Chapter 7/L:Monosodium Glutamate Yet another way the unknowing masses have their physical and mental health compromised is through rampant use by international corporations of a neurotoxin/excitotoxin called Monosodium Glutamate, or MSG. MSG contributes directly to obesity, hypertension, and a host of other health problems such as seizures, ADD/ADHD, heart palpitations, tremors, and many other symptoms that are harmful and even fatal. Think about this now: that handful of MSG-laden Doritos, Cheetos, or similar snack chip you are putting in your kids’ lunches every day is probably the cause of their diagnosed ADD/ADHD for which you are now giving them another poison, Ritalin, to combat symptoms while not removing the original source of the problem, the chips. For thousands of years kombu and other seaweeds have been added to foods in Japan to enhance flavor. In 1908 a Japanese scientist discovered that the active ingredient in kombu is glutamic acid and then the use of its sodium salt, monosodium glutamate, began in Japan. During the Second World War American quartermasters came to the realization that Japanese army rations tasted great. Following the war, they introduced monosodium glutamate, the flavor enhancing excitotoxin in the Japanese rations, to the food industry and the world-wide use of processed free glutamic acid began to explode---much to the detriment of mankind. The multinational corporations have found that manufactured free glutamic acid, chiefly in the form of monosodium glutamate (MSG), but also found in hydrolyzed vegetable proteins, etc., when added to our processed foods, makes the blandest, cheapest, and most-unhealthy foods taste wonderful. By putting MSG in as much of the processed food as they can, it allows them to use cheaper ingredients in an increasingly competitive world. Since MSG is cheap and enhances so wonderfully the flavor of bland and tasteless foods, such as many low-fat and vegetarian foods, manufacturers are eager to go on using it and do not want the public to realize any of the inherent dangers. Not only does it make bland ingredients taste better, the MSG actually gets you “high”---making the food you eat that contains it addicting. Why is it so hard to eat just a few Doritos or Cheetos? They are chock full of MSG, and this is a fact. Glutamic acid is a neurotransmitter that excites more than our taste buds. It stimulates the neurons in our brain. This electrical charging of neurons is what makes foods with MSG or other substances that naturally contain MSG not only taste good, but make us feel good. Unfortunately however, the free glutamic acid can cause problems in many people and the side effects of MSG consumption are downright dangerous. The risk to infants, children, pregnant women, the elderly and persons with certain chronic health problems from excitotoxins are great. Even the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), which usually understates problems and mimics the FDA party-line, recently stated in a review that:
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