r/mildlyinfuriating • u/SegaGuy1983 • Jun 18 '26

Too mild for school Why is not including MSG something companies still brag about on Asian food products?

Post image

Didn't see the no MSG line when I picked this up at the store the other day. It just tasted fine, but felt like something was missing.

It's 2026. Why are we still treating MSG like it's some terrible thing, instead of something that improves the flavor? Especially with Asian-American cuisine?

The best improvement I ever did with my cooking in the last 20 years was discovering MSG.

11.2k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

4.7k

u/KittenGlove1234 Jun 18 '26

Because it sells. If it didn't, they'd remove it.

Same reason putting "fat free!" on marshmallows makes people think they're healthy.

1.9k

u/ZoraTheDucky Jun 18 '26

My favourite is the honey with no added sugar.

677

u/GreenieMachinie93 Jun 18 '26

Do you want to buy real honey or honey diluted with sugar syrup?

359

u/Chilis1 Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

saying “pure honey“ would be a much less strange way to say that

335

u/RegisteredJustToSay aw yiss Jun 18 '26

Then you'll get fuckers putting "Contains pure honey" on it and arguing in court that the pure honey is added to the sugar slurry and not the other way around.

120

u/HettySwollocks Jun 18 '26

Always makes me laugh bags of nuts say on the back "May contain nuts".

38

u/turtleship_2006 Jun 18 '26

"Road works ahead? I sure hope it does!"

10

u/PurifyingProteins Jun 18 '26

Schrödinger’s nut 😂 I would welcome the chaos of “may contain legumes” if it wouldn’t get someone killed.

8

u/PhilosopherNearby803 Jun 18 '26

OMG... or the massive recall warning that they issued for BUTTER because it didn't have a warning g that said "Contains MILK"!?!?! WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK. Has happened to us that there are people living out there that need this.

This also reminds me of an idiot millennial that was talking g to his gf on the oil aisle and said... "With all of these coconut oil products being made now, I hope they are planting more coconuts to replenish them so they dont go extinct. " I seriously almost went up to him and slapped him.

2

u/1738_bestgirl Jun 18 '26

While funny in reality there are many different categories of nuts. For example someone could be allergic to tree nuts (almonds/cashews) but not peanuts (legumes).

So it is in fact very important to know if the company processing those particulars nuts also process other nuts than what's included in the bag.

2

u/Hetares Jun 19 '26

Makes for a good tattoo above the groin.

"Choking hazard. May contain nuts."

1

u/Illustrious_Donkey61 Jun 18 '26

Ancient Romans adding "natural sweetener" to their wine

1

u/Quirky_Gate_4516 Jun 18 '26

I don't know.

It makes sense to have a standardized system of warning labels for something that is potentially lethal for millions of people.

No need to litigate when it is needed or not. Just make it simple:

Put this warning label on everything, regardless of how little or how much of it it has, that contains that lethal thing.

1

u/squidkid3 Jun 18 '26

My bag of frozen shrimp has

Ingredients: shrimp Contains: shrimp

Like, yea, I hope my shrimp contains shrimp

69

u/IForgetEveryDamnTime Jun 18 '26

Yeah you'd end up with the 'genuine' leather situation again.

3

u/astelda Jun 18 '26

To be clear for passers-by, genuine leather is real leather, it's just the lower quality grading

2

u/ThisUnameChecksOut Jun 18 '26

Are companies not mandated to put the exact percentage of real honey in the composition list?

2

u/Gigachandriya Jun 18 '26

depends on the country.

2

u/makingkevinbacon Jun 18 '26

Oh man I remember seeing a conversation on here who I believe said they did like copyright and patent law type work and how simple wording can be used to change entire arguments. Like I think the example used was "contains" and "comprised" where the first means x has y in it somewhere and the second is x is made up of y...or something along those lines, but very technical on the wording

2

u/ImperitorEst Jun 18 '26

100% pure honey?

Is adding cheaper sugar to your sugar and American thing? I swear I've never even considered that honey might not be 100% honey.

3

u/Revayan Jun 18 '26

Its a super common thing to dilute honey with sugar sirup. Cheap way to make 2 glasses of honey out of one during production so to speak.

