Saturday’s Secrets: Week 9

1957 was a momentous year for Ajinomoto Co, Inc. That was when the extraction process used to produce the manufactured free glutamate (MfG) in MSG was replaced by a method that could turn out a virtually unlimited supply of MfG. Soon, there was so much MfG used in processed foods and drinks that enough became available to cause both the obesity epidemic and the fertility crisis — and possibly the surge in glutamate-induced abnormalities that occurred after 1957.