Loosen MSG's Hazardous Hold By Eating Local

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MSG. Most of us are already aware that the stuff isn't good for us. Few of us are probably fully aware of just how health-damaging it really is, though. MSG is a popular food additive, used to enhance or improve the flavor of a food. But glutamate is also a neurotransmitter. MSG is classified as an "excitotoxin" because it excites the glutamate neurotransmitters in the brain into electrical and cellular activity, much of which is destructive (see http://www.smart-drugs.net/ias-excitotoxins.htm for a much more detailed explanation). It is believed that glutamate (mono-sodium and others) and aspartate (found in some artificial sweeteners) are behind numerous chronic neurodegenerative diseases.

Unfortunately, mammals don't just have glutamate receptors in our brains. We have them in every major system of our bodies, including the cardiac, endocrine, and digestive systems. Excitotoxicity from glutamate has been linked to infertility, cancer, diabetes (especially in children), obesity, fatal and near fatal heart arrhythmia, migraines, and a host of other serious illnesses that plague modern societies. Our bodies are wired to respond to MSG, and we suffer for it.

Most of us would like to avoid consuming MSG, but how many of us know where to look for it? Each of us can begin by looking at our supermarkets. The shelves are literally stacked with MSG-filled foods. It permeates the processed food supply. The next time you're doing your grocery shopping scan the labels on your favorite foods and see if you read any of the following ingredients: hydrolyzed vegetable protein, gelatin, yeast extract or autolyzed yeast extract, malted barley, rice syrup, or brown rice syrup. All of these ingredients contain MSG. Many labels come right out and list MSG as an ingredient, which is helpful. For those that do not, the odds are good that most processed foods will contain one of the aforementioned ingredients.

Once you've taken a closer look at your pantry or at the grocery store shelves, try not to panic. MSG, as well as a number of other commodities-based food additives are ubiquitous by design (more on that in an upcoming post) and they go hand-in-hand with processed food. And it makes sense. Food that has been highly processed seldom retains the same flavors, colors or textures as its unrefined counterparts. It's meant to last, often for a very long time. It's meant to be shipped around the globe. So the food industry tries to fortify the food with vitamins, minerals and agents intended to make this less-perishable food more palatable. And is it ever! We love MSG. On a molecular level, the excitotoxins in MSG create pleasure while exacting their physiological toll. If these foods didn't taste at least pretty good we would have stopped buying them a long time ago. Instead, we fill our carts with processed foods at unprecedented levels. And we're paying the price in preventable chronic illness and premature death.

In order to free ourselves from the grip of MSG we are going to have to reacquaint ourselves with fresh foods. Most likely a lot of the fresh foods we'll need to begin eating will be best procured locally. Why? Fruits, vegetables and meats procured from sources thousands of miles away aren't going to taste very good by the time they reach us. They also aren't going to have retained a lot of their beneficial nutrients. The fact is, locally-raised, minimally processed foods are extremely unlikely to contain MSG in any of its forms. And if you're not sure about everything that goes into the making of the product, with local foods you're likely to have the opportunity to ask someone about the food who actually knows the answer. Highly processed foods, on the other hand, often pass through so many different hands before they reach you that it's nearly impossible to trace the ingredients' origins. Ask yourself the following questions. Which food supply is more secure? Which is least likely to undermine my health? With local foods we have the opportunity to improve our health by steering clear of MSG and other harmful additives.