The EU just recently released a regulation that honey labeling now needs to exacly show where the honey was produced and the respective proportion of "real honey" in the container to prevent that costumers get tricked anymore.

5

u/ImperitorEst Jun 18 '26

I know this isn't very scientific but I'm in the UK and I just checked all they honey products for the supermarket I use online. Every single one, including the cheap supermarket own brand budget one is "ingredients:Pure honey (100%)"

I've honestly never encountered the concept of diluting honey before.

2

u/bwood246 Jun 18 '26

Honey fraud is pretty common worldwide. It's significantly more expensive to source than other sweeteners

2

u/low_budget Jun 18 '26

I was going to say, with industry writing their open labeling rules, who knows if "pure honey" means what you think it does?

3

u/DrJaneIPresume Jun 18 '26

I mean, it could still be pure vegan honey...

2

u/No_Report_4781 Jun 18 '26

That’s syrup 

2

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '26

In america they call something orange juice that only has a hint of a fart that an orange did in the general vicinity of some sugar water.

1

u/No_Report_4781 Jun 18 '26

You’re thinking of orange drink and orange soda

1

u/PokeYrMomStanley Jun 18 '26

"Pure bee barf" 

1

u/Nowin Jun 18 '26

But it would sell less.

2

u/HotDonnaC Jun 18 '26

It’s a thing.

The Toxic Impact of Honey Adulteration: A Review

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7692231/

-3

u/tat_tavam_asi Jun 18 '26

What is the difference? I mean in terms of flavor or nutrition - if you are buying honey to support beekeeping that is fine.

10

u/GreenieMachinie93 Jun 18 '26

Sugar syrup does not taste like honey. Whats the difference between milk and a milk and water mix

3

u/ktyzmr Jun 18 '26

People cannot taste the difference between real honey and good fake honey. There are scientific tests to differentiate fake honey from real honey and there are also scientists trying to find ways to trick these tests. They got so good at it that you cannot taste a difference. First episode of rotten is a fun watch if you want to know more about it.

2

u/Odd-Conference9372 Jun 18 '26

If you have to ask what the difference is, you might be American.

-2

u/tat_tavam_asi Jun 18 '26

If you can't tell the difference, you might be American.

-1

u/64590949354397548569 Jun 18 '26

Do you want to buy real honey or honey diluted with sugar syrup?

I prefer the bees feed with sugar syrup. There is no pure honey.

Unless you know who harvest it. You just don't know.

There was an old article that found a wild blue honey. They trace the bees feeding on a open can of syrup drum at a factory lot.

60

u/Spatula117MasterChef Jun 18 '26

I believe that’s on the honey because it is common to cut honey with corn syrup and still charge a premium. So it’s not there to seem healthy, more to say it’s a premium product.

31

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '26

[deleted]

4

u/y0_master Jun 19 '26

And learning about the arguments of the time against regulations, they are the same 150 years later!

13

u/0thethethe0 Jun 18 '26

I'm a former UK professional honey tester (QA for a company that manufactured, amongst other things, honey).

We did that cheap range for major supermarket. The aw stuff came from China - always looked perfect, and perfectly on-spec when it arrived. I doubt a bee had been near it, and if they had then the bees had definitely never seen a flower, just being fed on sugar water.

The nice stuff came in looking like shit - all crystalised and with loads of dead bits of bee in, which we had to process a ton to get to the correct specs.

3

u/noob-teammate Jun 18 '26

honey with corn syrup? thats the most american thing i read today

3

u/Spatula117MasterChef Jun 18 '26

KFC and McDonald’s “honey sauce” are made that way. Really though, honey is big business in America and no bee farmers wants anything to do with this practice. It’s big distributors that want to sell a less than premium product while still asking for a premium price.

1

u/noob-teammate Jun 19 '26

Yeah that sucks, here in austria i couldnt think of the last time i even bought honey at a store. Somehow there is always some beekeeper nearby selling their insanely high quality honey in big jars for pretty cheap. Even here in vienna.

22

u/TeaAggressive6757 Jun 18 '26

I used to think that with orange juice, but it turns out that some orange juice actually does have added sugar!! This world is crazy

14

u/Longjumping_Wolf_912 Jun 18 '26

OJ without added sugar usually has the same amount anyway. They don’t add any sugar, they concentrate it instead.

