Monsosdium Glutamate (MSG/Ajinomoto): The hidden poison in food

Post written by: Ramesh Venkatraman

The next time you hear the phrase “No one can eat just one” on TV or radio, advertising a popular brand of potato chips you need not grin sheepishly and nod your head in agreement, ashamed at your own lack of dietary control. It might well be that manufacturers of several popular snacks are adding substances that are literally driving your neurons (nerve cells) into a state of high excitement making it impossible for you to pull your hands away from that pack of snacks - the secret to making you captive and begging for more is MSG (monosodium glutamate) more popularly known by its brand name - Ajinomoto.

Chemically speaking, MSG is the sodium salt of glutamic acid (thus, the name monosodium glutamate). Glutamic acid was first isolated from gluten (wheat). MSG is an “excitotoxin” and as the name suggests quite literally, MSG is a poison that excites your nerve cells. MSG is a chemical additive commonly used by the food industry as a “flavor enhancer” and has been in use for more than 100 years since the time it was first commercialized in 1909 by the AJINOMOTO Company, Japan. First introduced into India in 1963, MSG is now marketed in India by the Ajinomoto India Pvt Ltd.

Is it necessary to add MSG to food? The simple answer is NO, because other than its purported claim of enhancing the taste of food, it has no other role to play - then why use it? Precisely because of its ability to excite your nerve cells and make you addicted to the food substance.

Several scientific, animal toxicity studies have clearly pointed out that MSG has the potential to:

1. cause dose-dependent swelling and death of neurons (nerve cells) - study conducted using mouse neuronal culture. [Xiong JS, et al. Int J Clin Exp Med. 2009 Nov 15;2(4):329-36]
2. increase BP (systolic), increase muscle sensitivity, and cause headaches - study conducted among healthy male human volunteers [Hansen BL, et al. Cephalalgia. 2010 Jan;30(1):68-76.]

Another study conducted among neonatal rats injected with MSG, showed that MSG can cause several neurochemical alterations in the brain as a direct result of the excitotoxic potential of MSG. [Perez-Lopez SJ, et al. Cephalalgia. 2010 Jan;30(1):68-76.]Yet another study showed that MSG can actually cause cell death and damage to your nerve cells. [Brain Res. 2010;1317:246-56.]

Dr. Russel Blaylock in his book “Excitotoxins: the Taste That Kills” goes to the extent of saying that MSG could be the initiator of serious neural diseases like Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, parkinson’s, autism, strokes, and learning disorders.

Even with all this evidence, MSG continues to be classified under the GRAS (“generally recognized as safe”) index by the Food and drug Administration (FDA), USA but the operational word here is “Generally”. Manufacturers themselves realize that MSG is a bad word and therefore they disguise its presence under the garb of harmless sounding names. 

A list of MSGs' various avatars is given below. Watch out for these names when you buy that pack of instant noodles, bag of chips, bottle of sauce/ketchup, sachet of ready-to-make soup:

1. Hydrolyzed vegetable protein
2. Hydrolyzed protein
3. Hydrolyzed plant protein
4. Plant protein extract
5. Sodium caseinate
6. Calcium caseinate
7. Yeast extract
8. Textured protein
9. Autolyzed yeast
10. Hydrolyzed oat flour 

[Jane Grey; MSG: The killer food additive. http://janegrey.hubpages.com/hub/MSG-the-Killer-Food-Additive-Allergy]