Restaurants Don't Have A Clue! (corrected)

It’s your typical Saturday night and you are meeting friends at a local watering hole to celebrate a birthday. You, who are prone to vertigo, order a Vodka on lots of ice, neat (can’t have citrus), that you will just sip and make last a long time. It’s “chancy” to finish it because you want to make it through the night without spinning. Sparkling Water will head the second round for you. You’re about to order food but first you ask the waiter, “Does the Ginger Chicken have any MSG in it?” He comes back and reports from the chef that there is no Soy Sauce in the recipe. You laugh because you know that they are clueless. It’s not their fault. Most people don’t recognize MSG in all its emerging forms. If only you could talk to the chef and ask which ingredients are not fresh (come in a bottle or can) and then read the labels on those items. If only you could oversea what they do to the fresh food items - how do they handle the fresh food before they cook it? Is it coated? Marinated? Aged? None of this is going to happen but if it did, you would look for:

Hydrolyzed Protein Textured Protein Sodium or Calcium Caseinate

Yeast Extract Autolyzed Yeast Whey Protein Glutamic Acid

Gelation Natural Flavor/flavorings Broth/Stock/Bouillon Soy

Protein Concentrate/isolate Malt Extract Malted Barley Maltodextrin

Carageenan       Kombu or Seaweed Extract     Fermented/Cultured 

items Ultra-pasteurized items Enzyme Modified Items

So - What is in the marinade or just sprinkled on the fresh chicken?
What’s in the sauce? What’s in the light breaded coating?

(By the way, check your flour to see if it has malted barley in it. I was surprised to find that my highly rated, organic, flour did have it.)

If this were me and I felt good and had not been exposed to many triggers that day, I would order the chicken and only eat a little of the sauce. I would carefully order my other food items for the night. For me, loud talking in a noisy restaurant really aggravates my problems.

There are certain foods that contain high levels of free glutamic acid so you must approach them carefully. These are: corn, green peas, mushrooms, tomatoes, some aged cheeses like Parmesan and Blue Cheese, grapes and grape juice. And when canned, these levels increase for tomatoes: paste, sauce, juice, chopped and pureed. If these are a trigger for you, they must be significantly reduced and rotated, or eliminated, from the diet.