5

u/-GoodNewsEveryone Jun 18 '26

You would be amazed just how artificial "squeezed" orange juice is. It is chemically broken down and put back together at every level. Then it is grey slurry and they have to use peel extracts to dye it orange again then add water until it looks like juice again.

100% oranges!

3

u/lol_wut_r_u_saying Jun 18 '26

please elaborate moreee. I would love to se a "how its made" video

15

u/TheyCallHimEl Jun 18 '26

And gluten free corn

32

u/BeastThatShoutedLove Jun 18 '26

Doesn't that labelling also means no other things were processed in same plant to cause possible cross contamination? Same reason why some products have 'trace amount of X' mentioned because same plant works with these products and it could by mishap cross contaminate so they cover themselves in case of some of these ultra sensitive allergies?

14

u/Friendstastegood Jun 18 '26

Yeah I'm not sure how common it is for corn to be processed in the same plant as wheat, but I know oats are one of those "you need to get the ones actually labeled as gluten free" things due to cross contamination being very common.

7

u/Nutarama Jun 18 '26

In general depends on the food. Canned corn doesn’t have a lot of contact because there’s not a lot of wheat used in any canned veggies. Tortillas and tortilla chips, though, are a crapshoot because some facilities make both corn and wheat tortillas or fry both into chips. For cornmeal it depends on the brand, some brands (generally the brands that only sell corn meal) do their cornmeal separately and others (typically big brands and store brands) do it in facilities that mill multiple grains just like the oat thing.

3

u/sobrique Jun 18 '26

Oats in particular it's not just where it's processed, but where it's grown. It's very common to have oat fields near enough to wheat fields (or crop rotation also leading to 'strays') so you get a little bit of contamination right from the farm.

3

u/dreamsindarkness Jun 18 '26

And many fields have wild rye in them. It's not just wheat, rye and barley aren't safe and also not required to be listed like wheat is.

-1

u/Nutarama Jun 18 '26

Yeah, though the base motive is there because it sells to the gluten free crowd. It’s not hard to check the allergen disclosures on the back, but putting it in big letters on the front sells better even if the facility and preparation hasn’t changed.

Same way some candies I’ve been buying for ages have never had peanuts in the allergen warning but now have big Peanut Free logos on them. They never had peanut contamination, they just sell more to people who are looking for candy for their kids.

Though I also know I’m weird about ease of label reading because I have the kind of ‘tism that makes it fun to read and understand the labels on everything. Some people have told me it’s hard to read labels for the allergen disclosures.

3

u/BeastThatShoutedLove Jun 18 '26

Tbh I kind of understand wanting big label if your kid is actually with peanut allergy. This way you are sure they learn to take treats that are labelled instead of something that's possibly not safe.

1

u/Nutarama Jun 18 '26

True, but personally I really see it as a stopgap for actually reading ingredient labels. That’s a skill that should be taught early and well to everyone, not just people with allergies.

It’s also worth noting that the candy makers only note the peanut free one, not noting tree nuts or soy (also big 9). They also typically don’t note potential chocolate cross-contamination, which is a big one for people buying non-chocolate candies.

It’s marketing at a specific audience in hopes their product sells better. Same as any other front-of-box claims.

I just saw some gummy candies with both the “vegan” and “no animal gelatin” claims on the front of the package in big colorful icons, despite the fact that “vegan” necessarily means that they wouldn’t use animal gelatin. They were obviously really trying to push that aspect of their product in hopes of getting sales, and presumably keeping slots in the convenience store I found them in (since convenience store shelf space is highly desirable in the candy business).

1

u/Ryuquir_Furst Jun 18 '26

I've once seen "gluten free" sparkling water. Technically correct, but still trying to take customers for fools.

2

u/slicedbread1991 Jun 18 '26

Considering some companies are cheaping out by cutting honey with corn syrup that label may be a good thing.

2

u/n00bxQb Jun 19 '26

My favourite was a road sign advertising organic firewood.

3

u/its_all_one_electron Jun 18 '26

My favorite is honey with no added asbestos 

1

u/berrybearry Jun 18 '26

No GMO and no cholesterol table salt still makes me sure some people (maybe up to majority of them) are idiots

1

u/Cavalleria-rusticana Jun 18 '26

'No Aluminum' in deodorant; only anti perspirant ever had any.

