Do you know how much MSG you consume?

[HarlansHollowFarms]

Quote:
*pushing ksacres of my soapbox*

 

[ksacres]

Quote:
Watch it lady, I'm bigger than you. Meaner too.

 

[patandchickens]

I 100% believe that MSG is not a problem for the general population. I also 100% believe that some (apparently not huge) number of people have a very real reaction to it.

My son, now 4 3/4 and apparently having outgrown it, used to be an absolutely infallible MSG detector from birth to about age 3. If I ate something with MSG in it (before he was fully weaned at 18 months), or if *he* ate something with MSG in it, he would start behaving oddly in a very very distinct and repeatable fashion. For 8-12ish hrs after eating the food (or nursing, if it was something I ate) he would experience very rapid extreme mood swings, from crazy hysterical activity to sudden outbursts of tears to screaming to just sitting there in a lump, usually very rapidly alternating (like 5 minutes of one, 2 minutes of another, 4 minutes of another one, etc).

I am positive this was from MSG; it happened only when we'd eaten stuff with MSG and never when we hadn't. I mean SERIOUSLY only and never. In fact I learned about a number of foods containing MSG that I had never previously thought it was in, because sometimes I'd think we were eating carefully enough but he'd flip out and I'd go back and read labels or look further into what some named ingredient really contains and dammit if it didn't have MSG after all. He was really a SCARY-accurate detector of it

Fortunately he's outgrown it and his younger brother does not have the same problem, although I suspect occasional high-MSG meals of making him a little bit poor sleeping that night. (But I am not sure of this, especially as I have no way of knowing the actual amount of MSG in different things).

The problem with large studies is that they can't find uncommon individual idiosyncrasies. For most purposes that is fine, large studies are a GOOD thing

, but normal study design is not set up to find out whether a few people are really constitutively different in their response.

That said, I wholeheartedly agree that there is a list of food ingredients and environmental chemical exposures as long as both an orangutan's arms that are FAR bigger worries than MSG, and that people are MASSIVELY too cavalier about.

JMHO,

Pat, not a toxicologist or environmental chemist but hung out with enough over the years, and on enough Masters degree committees in that sort of field, to have a healthy respect for what complex molecules can do when you're not paying attention.

 

[wegotchickens]

Could the MSG thing be a reaction to nitrates & nitrites?
I know they are used in a LOT of the same foods.
I tested myself for a reaction to those and KNOW that I am sensitive to nitrates & nitrites. They cause 90% of my migraines. And now that I know what to avoid I rarely have a headache and have less sinus troubles as well.

I can accurately predict a migraine within hours if I eat certain foods, such as 2 hotdogs or 4 slices of regular mass-produced bacon. Chef-Boy-R-Dee almost put me in the hospital I hurt so badly! I read labels and am much more careful about what I buy. We rarely eat out since I know I can't control what's in those foods.

At home we eat locally raised grass-fed pork & beef nowadays and I feel great.

 

[lisahaschickens]

Nitrates and nitrites are definitely a hotbutton issue these days... concern for carcinogenic properties among other things. I think it's a valid thought that the blame goes to MSG when it could actually be nitrates/nitrites though we can't know for sure because they have been studied far less than MSG. But definitely a good thought.

HarlansHollowAussies & KsAcres -

It's good not be alone on this soapbox! It often gets quite lonely up here all by myself... there's room for the three of us and more!

 

[hennypenny9]

Lisahaschickens- I just went around and looked at all my hand soap... None of it is anti-bacterial, and none has listed Triclosan as an ingredient. Guess who bought them for me? That's right, my mom. LOL. I wouldn't have thought about it. She has lots of opinions and generally sounds like a conspiracy theorist, so unless I've actually tried to research it, I never know if she's just being strange. Like fluoride. Although I do agree with her about aspartame, from personal experience. (I think most people on this site would like her, though.)

Anyway, I've strayed from the topic. On the one hand, maybe the effects are limited to a small percentage of the population, and maybe there are larger problems than MSG, but who knows. Maybe there'll have to be labels for products with MSG, that way people who have problems could avoid it, like peanut products. I wish it was mandatory to put labels on things with aspartame in it. I grabbed a soda, NON-diet, and got an extremely bad headache. I never get headaches. Then I see aspartame on the label. *sigh* Oh, the things we eat.

 

[lisahaschickens]

glad to hear that you are triclosan-free! hugs to mommy

As for aspartame - I totally agree. I think artificial sweeteners are a wonderful thing for diabetics, but the rest of us should avoid checmically altered foods if we can, no? The way I live, I eat sweet things like cakes and cookies and icecream, etc. Just in moderation. Everything in moderation and we're good. And yes - oh the things we eat. :::double sigh:::

 

[chicken_boy_Kurt]

I'm actually allergic to MSG (and TBHQ). I go into coughing fits if I have even a small amount.

 

[Parson's Wife]

No, I haven't really looked into that so much....
but I sure was surprised in how much SODIUM I consume....and I'm not talking about "pass the salt shaker, please!"
Just from a can of green beans...canned anything! WOW!

 

[country lady]

Sorry, I don't buy that MSG is harmless. Decades ago when my son was young, I blended his baby food and he ate from the table. Several times in a hurry I gave him junior baby food. He would then heave for a long time. I told my pediatrician that I believed the junior food had MSG in it which he poo-pooed. Later I read that even though MSG wasn't listed on the label it was indeed in the junior food. I felt terrible. When I stopped the junior food, he stopped the heaving. It wasn't in my head--it was in my baby's stomach.