David Downie wrote:

> (from a vietnamese chef) who said that if you add MSG to every dish
> everything ends up tasting like MSG. I don't know if that's true or
not.

You can't "taste" MSG, it augments the flavour of the dish that it is
being added to. Sometimes when we eat out and the dish tastes
suspiciously intense we would surmise that MSG has been added. The
worst it can do taste-wise is over stimulate your taste buds so you get
addicted to it. It does makes me thirsty afterwards however.

> whether having MSG in it was normal.

it is "normal" in the sense that many commercial stuff contain it now.
If you don't have a reaction to it, I would suggest not to worry about
it. You should be more worried about things like chemical preservations
e.g. BHT and BHA which "may" be carcinogenic.