New campaign aims to address racist stereotypes around MSG and Chinese food

A coalition of activists is publicly calling on the New England Journal of Medicine to address its role in creating stigma and racist stereotypes around Chinese food in the U.S.

Why it matters: San Francisco, home to America's oldest Chinatown, is one of eight U.S. counties where at least 1 in 4 restaurants serve Asian food .

Catch up quick: In 1968, the medical journal published a letter to the editor from Robert Ho Man Kwok, who wrote about experiencing a "strange syndrome" — like numbness and palpitations — from eating at some Chinese restaurants.

• Kwok didn't use the term "Chinese restaurant syndrome" in his letter, which pointed to cooking wine and sodium as potential factors, but the journal published it with the term as its headline.
• The media frenzy spun out from there and soon linked it to MSG, creating a narrative that "demonized Chinese food," said Tia M. Rains, vice president of science at food company Ajinomoto.
• These beliefs "built upon long-held suspicions that Chinese culture and practices were somehow unclean, excessive or inscrutable," food historian Ian Mosby wrote in a 2012 article .

Context: Created in the early 1900s by Ajinomoto's co-founder, MSG serves as the chemical basis for umami and is used in cuisines around the world. However, for decades, Chinatowns like the one in San Francisco endured baseless narratives about the additive making their food unhealthy.

• Many restaurants in the Bay Area lost business, faced harassment and stopped using the ingredients. Some resigned themselves to preemptively displaying " No MSG " placards.
• "It's been an ongoing issue," Jenny Leung, executive director of the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, told Axios. "Especially with immigrant small businesses, it's harder for them to navigate … these negative stereotypes about their own food."
• Even today, plenty of Reddit threads are devoted to helping users verify local Chinese restaurants without MSG. Google searches also yield lists of " Best No MSG Chinese Food " in San Francisco.

Reality check: The FDA classifies MSG, a naturally occurring amino acid, as a safe ingredient . Multiple studies have debunked claims of widespread health effects.

• It's no different from sugar and salt, Oakland native and "Top Chef" alum Tu David Phu told Axios. "Use in moderation, just like everything else."
• And despite its association with Chinese cooking, MSG is found in all kinds of foods, including mushrooms and cheese, and enhances flavors in cuisines ranging from Italian to Canadian.
• It's even shown some health benefits — using it instead of salt can reduce the amount of sodium in some food products, according to Rains.

The latest: The call from the coalition, supported by Ajinomoto, comes in the wake of the medical journal's recent efforts to reckon with its complicity in slavery .

• "For decades, 'Chinese Restaurant Syndrome' spawned baseless fears, not just about Chinese food, but all Asian cuisines," states their letter.
• "To this day, the stigma of Chinese Restaurant Syndrome lives on, with 29% of Asian people in the U.S. having personally experienced it," it notes, citing a YouGov-Ajinomoto survey published in April.
• "We believe this is an important step towards ending the chapter on this xenophobic myth and, hopefully, retiring this racist phrase once and for all."

The other side: The New England Journal of Medicine did not return a request for comment.

The big picture: Despite the research debunking Chinese restaurant syndrome, fears around MSG continued.

• About 20% of Americans say they avoid Chinese food entirely due to MSG, per the YouGov-Ajinomoto survey.

What they're saying: The stigma "really has pushed people away from our food," chef Calvin Eng , who owns the Cantonese American restaurant Bonnie's in New York City, told Axios.

• It manifests in everyday interactions for Kat Lieu , who authored the cookbook, "Modern Asian Baking at Home." Posting online content with recipes that use MSG automatically results in comments like "disgusting," she told Axios.
• Phu similarly encountered people who'd ask him to remove MSG from his menus and imply they couldn't trust his cooking.
• "That's the reason I started doing pop-ups," he added. "I got really sick of restaurants because I was continually told that 'you can't use Asian ingredients, we're about health.'"

Between the lines: Chinese restaurant syndrome hasn't just affected people in the food industry. The underlying racism needs to be addressed, according to Leung.

• "Growing up with that stigma that Chinese restaurants and Chinese food is dirty or shameful ... translates to Chinese people being seen as the same," Lieu said.
• "My good fight is for children who look like me in America to ... be able to enjoy their food without feeling stigmatized."