The Real Reason to Avoid MSG: Industry Secret Ingredient for Food Addiction
How do you feel about the ingredient?
Healthy Living
You likely already know that the food ingredient monosodium glutamate (MSG) isn’t good for you. You may even know some of the popular reasons why. But did you know that MSG is primarily used by the food industry to keep us addicted to ‘big taste, little nutrition’ food? It’s an industry secret. Read on to find out why MSG makes you eat more fast food while fattening up the food industry’s bottom line.
Aside from high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, and ingredients made with chemicals called ‘flavor packets,’ MSG is at the top of the list of food additives to avoid.
Monosodium Glutamate, or MSG, is a trigger substance that food makers are very aware of. It was put in food to cause pavlovian response, creating a trigger for you to eat more and never feel satiated. The FDA calls MSG ‘generally recognized as safe,’ though the ingredient has been found to cause skin rashes, itching, hives, vomiting, asthma, heart irregularities, seizures, chest pain, nausea, weakness, and especially headaches and migraines, among other health issues.
A study published in the Journal of Headache Pain reveals how just a single dose of monosodium glutamate caused headaches in healthy subjects that were tested.
This study conducted its research using double blind, placebo-controls and found that MSG intake caused spontaneous pain, jaw aches, high blood pressure, and other unwanted side effects including nausea, fatigue, stomach ache, tight-jaw (TMJ), dizziness, and chest pressure. So exactly how is this considered GRAS by the FDA?
When this very inexpensive, concentrated form of salt is added to your food, it makes you crave sugar, and also interferes with an important set of hormones that control satiation. That means when you eat MSG, your body doesn’t remember how to tell you it’s full, so you just keep eating. Since the ‘salty’ taste makes you crave the taste of ‘sweet,’ you are likely to go back for cookies once you’ve had some nachos covered in processed cheese, or a burger full of MSG.
Ever wonder how you can eat a calorie-laden meal and still feel like you are starving just hours later? It’s the processed, nutrition-less ingredients in that food which is making you want to eat more. It’s the food industry’s way of causing a food addiction, to ensure they make money.
MSG is just one of the thousands of artificial ingredients used by the food industry to ruin your health and keep you addicted to their products. So many more nutritious, and delicious options exist.
If you suffer from the ill effects of MSG, listen up. Research indicates that this root may be able to protect you from MSG and even reverse the damage that’s already been done.
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Featured image sourced from: YouthConnect
| Christina Sarich is a humanitarian and freelance writer helping you to Wake up Your Sleepy Little Head, and See the Big Picture. Her blog is Yoga for the New World. Her latest book is Pharma Sutra: Healing the Body And Mind Through the Art of Yoga. |
