I'll pass on the MSG.

This spring, I precociously began my spring break with an attempt to do laundry in my residence hall washing facilities. After a random major flooding of my first load, I was rescued by my mom as we went to the laundromat on Ellsworth. While waiting for my drenched accoutrements to rewash and dry we stopped at the Tokyo Japanese Grocery in the same center as the laundromat, with a Coldwell Banker office squeezed in between. There were certain products I was intrigued by, including bags filled with white powder labelled "Monosodium Glutamate." Infamously abbreviated by my mom since childhood, "MSG" is requested to not be in our food at any Japanese and Chinese restaurant we've frequented. While the use of MSG is frequently referred to as the "Chinese Food Syndrome" on various internet sources, its original use was indeed in Japan: "A Japanese company called Ajinomoto - only recently found guilty of price-fixing MSG on the world market, is today the prime maker of MSG. Japan is also where taurine and CoQ10 are now used to treat heart disease, and ginger and taurine-rich sushi are eaten alongside MSG sprinkled food. These foods have protective effects against an MSG reaction. However, even the Japanese have found recently that MSG fed to mice can lead to blindness." (http://www.msgtruth.org/whywe.htm) This use of preservatives is indeed frightening.

In a store that had so many single portioned items such as beautiful filets of salmon, meticulously bagged bok choy and perfectly shaped red bean pastries I was shocked to see bags of MSG. According to the Mayo Clinic's online information database:

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a flavor enhancer commonly added to Chinese food, canned vegetables, soups and processed meats. Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has classified MSG as a food ingredient that's "generally recognized as safe," the use of MSG remains controversial. For this reason, when MSG is added to food, the FDA requires that it be listed on the label. MSG has been used as a food additive for decades. Over the years, the FDA has received many anecdotal reports of adverse reactions to foods containing MSG. These reactions — known as MSG symptom complex — include headache, flushing, sweating, facial pressure or tightness, numbness, tingling or burning in face, neck and other areas, rapid, fluttering heartbeats (heart palpitations), chest pain, nausea and weakness. (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/monosodium-glutamate/AN01251)

Another source reveals more dangerous consequential links between MSG and health:

A study by Johns Hopkins University suggests that monosodium glutamate can induce asthma in some individuals as well. Other studies show that MSG can cause damage to brain cells and the central nervous system. Some studies suggest it has direct correlations with Alzheimer's disease. (http://www.ehow.com/about_5432119_health-risks-monosodium-glutamate.html)

While there is no definitive evidence of a link between MSG and the previously listed symptoms, I have definitely experienced the wrath of this "flavor enhancing preservative." If I forget to ask for no MSG at Lulu's Noodles or Spice Island Tea House, after I'm finished my forehead gets tight and I get a full head pain that is excruciating. Clearly there must be some link. Furthermore when I do get food sans MSG, there is no obvious taste difference. So what's the point of including it? It is merely a preservative, and is not just included in Japanese and Chinese food. In fact, distinctly defined "American" food is just as much permeated with it from KFC to Burger King including ALL chicken, sausage, parmesan, ranch dressings, croutons, dipping sauces, gravy and soups in the fast food industry.

There is a difference between the way American and Chinese restaurants use MSG:

Chinese food, for the most part consists of fresh vegetables quickly cooked. MSG is added at the end as a condiment. It can be NOT added at the consumers request. Most Chinese restaurant owners also know what else on the menu contains natural MSG - soy sauce for instance is naturally loaded with free glutamate. Wait staff at a Chinese restaurant will often steer the MSG sensitive patron away from dishes containing soy sauce as well as MSG. At Asian restaurants, they know what is in the food because they put it there. Most American restaurants today purchase their foods from large US food companies that have what are called "Food Service" divisions. In American restaurants, most wait staff and often the cooks don't know what is in the food, because the soup base probably came from a can, those cute little jalapeno poppers came from a brightly colored bag in the freezer, and very little is actually "fresh". And, unfortunately, most American food scientists use the fact that soy sauce, and hydrolyzed vegetable protein naturally contains free glutamate to give their free glutamate containing products what is called "a clean label". So even cooks and wait staff don't even know what they are reading on the labels. The people who create the foods supplied to American restaurants have absolutely no compunction about hoping you don't know that MSG is in your food when you are consciously trying to avoid it. (http://www.msgtruth.org/whywe.htm).

Ang Lee's film Eat Drink Man Woman really made me reconsider the artisanal aspect of a culture's food. Chu, the professional chef and single father of the film, attempts to strictly adhere to a fresh, meticulous Chinese cuisine for his family. The ritual of Sunday family dinner reiterates the traditions of keeping family together as well as cuisine techique. This evolving culture and cuisine reflects Western intrusion through food, as the youngest daughter Jia-Ning works at a Wendy's fast food restaurant. The experience at the Japanese grocery, with lots of plastic miniature figurines of food and individually packaged and preservative filled products contrasts so greatly with the opening scene of the film where Chu is intimately connected with his craft, skinning the chicken, de-finning the fish, folding the dumplings. Inevitably, reflection of Japanese and Chinese food reiterates a postcolonial condition that Westernized ideals of commodification and preservative use has permeated both cultures food products. The "West" of Europe and America cannot be simply guilty of this, as the first MSG product was engineered in Japan. For now, for the sake of avoiding a headache, I'll stick to freshly prepared foods and skip out on the MSG.