As in the title, a lot of chinese recipes have this, now I know there are many explanations out there for it, but I haven't found anyone who has used it to advise me that a recipe needs it.

So a few questions:
Do I need it?
What does it do?
Is there a substitute?

Gets you addicted to Chinese Takeaways....

It's a "flavour enhancer". It's not just in Chinese food, it's in lots and lots of processed foods.

I would have thought that good, fresh ingredients should have enough flavour by themselves, without needing chemical enhancements.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate

It tricks the brain into thinking that the food tastes much better than it actually does. It's the reason pregnant women are told to avoid Chinese Takeaways. But then again, it's in pretty much everything nowadays like drinks, crisps, medicines/vitamins, frozen food, yoghurts, you name it. Most of the time they just call it 'flavouring'.

MSG contains a huge amount of salt. It is the reason many people need loads of water after a Chinese meal. It is probably not good for you if you have high blood pressure or you have a history of strokes in your family. Mind you, a little bit of what you fancy probably does little harm.

MSG doesn't contain any salt, it's a completely different chemical although food containing MSG is likely to be loaded with salt too.

Whats good now is that some restaurants (esp Chinese ) have signs to say NO MSG! My sis in law is violently sick if she has any food that contains MSG.

It gives my Mum the trots

MSG is the sodium salt of the amino acid glutamic acid.

My father in law has that problem too,and whenever he has chinese. We're convinced its because of the msg. He also gets sick and headachy.

Ah, just got back to ma thread, thanks for all the help people.
After reading this I'm a give MSG a complete miss. Cheers

quick quizz for you...

do you know of any songs which mention monosodium glutamate?

Thats a great thing to have in a song.