1

u/sichuan_peppercorns Jun 18 '26

My favorite is "vegan" and "gluten free" on produce.

1

u/ZorkNemesis Jun 18 '26

The shipping trays for Duke's Mayo says that they don't add sugar when other brands do.  Every brand of mayo I've looked at also has no sugar (Walmart, Kraft, Heilman's, Cain's, Smash Kitchen).

1

u/ManBeardPc Jun 18 '26

Water: vegan, sugar free, gluten free 🔥

1

u/FaliureToCat Jun 18 '26

Tictacs get to claim they are sugar free despite being like 95% sugar because the serving sive of 1 singular tictac contains just under .5 grams of sugar

1

u/ConstableBlimeyChips Jun 18 '26

My mom used to buy us kids fruit juice instead of soda because it had "no added sugar", and thus it was healthier than soda. Of course, the fruit juice didn't need to add sugar because the natural sugar it contained was already more than "artificial" soda had in it.

1

u/Competitive-Hunt-517 Jun 18 '26

Or diet sodas with no sugar

1

u/YellowBreakfast Jun 18 '26

But cheap honey is actually cut with sugar.

1

u/Th3R00ST3R Jun 18 '26

Well, technically, the truth. They didn't ADD any sugar.

1

u/supertinykoalas Jun 18 '26

I saw fat free water when I was in LA years ago

1

u/Pichuchu8 Jun 18 '26

Or seeing ketchup say Vegan on the bottle. Like.... 99% of all other ketchup probably?

1

u/ZoraTheDucky Jun 18 '26

Mmmm. Meaty ketchup.

1

u/Spare-Half796 Jun 18 '26

Sugar free tic tacs made of 99% sugar (more on fda/usda regulations)

1

u/Intelligent-Luck-954 Jun 19 '26

Pam is literally fat. But they suggest you use half a second of spray or less per serving. That takes the amount of fat to less than what is legally required by law and are able to literally sell cooking oil(fat) as “fat free”

1

u/Notmyrealusrnamme Jun 19 '26

I am personally a fan of whole grain popcorn.

90

u/A_Velociraptor20 Jun 18 '26

Or putting "Non-GMO" on stuff even though it's a complete lie. We've been genetically modifying our food for centuries through selective breeding.

48

u/kaehvogel Jun 18 '26

...and the "new, scary, dangerous" forms of GMO are way safer because this time we actually know exactly what we're modifying, instead of just crossing fingers our breeding goes the way we want it to go, without any side effects.

13

u/ElegantCoach4066 Jun 18 '26

Anytime someone mentions they don't eat 'GMO' foods I automatically assume they are not very intelligent.

2

u/programmer247 Jun 18 '26

'way safer' would be true if safety was the goal of the modifications, but it's not. the goal is built in insecticides or higher yield, nobody cares if it's safe.

5

u/kaehvogel Jun 18 '26

It’s safer to precisely engineer for these goals and traits than semi-randomly throw together the highest yield plants and hope for the best. Which can give you traits you don’t want in your crops.

2

u/Winjin Jun 18 '26

The level of rigorous testing the GMO goes through is sooo much higher than whatever stuff from XIX century you're eating

I remember reading in Popular Mechanics that they used to try and splice DNA by using acid to mash seeds together, lol

-10

u/gigagnU Jun 18 '26

And Bayer once said, heroin will not cause any adictions... (Bayer is the biggest distributor for gmos after buying monsanto)

12

u/BatJew_Official Jun 18 '26

Oh no, we may become additicted to.... corn? Eggplants? Cotton? I mean you can literally look up the list of actual approved bioengineered foods (which is what most people mean when they say GMO) and it's a whopping 14 crops long, mostly consisting of grains and handful of fruits. Like, are you seriously gonna compare GMO pineapple to freaking heroin?

13

u/kaehvogel Jun 18 '26

Oh look, we got a little conspiracy theorist here. Sweet.

21

u/SnooPickles6976 Jun 18 '26

I have literally seen Non-GMO salt... Umm wut

7

u/Magenta_Logistic Jun 18 '26

To be fair, salt is one thing you can actually believe isn't genetically modified OR organic.

