Even if you don’t know much about nutrition, you probably know that MSG is bad news.
Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a flavour enhancer most commonly thought of as turning up in Chinese food, but the fact is that it’s also used in many of the processed foods lining your grocery store shelves.
I found it in dill pickle chips last week!
According to Discovery Health:
MSG has been labeled an excitotoxin because it is thought to have the ability to overstimulate cells to death. Many people link headaches, flushing, poor attention and other symptoms, as well as diseases like fibromyalgia, to MSG intake.
Doesn’t sound like a super-food to me.
Where it gets tricky, however, is that glutamate is a naturally occurring amino acid that the body uses and needs. The problems start (as usual) when we start messing with the natural form in order to make it do something we want it to do (in this case enhance the flavour of otherwise bland foods).
When we start messing with the natural form of glutamate, we create sythetic or “free” glutamate – a form that is not found in nature and that the body is not all that good at metabolizing.
It’s this synthetic form that is the active ingredient in monosodium glutamate and that causes these unpleasant symptoms for so many people.
Okay, so all you need to do is check the labels of the foods and if it doesn’t say monosodium glutamate then you’re good, right?
Wrong.
Start reading some labels. Do you see terms like, “yeast extract,” or “autolyzed yeast,” or “hydrolyzed yeast?” Those are all forms of free glutamate and can potentially cause the same negative effects on your body. And, due to loopholes in labelling laws, food packages can actually say “contains no MSG” on the label while still including free glutamate in one of these other forms.
Take a look at this list of common ingredients on food labels that contain (or may contain) free glutamte and keep them in mind the next time you’re reading labels at the supermarket.
You are reading labels at the supermarket, right?
