Do you routinely request that the cook leave the monosodium glutamate (MSG) out of your food when you order in from the local Chinese food restaurant? Have you given up sandwich bread in favor of gluten-free wraps? And most importantly, did you diagnose yourself with an allergy to these ingredients? MSG has been controversial for decades, with people claiming to have experienced anything from headaches to heart palpitations after consuming it. At one time, though,MSG allergies were unheard of. Ten years ago, only someone diagnosed with celiac disease could have told you what gluten was, but today there's a gluten free alternative to almost everything in the grocery store. However, these ingredients may not be as dangerous as you think. Take a look at the facts about MSG, gluten, and food allergies.
Why You Aren't Allergic to MSG
Glutamate is a substance that occurs naturally in fish and seaweed. It's also produced naturally but the body. If you've ever heard of umami, sometimes called the "the fifth taste", that is glutamate. The word umami is derived from the Japanese word for "delicious", and the Japanese researcher that gave it that name was also the one that isolated the glutamate from a type of seaweed often used in Japanese cooking, added a sodium ion to it to create a salt, and marketed the resulting product as monosodium glutamate.
High-end restaurants successfully market trendy food with umami, and it's a buzzword among celebrity chefs. Umami allergies are almost unheard of, yet MSG continues to be perceived as an allergen, even though the two are chemically related – there's no real difference between the glutamate in umami and the glutamate in MSG.
The reason may be that there's really no such thing as an allergy to glutamate. One way to test for an allergy is to check for antibodies created in the body after exposure to the allergen. No such antibodies exist for MSG. Whatever symptoms you may feel after consuming MSG, they don't stem from an actual allergy, unless you're allergic to another type of food in the dish. It is possible you might have a sensitivity to MSG.
Why You Aren't Allergic to Gluten
Gluten is a type of protein that is found in wheat, rye, and barley. It's also wildly unpopular at the moment. It's important to point out first that there are people who truly cannot eat gluten-- but they still aren't allergic to it. There are three categories of people that should avoid gluten. People with wheat allergies – which is a legitimate allergy, just not to gluten – should avoid wheat, which means avoiding gluten by default. People with celiac disease can become sick from eating gluten, but that is still not an allergy.
Celiac disease is actually an autoimmune disorder. When you have celiac disease, your body's immune system responds to gluten by attacking the villi in your digestive tract. Villi are small hairlike projections that line your digestive tract and aid in digestion. Damage to the villi can cause you to be unable to digest any food properly, and can result in malnutrition.
Then there are people that suffer from non-celiac gluten sensitivity. This diagnosis means that the patient suffers adverse effects after eating gluten, but does not have celiac disease. This is also not an allergy. Like glutamate, gluten doesn't cause the body to produce the antibodies that characterize a legitimate allergy.
Food Allergy vs. Food Sensitivity
You may think that the difference between a food allergy and a food sensitivity is just semantics, but it's really a very important distinction. If you happen to have a sensitivity to an ingredient like MSG or gluten, you may find that you can still consume the ingredient in small quantities with no ill effects. Furthermore, the negative effects of a food sensitivity, while uncomfortable, are usually confined to symptoms like bloating, abdominal pain, and gas – nothing life threatening. These symptoms come on slowly.
Food allergies generally strike immediately. The symptoms of a food allergy often include itchiness, hives, swelling, and in severe cases, anaphylaxis. You may not have the same symptoms every time. An allergy that resulted in hives the first time you experienced a reaction might cause you to stop breathing the next time.
And that is why it's so important not to diagnose yourself with allergies or sensitivities. If you experience allergy-like symptoms after consuming a meal that contains MSG or gluten and then wrongly assume those ingredients are the cause, you might end up coming in contact with the real allergen again because you're avoiding the wrong food. And the next brush with the real allergen could be fatal.
If you think you've experienced an allergic reaction, make an appointment with a good allergist right away or visited a related site. An allergist can perform tests to determine what it is that you're really allergic to, and help you figure out a safe diet. Diagnosing yourself is a recipe for disaster.
