Children can be quite picky about food as they grow up, mainly because they are in a crucial developmental stage, and improper dietary choices may have adverse effects on their bodies. Therefore, parents need to carefully select food for their children. There are concerns about children consuming monosodium glutamate (MSG), especially because certain chemical components in MSG may be detrimental to their health. This has made many parents worry about whether MSG is truly suitable for their children to consume.
Infants should try to avoid consuming MSG. The main component of MSG, sodium glutamate, can combine with zinc in the blood of young children to form non-absorbable zinc glutamate, which may lead to zinc deficiency in infants, affecting their taste, appetite, intellectual development, and growth rate. This impact is particularly significant for infants under one year old. It is generally recommended that children can try a small amount of MSG after the age of one, but it is best to wait until they are three years old before adding it in moderation.
As for the recommended intake of MSG, according to the Chinese Nutrition Society’s guidelines, the daily sodium intake for children under four years old should not exceed 700 milligrams (equivalent to about 1.8 grams of salt). Considering that meat, eggs, dairy products, soy products, and various vegetables in daily diet already contain sodium, the total amount of additional sodium-containing seasonings like salt or MSG should not exceed 1 gram per day.
As for whether MSG is harmful to the health of adults, numerous authoritative institutions have provided reassuring answers based on research. This includes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Health Organization, as well as the European Food Safety Authority, which have all classified MSG as a safe substance in food after multiple scientific studies. In other words, currently there is no scientific evidence to suggest that MSG poses a threat to human health, and moderate use of MSG in daily adult diet is safe.
