Why I avoid MSG
Posted by Tara on Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
What is MSG? It is an acronym for mono-sodium glutamate and chemical touted as a poison by many health practitioners around the country. I really do not need anyone to tell me how unhealthy it is. All I have to do is eat something that contains MSG and my heart begins to pound or skip beats or go into an episode of AFIB . So I avoid this food additive and therefore must be careful when dining out. And it can be disguised as by other names on food labels. So one reason I try to cook so much from scratch is to avoid chemicals and MSG in the food I eat and serve my family. Below is part of an article from Mercola.com on MSG just in case you need more reasons to eliminate it from your diet.
MSG is used in countless foods in your supermarket, local restaurants, school cafeterias, and more. Everything from soup to crackers to meats may contain it because MSG, as dangerous as it is, makes food taste good and it is dirt cheap, just like sugar.
Incredibly, even infant formulas and baby food contain this poison, even though babies and infants, who are four times more sensitive than adults to the toxic effects of this chemical, are the most at risk.
There are a couple of main reasons why MSG is one of the worst food additives on the market. First, as Dr. Blaylock, author of the highly recommended Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills, says in the video, MSG is an excitotoxin, which means that it overexcites your cells to the point of damage, acting as a poison. The second part of the equation is that MSG can be literally hidden in food labels, under names like broth, casein, hydrolyzed, autolyzed, and more, making it extremely difficult to identify.
MSG is also a probable cause contributing to the obesity epidemic. As the FDA continues to vouch for its safety, scientists have known that MSG causes obesity since the 1960s!
It is clearly not worth a few bites of tasty junk food to give your body the green light to produce visceral fat, the most dangerous type that surrounds your organs and increases your risk of heart attack, stroke, insomnia, type 2 diabetes, and more.
Yet, that is exactly what you’re doing when you eat foods that contain MSG.
Eliminating MSG from your diet is a wise choice for everyone, including pregnant women. To do so, stick to natural, unprocessed foods. And, if you do eat processed foods, be on the lookout for the many hidden names for MSG on food labels. They include (but are far from limited to):
- Gelatin
- Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP)
- Yeast Extract
- Malted Barley
- Rice Syrup or Brown Rice Syrup
The dangers surrounding MSG are, perhaps, most concerning for new moms who are unable to breastfeed, and are looking for an alternative to the MSG-laden infant formulas on the market. Fortunately, women who are unable to breastfeed can make an extremely nutritious, MSG-free infant formula for their baby using raw milk.
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