In Indonesia, Ajinomoto’s MSG has come under fire over its credentials as a ‘halal’ food for Muslims. But in the United States, its monosodium glutamate is controversial for another reason: there are widespread suggestions that it can damage your health.

It was Kikunae Ikeda, a professor of physical chemistry at the Imperial University of Tokyo, who discovered monosodium glutamate in 1908. Now known widely just as MSG, the food