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My interest in the subject can be traced back to the day I realized that my husband Jack went into anaphylactic shock after eating a meal that contained MSG... Inspired by Jack's life-threatening sensitivity to MSG, I set out to uncover what foods I could serve my husband without bringing on a reaction. I reviewed the medical literature, read widely in the literature of food science and technology, read material pertaining to glutamate and MSG in the files of the FDA, researched the history of the continued FDA approval of MSG as generally recognized as safe (GRAS), and corresponded and met with Dr. John Olney, the neuroscientist who was the first to recognize the fact that glutamate is an excitotoxic - brain damaging - amino acid... The sidebar article, How we Know What We Know, tracks my path from ignorance to knowledge.