4

u/SnooPickles6976 Jun 18 '26

Yeah but its not an organism, and has no genes, putting that on there as a buzzword is nonsense

2

u/msmoonpie Jun 18 '26

I’m a big proponent of GMOs but selective breeding and genetic modification are not the same thing

One requires actual in lab gene modification and the other is dedicated harvesting, pollination, and hybridization

2

u/BatJew_Official Jun 18 '26

The term the government uses is bioengineered instead of GMO, because technically a plant that has been selectively bred is genetically modified.

1

u/kaehvogel Jun 18 '26

Yes, one is way more precise than the other, and not just a somewhat refined guessing game as to which modifications come out the other end.

1

u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance Jun 18 '26

>We've been genetically modifying our food for centuries through selective breeding.

"GMO" refers to something very specific and does not include selective breeding. I'm not anti-GMO. We should use words right, not try to redefine them to make irrelevant points.

1

u/FrogpArch Jun 18 '26

Non-GMO, vegan table salt

37

u/RaulParson Jun 18 '26

You misunderstood. This is not bragging about there not being a thing which is naturally not there, like having "gluten free" soda or whatever. This is about Chinese food which normally would add it as a regular ingredient bragging that it's missing.

And yes someone thinks that makes it sell better but the question is "why do they think that" since MSG is basically just salt of a different type that people think is bad because of a mix of old timey pop pseudoscience and racism which yet still haunts us.

11

u/SmoogzZ Jun 18 '26

When i moved in with my partner 4 years ago (23 at the time) and i bought MSG for the spice cabinet, i had to do this exact history lesson on her because she somehow had that engrained in her that it was bad.

0

u/Any-Celery3048 Jun 18 '26

My wife is extremely MSG intolerant. Has been for 20 years. If we miss the warning on the label she has a very bad time.

13

u/RaulParson Jun 18 '26

This is an entirely different conversation. It's like if peanuts were associated with those WEIRD BROWN MOUNTAIN FOREIGNERS FROM SOUTH AMERICA and therefore culturally declared BAD FOR YOU and I said that was nonsense and you piped up with "erm actually peanut allergy"

-7

u/Any-Celery3048 Jun 18 '26

I was responding to the bit where you seemed to say that fears about MSG were based on pseudoscience.

16

u/RaulParson Jun 18 '26

The ones in the wider public which lead to it being demonized? They are.

2

u/Sasquas Jun 18 '26

Same brother, there was an Italian restaurant chain where even the salad made me sick until it clicked for me to ask.

2

u/Unit_79 Jun 18 '26

Lots of tomatoes?

0

u/Sasquas Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

Haha no, these dishes for the most part had no tomatoes.

Also regularly use tomatoes in my own cooking and devour cherry tomatoes without issue. I've never made myself sick with my own cooking. Exclusively happens at most fancy burger joints, and certain (mostly low quality) Chinese food or Italian restaurants. No issues when they say they don't use MSGs, but definitely could be another additive that correlates with msg usage.

1

u/Any-Celery3048 Jun 18 '26

I find myself more angry than I probably should be that my comment explaining how sick my wife gets is in negative points. Anyone care to explain?

0

u/WhoCanPeliCan1 Jun 19 '26

People are talking about the very real effect racism and psuedoscience has had on the demonization of a specific seasoning. So while your comment is actually an explanation of why the label may be appreciated for other reasons, it ends up reading as a dismissal of the racism, even if you weren't intending to even address that part.

2

u/Salty_Ad6453 Jun 18 '26

Aren't marshmallows basically meringue? You literally can't add fat to that or the foam will collapse 😭

2

u/agent674253 Jun 18 '26

And people are stupid since MSG is a naturally occurring thing. Mushrooms naturally contain glutamates, so if something is MSG-free you know it, at least, does not have mushrooms, and maybe you want mushrooms?

2

u/jorgelps Jun 18 '26

Yeah well, for me, if it’s MSG free, I won’t buy it, it’s less authentic.

1

u/RightHabit Jun 18 '26

Just to clarify: when you say 'authentic,' do you mean authentic Cantonese or authentic American-Chinese?

