Does anyone else get these? I've found that any free-glutamate food causes me to twitch (in moderate doses) and fatigue (in high doses)
The worst offender so far was a packet of chips (yeast), and a very MSG-laden Italian restaurant meal.
I realize that the mayo-MSG myth is half based off racism, but I think there's a kernel of truth, which is that too much free-glutamate just causes cellular excitation. Meaning the cell is expending energy faster than it can create it.
My mom has that too. Glutamate should be too polar to normally cross the blood-brain barrier, but it would not surprise me if there was some kind of genetic polymorphism that does make it cross in small amounts. It would explain your and my mom's symptoms.
How are you sure that it's crossing the BBB, and not causing those symptoms through some other pathway?
I guess I'm not completely sure. But I associate those symptoms with excess glutamate in the central nervous system, which I've experienced from benzo withdrawal and read a lot about. It could also be happening in the peripheral nervous system as glutamate receptors are also expressed there, but I'll admit that I don't know much about glutamate's role outside of the CNS.
I also get no symptoms when eating meat. It's specifically the free glutamates (imagine meat being whole wheat bread and soy sauce being white flour) which cause problems.