards too. Now you're getting more glutamates than you likely should be.

There have been precise measurements of how much MSG is in a Chinese dish served in a typical Chinese restaurant. The amount of MSG in a typical Chinese dish is significantly lower than the MSG level in a 12-ounce steak (with no additives). So even with added MSG, the level of glutamate in a Chinese dish is still lower than what you would find in a steak.

It's like taking a grain-sized calcium pill. Even in its pure form, the amount of calcium in that little bitty pill is much less than what you would find in your typical diet.

 

[solarz]

There have been precise measurements of how much MSG is in a Chinese dish served in a typical Chinese restaurant. The amount of MSG in a typical Chinese dish is significantly lower than the MSG level in a 12-ounce steak (with no additives). So even with added MSG, the level of glutamate in a Chinese dish is still lower than what you would find in a steak.

It's like taking a grain-sized calcium pill. Even in its pure form, the amount of calcium in that little bitty pill is much less than what you would find in your typical diet.

Actually, glutamate is not an essential amino-acid.

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Also, what do you think about this paragraph?

Because glutamate is absorbed very quickly in the gastrointestinal tract (unlike glutamic acid-containing proteins in foods), glutamate could spike blood plasma levels of glutamate. Glutamic acid is in a class of chemicals known as excitotoxins, high levels of which have been shown in animal studies to cause damage to areas of the brain unprotected by the blood–brain barrier and that a variety of chronic diseases can arise out of this neurotoxicity.

 

[vesicles]

Actually, glutamate is not an essential amino-acid.

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Also, what do you think about this paragraph?

when I said "essential", I meant it is an important amino acid that many proteins need to build their structures. That was why I said many times in my earlier posts that all 20 amino acids are essential. I meant to say all 20 amino acids are needed to synthesize enzymes and proteins. I didn't mean it in the most strict biological terms. What the word "essential" means in a strict biology term is that human body cannot synthesize by itself and has to be consumed elsewhere. By being a non-essential amino acid, it actually means our body synthesizes the glutamate on our own.

About the paragraph, it simply means glutamate is the conjugate base of the normal glutamic acid. Many biological compounds are weak acids, which means their acidic protons cannot dissociate completely from their conjugate base. This is in contrast to what a strong acid can do. Like sulfuric acid (H2SO4), strong acids can completely dissociate its acidic proton (H+) from its conjugate base (SO42-). How well the acidic proton dissociates from its base will depend on pH of the solution. glutamic acid has a pKa of ~4 and 5, which means 50% of the molecules will be deprotonated and the other 50% will stay as its acidic form (acid form). So glutamate in the form of consumed MSG is the conjugate base, the deprotonated form. By the time it gets into our stomach, a very acidic environment, it will turn into its acid form. Typically, the pH of a stomach can go as low as 0.8. This is virtually all glutamate will become glutamic acid by the time it gets into our stomach.

whatever in that paragraph, they did their experiments in cell culture and directly used the chemical glutamate and compared it with glutamic acid. This difference will not occur naturally. Whatever the form of chemical is when we consume it, it will become glutamic acid.

Also, the paragraph didn't mention the dose. The actual LD50, the dose at which 50% of the subject gets killed is on the level of 12-13g/kg of body weight. This means you will need to eat 60g of that stuff to get serious damage. And the LD50 of MSG is about 5 times higher than table salt, which means you would have to eat 5 times MSG than table salt to get the kind of damage mentioned in the paragraph. So it's actually safer than table salt.

 

[vesicles]

Actually, glutamate is not an essential amino-acid.

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Also, what do you think about this paragraph?

Can you give me the source for the paragraph above? I would like to see how they did the experiments. Most likely, they compared eating food vs. subjects eating pure glutamate. That is completely different from eating food with added MSG. It they simply drank water containing MSG and compared glutamate absorption when eating food, it would not be comparable. It would almost impossible to measure how fast the added MSG alone can be absorbed when MSG is mixed with food. Since both will become glutamic acid and both will be absorbed at the similar speed.

 

[solarz]

Can you give me the source for the paragraph above? I would like to see how they did the experiments. Most likely, they compared eating food vs. subjects eating pure glutamate. That is completely different from eating food with added MSG. It they simply drank water containing MSG and compared glutamate absorption when eating food, it would not be comparable. It would almost impossible to measure how fast the added MSG alone can be absorbed when MSG is mixed with food. Since both will become glutamic acid and both will be absorbed at the similar speed.

