Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein & Other Excitotoxins:

 

 

posted 08-20-103 12:19 PM  --Deborah

 

 

 

In a book called Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills, Russell L. Blaylock gives much valuable information about MSG and other harmful food additives. Most of you, I know, try to eat healthy, natural foods without harmful chemicals added, and the reason I'm posting this is that I learned from this book that food manufacturers do not have to list MSG and other "natural" flavor enhancers specifically because they come from natural sources. MSG, for example is made from kombu. Instead, many foods, including many vegetarian and "all natural" pre-packaged foods have "natural flavoring," "spices," "vegetable protein," and "hydrolized vegetable protein" listed as ingredients. These are ALL legal disguises for MSG.

 

 

It's so scarily ever present that I've almost stopped eating pre-packaged foods entirely. It's so omnipresent that I had a hard time believing that it was possible to lie to people about what they eat on such a vast scale. My boyfriend, though, is allergic to MSG and gets horrific headaches when he eats even a small amount of it, and he was getting headaches from eating all of these foods, so I'm pretty convinced that the book is correct.

 

 

The book also gives much detail about the kinds of brain damage proven to be caused by eating much MSG. It is linked to learning disabilities in children and Parkinson's Disease and other degenerative neurological diseases in older people, and yet is added to many baby foods! The reasons the food industry gets away with this is that they have much money for lobbying and that for a long time the harmful effects of excitotoxins were unknown. They are cheap flavor enhancers that make people want to eat more of whatever the food is and so make money for the companies, and the practice of using them is so entrenched that nothing is going to change right away. A lot of known junk foods, like Dorritos and other snacks, list MSG undisguised as an ingredient, probably because if you eat that stuff, there's so much other crap in there, you probably don't worry much about it, but what really gets me are the "healthy" foods that disguise what they're really adding. That tells you something.

 

Anyway, here is a list from the book of what ingredients to avoid. It's shocking when you really start reading food labels.

 

These additives always contain MSG:
Monosodium glutamate, Hydrolyzed vegetable protein, Hydrolyzed protein, Hydrolyzed plant protein, Sodium casienate, Calcium casienate, Yeast extract, Textured protein, Autolyzed yeast, Hydrolyzed oat flour

 

These additives frequently contain MSG:
Malt extract, Malt flavoring, Bouillon, Broth, Stock, Flavoring, Natural flavoring, Natural beef or chicken flavoring, Seasoning, Spices

 

These additives may contain MSG or other excitotoxins:
Carrageenan, Enzymes, Soy protein concentrate, Soy protein isolate, Whey protein concentrate