My son is allergic to wheat, eggs, peanuts and to a mild extent soy, although he still eats plenty of it. He avoids MSG and gets angry when manufacturers use it as an ingredient in something he could otherwise eat (I can relate, I get upset when I find barley malt as an ingredient in something that would otherwise be gluten-free). He learned to read very early, and some of the first words he learned to recognize were his allergens. He has read his own labels at least since he was 4, but still won't touch anything new before running it by me first. I'll let him read my labels too because sometimes he catches things I miss (like barley). I am not anaphylactic to my list of no-no's, but he carries an epi-pen for peanuts. He seems to be outgrowing wheat, but not egg yet.

In our experience, MSG is an allergen potentiator, which is why we avoid it (plus the fact that it signals that there are other "unnatural" ingredients in a product and we try to eat as pure as we can).

MNS