Food + MSG = 0 winks

I had dinner with some friends at a Vietnamese restaurant yesterday. It was a fun night out - plenty of laughs and good conversation. Strawberries dipped in milk chocolate (dark would've been better) was an excellent way to end the night.

Except the night didn't end there. In fact, it felt like the night didn't end at all as I lay tossing and turning in my bed. As the hours dragged by, I finally managed to get some fitful rest but that didn't stop me from feeling like a jetlagged grouchy bear today.

Determined to find out what kept me awake all night, I started hunting for clues online. Turns out my mother was right about Monosodium Glutamate affecting sleep. Even Merck's Online Medical Library agrees. Some people are so affected by MSG that they experience awareness during sleep paralysis - scary stuff that involves being able to look around the room (eyes not fully open) and seeing ghosts and demons. Apparently the condition has been blamed for claims of alien abductions and ghost sightings. Hmm... it would be interesting to see if the frequency of these reports increased after the proliferation of MSG.

Anyway, I suspect that the Vietnamese restaurant used MSG in its cooking. Grr... Of course, like everything else, different people have different sensitivities to MSG. But this grouchy bear is declaring a HEX ON MSG!