MSG: The Food Enhancer That Kills

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Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) is a food additive that was discovered in 1908 by Dr. Kikunae Ikeda, a chemist at the Imperial University of Tokyo. Shortly after he isolated MSG, he joined his friend, Dr. Saburosuke Suzuki and formed Ajinomoto, the famous company that started the MSG craze. A few years later, millions of Japanese started to used this food enhancer. After World War 2, MSG also became very popular in the United States and many western countries. Today MSG is added to a wide variety of food, such as soups, fast food, chips, frozen foods, microwave foods, canned foods, junk food and even baby food. Parents with infants should be careful when feeding their infant baby food because if the food contained hydrolyzed proteins, it has MSG in it. Some baby food manufacturers tried to sneak MSG in their baby products by adding caseinate, chicken broth or beef broth.

Many independent researchers that are not influenced by the food industry, suggested that MSG played an important role for neurodegenerative brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease. Many neuroscientists classified MSG as an excitotoxin because they believed it destroyed neurons in cells. Excitotoxins destroys cells by basically frying them. When a cell’s neurons come in contact with excitotoxins, they get very excited and start to fire their impulses like crazy. This can destroy the neurons and ultimately the cell itself. From experimenting MSG on animals, many neuroscientists found out that it caused blindness and brain damage to them. They concluded that MSG had destroyed most of the nerve cells in their retinas and in certain areas of their brains. The neuroscientists who tried to warned the public didn’t got far. They decided to keep their mouth shut because they were being threatened by certain food industries.

Other independent studies hypothesized that MSG could interfered with brain development in children. This could lead to learning difficulties and behavior problems. They also suggested that MSG and other excitotoxins are one of the main reasons why there is an increase of degenerative brain disease, such as Alzheimer’s. One of the worst excitotoxins is hydrolyzed vegetable protein because it contained not one, but three excitotoxins, which are cystoic acid, glutamate and aspartate. Manufacturers of hydrolyzed vegetable protein can claim that the ingredient is natural. In reality, it is not because the vegetable has to go through a few chemical processes to produce the hydrolyzed protein. Another dangerous excitotoxin is NutraSweet, an artificial sweetener which also contain aspartate. NutraSweet is considered more dangerous because it is used in many diet drinks. Excitotoxins in liquid get absorb easier by the body, therefore can cause more damages. Independent researchers had linked excitotoxins to disorders of the nervous system and the brain. For example: strokes, seizures, migraine, headaches, hypoglycemic brain damage and hypoxic brain damage.

The food industries which use MSG as additives, are always finding ways to disguise MSG from their food products. Two of the main reasons why they are so obsess with MSG is that it makes food taste a lot better and it is very profitable. Because people are starting to realize how dangerous MSG is, the food industry came up with some clever disguising techniques. Below are some tips to help you avoid food that contain MSG. Keep in mind that just because a food is labeled “No MSG”, doesn’t mean that it is free of MSG.

Food additives that always contain MSG:

• Monosodium Glutamate
• Hydrolyzed Protein
• Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein
• Hydrolyzed Plant Protein
• Plant Protein Extract
• Textured Protein
• Calcium Caseinate
• Sodium Caseinate
• Yeast Extract
• Autolyzed Yeast
• Hydrolyzed Oat Flour

Food additives that frequently contain MSG:

• Bouillon
• Broth
• Stock
• Malt Extract
• Malt Flavoring
• Seasoning
• Flavoring
• Natural Flavoring
• Natural Beef Flavoring
• Natural Chicken Flavoring
• Spices

Food additives that may contain MSG:

• Enzymes
• Soy Protein Concentrate
• Carrageenan
• Soy protein Isolate
• Whey Protein Concentrate

Related Posts:

• Artificial Sweetener – Good or Bad
• The Danger of Equal Sweetener

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