In May this year, the medical journal Clinical & Experimental Allergy published a review of more than a decade of scientific research into "the possible role of MSG in the so-called 'Chinese restaurant syndrome'".

    Chinese restaurant syndrome is the popular slang for allergies or adverse reactions that some people claim they get after eating food containing the flavour-enhancer monsodium glutamate, or MSG, that is widely used in many processed foods and also added to many Asian dishes.

    What is amazing about the publication of this research is not that it concludes MSG allergy is a myth, but that a scientific journal still needs to bother debunking such pseudoscience at all. As the New York Times put it in an article by Julia Moskin published last year, "'Chinese restaurant syndrome' has been thoroughly debunked （virtually all studies since then confirm that monosodium glutamate in normal concentrations has no effect on the overwhelming majority of people）".

    This newspaper published an article in 2005 by Alex Renton that says "at no time has any official body, governmental or academic, ever found it necessary to warn humans against consuming MSG".

    Renton also writes about experimenting on a friend of his named Nic, who claimed to have adverse reactions to MSG: Renton feeds him a meal full of the MSG and closely related naturally occurring glutamates that are found in a huge range of foods including tomatoes, cheese, Marmite, seaweed and Worcester sauce. But Nic feels no pain or adverse reaction after his glutamate-stuffed meal.

    That's because he did not know he was eating MSG and other glutamates: like everyone else who complains of allergy or adverse reactions to MSG, Nic has psyched himself into believing that the benign substance makes him feel bad.

    In China, where I live, you don't hear many complaints about MSG allergy. They're too busy gorging themselves on the stuff. Chinese people consume 1.6m to 1.8m tonnes of MSG crystals every year, according to China's "MSG King" Li Xuechun, chairman of the Fufeng Group – a company that grew big enough to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange thanks to sales of MSG.

    Most restaurants and home kitchens in China have a big bag of MSG crystals, known in Chinese as weijing, or "flavour essence", and they toss it liberally into all kinds of savoury dishes. Even chefs who don't use glutamate crystals use soy sauce in most recipes, and soy sauce tastes good precisely because it's chock full of glutamates.

    Your clothes, your kids' toys and most of the stuff you own was probably produced in factories in southern China by migrant workers who power through their overtime shifts by eating instant noodles, of which MSG is a vital ingredient. Instant noodles form a big part of the diet of the country's more than 20 million university students, and you certainly don't hear any of them complaining about Chinese restaurant syndrome.

    Nor do Italians complain about headaches after eating parmesan cheese （which tastes good because of the glutamates in it）, Japanese don't worry about eating too much seaweed or dried shrimp （ditto）, and even in Britain you don't often hear whining about adverse reactions to Marmite （ditto）; you certainly don't get warnings from your doctor about the dangers of human breast milk to babies （ditto）.

    The fact is that unless you're eating bucket-loads of the stuff, MSG and its naturally occurring cousins are not going to do you any harm.

    The persistence of the Chinese restaurant syndrome myth is a symptom of the hypochondria that has become fashionable in contemporary Anglo-American culture, and the failure of our educational systems to teach people the difference between quackery and hard science.

    今年5月，《臨床與實驗性過敏》（Clinical & Experimental Allergy）醫學期刊發表文章，回顧了十多年來，對"味精在所謂的'中國餐館綜合癥'中的潛在作用"所作的科學研究。

    中國餐館綜合癥是流行用語，指有些人聲稱的在進食了含增強鮮味的味精（monsodium glutamate,或簡稱MSG）之后所產生的過敏或不良反應。味精被廣泛用于食品加工，也被添加到許多亞洲菜肴中。

    這項研究報告的令人驚訝之處，并不在于它作出了"味精過敏是一個謬論"的結論，而在于一份科學雜志仍然需要不厭其煩地揭露偽科學的謊言。正如去年《紐約時報》朱莉婭·莫斯金（Julia Moskin）的文章所說，"'中國餐館綜合征'一說已被徹底揭穿（幾乎所有的研究已經證實，正常濃度的味精對絕大多數人不造成影響）".

    這份報紙在2005年曾發表了一篇署名阿萊克斯·萊頓（Alex Renton）的文章，文中說道："從來沒有任何正式的政府或者學術機構認為有必要對人們使用味精發出警告".

    萊頓在文章中還談到自己在朋友尼克身上所做的實驗。尼克聲稱對味精有不良反應，于是，萊頓在給他吃的菜肴里加了味精，或者加了與味精密切相關的天然谷氨酸--許多食物含谷氨酸，如番茄、奶酪、酵母提取物、海草和辣醬油等。不過，尼克在吃完一頓富含谷氨酸的飯菜之后，并沒有感到哪里疼痛或有什么不良反應。

    原因在于他不知道自己吃了味精或其他谷氨酸：像其他任何一個抱怨對味精過敏或有不良反應的人一樣，尼克已經神經過敏了，誤以為這種良性物質會讓自己感到不舒服。

    在我生活的中國，你很少會聽到味精過敏一類的投訴。人們對這玩意兒愛得不亦樂乎。根據中國"味精大王"阜豐集團（一家因銷售味精而發展起來在香港聯交所上市的公司）的董事長兼總裁李學純的測算，中國人每年的味精消費量在160萬至180萬噸左右。

    在中國，大多數餐館和家庭廚房都有一大袋MSG結晶體，中文稱作味精，或"調味品",人們在各種風味的菜肴里都擱上一點兒。即使不使用谷氨酸晶體的廚師，也會在大多數菜肴里加點醬油。醬油口味鮮美，正是因為含有豐富的谷氨酸。

    你穿的衣服、你孩子的玩具、你的大部分物品可能就是中國南部的農民工加班加點生產的，而給他們身體提供動力的是速泡面--味精是其中不可或缺的配料。速泡面也是中國2000多萬大學生的重要食品，你肯定沒有聽到他們哪個在抱怨患了"中餐館綜合癥".

    意大利人吃完巴爾馬干酪（口味絕佳，因為含谷氨酸）,沒有抱怨頭痛；日本人沒有擔心海藻或蝦米吃得過多（理由同上）;甚至在英國，你很少聽到有關酵母提取物引發不良反應的牢騷（理由同上）;你也肯定無法從你的醫生那里得到母乳喂養嬰兒會有危險的警告（理由同上）.

    事實是，除非你把味精當飯吃，否則它和它的天然表兄不會對你造成任何傷害。

    對"中餐館綜合癥"謬論的固執堅持其實就是一種臆想癥的癥狀，它已經成為當代英美文化的時尚，也是我們教育體制的失敗--因為它沒有教會人們如何辨別江湖騙術和自然科學。