Excitotoxins in Processed Food: How they Affect You & Your Child’s Brain

You probably know how bad excitotoxins (MSG-forming compounds) are for you, but are you consuming it and not aware of it? 

Did you know that there are code-words that are used to cover-up usage of seriously dangerous ingredients no informed person would ever consume?

Excitotoxins

In his classic book Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills, Dr. Russell L. Blaylock, a board certified neurosurgeon with excellent credentials, gives much valuable information about MSG and other harmful food additives meant to enhance taste and how they are hidden in our processed food supply. Excitotoxins may be one of the main causes of your muscle aches, headaches, migraines, irritable bowels, and even fibromyalgia.

“These (excitotoxins) can perpetuate ADHD symptoms to such peaks as to deem an individual behaviorally abnormal. Children appear to be particularly susceptible as their little bodies may be overwhelmed by “normal” doses of these toxins that are packaged in such innocuous substances as breakfast cereal and juice boxes.” ~Dr. Ronald Hoffman

Asking all of you young mothers/fathers to please take 8-10 minute to watch something that may spare you and your family tremendous harm and increase your understanding.

Skip to 3:00 minutes to get to the “meat” of this issue.

Your best recourse is to be an informed label-reader. If you are not now, you may want to become one!

This video discusses from a different perspective and is fascinating, too, especially towards the end.

Hidden In Food

• Monosodium Glutamate is a neurotoxin that can be legally hidden from you and/or be labeled “natural flavors” in the ingredients list.
• MSG is not a natural flavor – in fact, it can cause brain lesions, neuro-endocrine disorders, and neurodegenerative disease in humans.
• There are more than 25 names for MSG.
• The FDA does not require that any source of MSG be identified.

This last point means that the FDA code does not require that “constituents” of an ingredient be disclosed to the consumer. Yet in hundreds of studies around the world, scientists are creating obese mice using MSG because it triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates, causing rats (and perhaps humans) to become obese. This is what the FDA calls natural.

“Not only is MSG scientifically proven to cause obesity, it is an addictive substance. Since its introduction into the American food supply 50 years ago, MSG has been added in larger and larger doses to processed meals, soups, chips, and fast foods. The FDA has set no limits on how much of it can be added to food.”

These 2 links are filled with other studies to substantiate this post:

• Effects of monosodium glutamate (MSG) on human health: a systematic review
• Monosodium glutamate: Review on clinical reports

Excitotoxins are a class of chemicals (usually glutamates) that over-stimulate neuron receptors. Neuron receptors allow communication between brain cells; when exposed to excitotoxins, they fire impulses at such a rapid rate that they become exhausted. Several hours later, depleted, the neurons die. Scientists observe this effect particularly in the temporal lobes and hypothalamus – parts of the brain that control behavior, emotions, onset of puberty, sleep cycles, and immunity.

Remember Accent? I had a shaker of this in my kitchen back in the 70s as a young wife. I had no idea back then what MSG was! Thankfully, it got lost in the back of my spice cabinet. Labeled Pure MSG.

Crystalline monosodium glutamate. (source)

Are You Excited?

Our brain cells aren’t the only parts of our bodies that are being excited.

Excitotoxins also tickle our taste buds, and that makes them extremely attractive to the food industry. The chemicals in excitotoxins stimulate the taste cells in the tongue, causing the flavor of the foods we eat to be greatly enhanced and we want MORE. Soups, snacks, sauces, gravies, many low-fat and vegetarian processed foods – manufacturers often pack them with “flavor enhancers” in an effort to make them irresistibly tasty.

When consumed over time, excitotoxins can cause neurodegenerative disorders resulting a myriad of diseases from Alzheimer’s to migraines to Parkinson’s.

And we have been hoodwinked with words…

Even All “Natural”, Vegan and Organic Products

Even vegetarian, organic, and “all natural” products that you might think are really better are just as likely to contain excitotoxins. Food manufacturers (given a pass by the FDA) do not have to list MSG and other “natural” flavor enhancers specifically because they come from natural sources. The truth is that the ‘natural’ part is so highly processed and altered by the time it gets to us that it is highly toxic. MSG, so deadly to delicate brain cells, for example, is made from a seaweed.

Packaged foods have “yeast extract”, “soy protein”, “hydrolyzed vegetable protein”, and others listed as ingredients. These are ALL legal (corruption in high places?) disguises for MSG. For more information that might just surprise you, you can read the code names at TruthInLabeling.org. In my humble opinion, this list is a must-read for every informed mother!

MSG, under the guise of its code names, is so frighteningly ever-present in the food supply that our family has stopped eating pre-packaged foods entirely. At first, I had a hard time believing that it was possible to lie to people about what they eat on such a vast scale, but we’ve experienced headaches, migraines, irritability, and brain fog, etc. after eating foods with these things listed as ingredients, so I’m pretty convinced that the book is correct. To me the most insidious is the word “spices” or “seasonings”.

Sounds like garlic, right?

“Marketing is everything”, I guess. But we seem to buy what will make us happy.

Dr. Blaylock’s book , Excititoxins: The Taste That Kills, also gives details about the kinds of brain damage proven to be caused by eating much MSG in its various forms.

“MSG: It is linked to learning disabilities in children, 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.

Recognize MSG

Here is a list of what ingredients to avoid:

These additives always contain MSG:

• Glutamate (E 620)  or Glutamic acid (E 620)
• Monosodium glutamate (E 621) or Monopotassium glutamate (E 622)
• Calcium glutamate (E 623)
• Monoammonium glutamate (E 624)
• Magnesium glutamate (E 625)
• Natrium glutamate
• Anything “hydrolyzed” or any “hydrolyzed protein”
• Calcium caseinate,  Sodium caseinate
• Yeast extract, Torula yeast
• Yeast food, Yeast nutrient
• Autolyzed yeast
• Gelatin
• Textured vegetable protein (TVP)
• Whey protein
• Whey protein concentrate (or isolate)
• Soy protein (or soy protein isolate)
  

These additives frequently contain MSG:

• Carrageenan (E 407)
• Bouillon and broth
• Stock
• Any “flavors” or “flavoring” including “natural flavors”
• Maltodextrin
• Cirtic acid, Citrate (E 330)
• Anything “ultra-pasteurized”
• Barley malt
• Pectin (E440)
• Malt extract
• Seasonings

Condiments and sauces are loaded with hidden MSG and its cousins, but juices, soups, cereals, as well as diet and health powders are also products to be aware of.

Help for You:

• Addictive Flavors & The Foods To Avoid That Contain Them
• Help in recognizing or diagnosing MSG adverse reactions
• How much MSG does it take to cause an adverse reaction?
• Why is it so important to government and industry that’s MSG not be identified on food and drug labels?
• Ingredient names used to hide MSG in food

 “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” ~2 Timothy 1: 7

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