Sorry, got my wikipedia articles mixed up. Here's the link to that paragraph:

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[vesicles]

Sorry, got my wikipedia articles mixed up. Here's the link to that paragraph:

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Thanks so much! Here is one of the studies cited by Wikipedia:

Stegink LD, Filer LJ Jr, Baker GL (1985). "Plasma glutamate concentrations in adult subjects ingesting monosodium L-glutamate in consomme". American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 42 (2): 220–225. PMID 2862786

If you take a look at the Introduction in the paper, you will find that, as I suspected, they pre-dissolved MSG in water and make it super soluble and then did the test. Also at the beginning of the paper, the comprehensive studies (4 studies) from the same lab clearly indicated that, when ingested with normal meal, externally added MSG had little effect on the total glutamate level in the plasma of subjects. Here is the quote from their paper:

We have previously studied the effects of large doses of monosodium L-glutamate (MSG) upon plasma amino acid concentrations in normal adult humans when ingested with meals (1-4). In general, MSG ingestion with meals produced only a small increase in the plasma glutamate concentration beyond the effect of the meal alone.

This data means that when subjects were given food without or with MSG. Then the level of MSG in their blood was measured. They found that adding MSG in food had very little effect on the overall level of glutamate in subjects' blood. Exactly as I have been saying! The amount of added extra MSG was negligible compared to the amount of glutamate naturally existing in food itself. Note that they used large dose and only got a small change when compared to meal without MSG.

Below is the papers investigating ingestion of MSG in food:

1. Stegink LD, Filer U Jr, Baker GL, Mueller SM, Wu-Rideout MY-C. Factors affecting plasma glutamate levels in normal adult subjects. In: Filer U Jr, Garattini 5, Kare MR, Reynolds WA, Wurtman RJ, eds. Glutamic acid: advances in biochemistry and physiology. New York, NY: Raven Press, 1979:333- 51.

2. Stegink LD, Filer U Jr, Baker GL. Plasma and erythrocyte amino acid levels in normal adult subjects fed a high protein meal with and without added monosodium glutamate. J Nutr 1982;ll2:l953-60.

3. Stegink LD, Filer U Jr, Baker GL. Plasma amino acid concentrations in normal adults fed meals with added monosodium L-glutamate and aspartame. J Nutr l983;ll3:1851-60.

4. Stegink LD, Baker GL, Filer U Jr. Modulating effect of Sustagen on plasma glutamate concentration in humans ingesting monosodium L-glutamate. Am J Clin Nutr l983;37:l94-200.

 

[broadsword]

There have been precise measurements of how much MSG is in a Chinese dish served in a typical Chinese restaurant. The amount of MSG in a typical Chinese dish is significantly lower than the MSG level in a 12-ounce steak (with no additives). So even with added MSG, the level of glutamate in a Chinese dish is still lower than what you would find in a steak.

It's like taking a grain-sized calcium pill. Even in its pure form, the amount of calcium in that little bitty pill is much less than what you would find in your typical diet.

The restaurants that give you problems with their msg are those with less well-trained cooks who botch eye-balling the amount of msg needed. I experienced symptoms of over dosage before like stiffness of the neck but those restaurants are rare nowadays due to greater awareness.

 

[vesicles]

The restaurants that give you problems with their msg are those with less well-trained cooks who botch eye-balling the amount of msg needed. I experienced symptoms of over dosage before like stiffness of the neck but those restaurants are rare nowadays due to greater awareness.

Please check my post above. The dose they used was 50 mg/kg body weight. This means adding close to 4 grams of MSG in food and they still got only negligible increase in glutamate level in blood. 4 g is a palm-full. No one will add that much in actual cooking... Why? MSG used to be super expensive. That is another myth about MSG, thinking that people would add MSG like it's nothing. Since MSG was mostly extracted from seaweed, the whole process is highly inefficient. So MSG was super expensive. No one in their right mind would use a lot of it, especially when you are trying to make a few bucks...

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

Why do I suddenly find myself in the mood for Chinese food?

 

[B.I.B.]

There are places in Texas and Mississippi where they are getting the gas for 2.71 and 2.79. Around the Houston area, and along the Mississippi.

Here in Idaho around Boise the cheapest is 3.68, which is ridiculous. My in laws, in Idaho Falls, ID are paying in the 3.20s at the same gas stations who get gas from the same refineries.

With the now proven reserves the US has, and the ability to get them in the oil shales, through fracking, off the coasts, etc. If the US people and our leaders made it a priority to provide the oil and refine it and produce it, the US pricves could return to the 1.60s prices we had in 2008.

I wish we would...but time will tell.

Yip, over the years I have seen quite a few kit set planes built by enthusiasts and who used similar type engines to power them.