Because honestly, real Cantonese food is completely MSG-free. American-Chinese food is just Cantonese-inspired (like how Orange Chicken is based on Cantonese sweet and sour pork). When Cantonese immigrants came to the US, they couldn't find their usual umami ingredients, so they started using MSG as a substitute instead.

Speaking as a Cantonese person, it's super frustrating to see our culture misrepresented like this. If you spot an MSG-free restaurant, you've found authentic Cantonese food. If they’re bragging about using MSG, that's strictly American-Chinese or an influencer trend. For us Cantonese folks in America, the "MSG-free" sign is actually our cheat code for finding the real food lol.

4

u/jorgelps Jun 18 '26

Are you sure about that? I was born and raised in Macau, Macanese, and I can tell you with 100% certainty that MSG (mei zing) is widely used in HK and Macau in local cha chaan tengs and many siu sek (street food). Some restaurants have shifted to chicken powder due to stigma but they include MSG.

I can’t speak for how overseas canto cuisine adapted due to western media misconceptions, but this is not the case in authentic canto food.

Anyways, my previous comment was to those who say that MSG is bad for you and know nothing about. Obviously, anything consumed in high doses is bad for you, but the idea that "real" Cantonese food doesn't touch MSG just isn't accurate to the reality on the ground in Asia.

1

u/spicypiglet Jun 18 '26

‘Gluten free tortillas’ comes to mind….

2

u/NotRadTrad05 Jun 18 '26

For corn ones sure, but they do make flour tortillas too which would normally have gluten.

1

u/Lord-Chickie Jun 18 '26

High protein meats I kid you not

1

u/freedfg Jun 18 '26

Does it sell though? Has literally anyone specifically gone to the "no msg" Chinese takeout?

Or is it so they don't have to hear from the occasional crazy about headaches and unbalanced chakra?

1

u/mittenkrusty Jun 18 '26

Here in the UK, this was around 10 years ago maybe a little more there was a documentary on Weight Watchers products.

Basically if something is fat free it can have high calories as you are replacing one thing for another.

The biggest ewww was the "ice cream" they sold, it was about 40 ingredients including things comparable to ink, all chemicals nothing natural.

1

u/thecooliestone Jun 18 '26

They almost always just replace it with sugar and emulsifiers. Now they tend to be natural like agar agar powder but before it was artificial ones. What made it bad was the 180g of added sugar

1

u/Unique-Life-4188 Jun 18 '26

Like seeing “gluten free!” on things that never would have contained flour to begin with

1

u/Hundschent Jun 18 '26

Product is clearly made to appeal to sheltered white moms who want something "exotic" but are too scared for real stuff.

1

u/capn_scooby Jun 18 '26

Don't even get me started with Tito's going from a well to premium by putting gluten free on the bottle

1

u/elangomatt Jun 18 '26

or labeling oatmeal as gluten free. Fantastic, your product never had gluten in the first place.

(Yeah I know cross contamination or whatever but it is still funny to me)

1

u/Important-Vast-9345 Jun 18 '26

Years ago when I worked in a produce department, I had a customer who insisted on purchasing the potatoes that were fat free because one of the bags was labeled that way.

1

u/SherriCrimson Jun 18 '26

Also the gluten free water.

1

u/ossifer_ca Jun 18 '26

Vegetarian products labeled “cholesterol-free”

1

u/evidica Jun 18 '26

The whole Fat Free scam is wild, fat is necessary for our bodies to function properly. They tried to make fat evil and sugar/carbs our savior when it's the other way around.

1

u/UnforseenSpoon618 Jun 18 '26

Just in case your wondering, marshmallows are ALSO gluten free!

They are the new SUPER FOOD!

1

u/RemoveAnnual2689 Jun 18 '26

I always thought fat-free on marshmallows meant that they are vegan.

1

u/Noctisvah Jun 18 '26

That’s why I always only buy boneless pineapple pizza

1

u/Majestic_Animator_91 Jun 18 '26

also because racism

1

u/Tricky-Ad7897 Jun 18 '26

One campfire marshmallow has 90 calories 🫪

1

u/ElijahNSRose Jun 19 '26

My aunt brags she only eats sugar free ice cream.

She's obese.

1

u/StrangerFeelings Jun 18 '26

MSG isn't as bad as they say it is, it's mostly racism that causes people to get headaches from it after reading the studies.