Say NO to MSG
Dedicated to the Public Awareness of Monosodium Glutamate and other Excitotoxins.
The Business of Monosodium Glutamate
 
by Mick Zellar

 

Business is business is business. How can I make a point that will shock you when the point is axiomatic to the function of business. Regardless of mission statements by businesses, their reason for existence is to create profit for their owners. Profit allows them to pay employees, creditors and create a return on investment. Pretty basic, huh. So what can anybody say about the "business of msg" that would be shocking.

Well, let me just say, remember the tobacco industry? It also was about profit and it employed many people from growers, to haulers, to factory workers, marketing people, sales people and gas station attendants. Even though the product, cigarettes, knowingly caused cancer, slow lingering death, physical impairment and, as we were warned as kids, stunted your growth, the industry boomed for decades. That is until a courageous few stood up and said enough is enough and took this zillion dollar industry head on and won, eventually. Today, smokers are not lauded as cool, but are generally pitied and are pretty much outcasts, being required to smoke outside (there are even some communities that don't allow that) and away from everybody else.

So, what does this have to do with msg? Msg isn't bad, is it? After all, the Glutamate Society says it is a wonderful food additive that doesn't cause any problems and they can "scientifically" prove it. And the FDA recognizes it as GRAS (generally regard as safe) and, in fact, use MSG as an example of what GRAS really means. What? Are you serious? Yeah, that little fact is the gnawing example of why the FDA has no validity. I don't know what it cost the food industry to get FDA to use MSG as a standard of GRAS, but you can bet some people got very rich. I know you are asking yourself, "Is he suggesting that there was payola or bribery?" Yeah, that is what I am suggesting. In fact it was not only criminal that MSG was used as standard for GRAS, but it continues to be criminal everyday they leave it on their website.

MSG is the cause of so many symptoms that the medical industry is awash (profitably, of course) with business from suffering patients. Patients go to their doctor, trusting that they have the knowledge to help them overcome their headaches, nausea, lethargicism, aching muscles, arrhythmia, stomach disorders, bowel problems, numbness of extremities, blurriness of vision, dizziness, etc, and come home with prescriptions that will mask their symptoms and not cure a darn thing. Remember, the medical industry for decades, treated the symptoms and diseases caused from smoking without dealing with the cause. I have asked an MD if headaches were possibly the number one complaint he dealt with. He said he wasn't sure (that is called waffling) but headaches were surely near the top of the list. When I suggested that msg and other excitotoxins were the cause of these headaches, he pooed-pooed me and said, sure some people have shown an allergic reaction to msg, but they are far and few. I use this as a typical reaction from medical personnel. If you don't believe me, simply google A.M.A. (American Medical Association) and MSG and see what comes up. The amount of repeated claims by the Glutamate Society and Anjinomoto Corp. that msg is safe, including that the AMA approves of its use, should be a trigger of suspicion for you. They even claim that nobody is allergic to msg and that headaches cannot be caused by msg. If you are reading this, then you probably already suffer from its use and are trying to find out answers. The A.M.A. is in the same group of 'not to be trusted' organizations as the FDA, the Glutamate Society, Aniinomoto Corp and the MSG Society. In fact, they all quote each other as proof that msg is safe, as if voices in chorus make everything all right.

Now concerning the business. Well, actually, if your business is going to do something that is evil and destructive to your customers' well-being and health, you need the government to skew regulations and you need the medical industry to say everything is ok. It is part of the business. One of the things that was learned from the cigarette industry is whenever an independent researcher concludes your product is bad, you simply match their research with a preponderance of research that says the direct opposite and then you can use the phrase, "There is a preponderance of research that proves that msg is good for you." It is what the food industry, the Glutamate Society, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical industry has done. Each one of these groups have a vested interest in the continued use of excitotoxins in their business. I will discuss the importance of msg and other excitotoxins to each of these industries.

The Food Industry

I am 66 years old and my memories go back to the early 50's and no, I repeat, no chain restaurants. I grew up in West Michigan near Muskegon, MI and I will have to correct myself. There were a few chain restaurants but they were of the local variety, such as Zart's (8 hotdogs or 6 hamburgers for a buck) or Hansen's Drive-Inn (broasted chicken and carhops). In downtown Muskegon, there were Coney Island style restaurants, lunch counters at dime stores and restaurants with table cloths. Out of town, there were family restaurants and small cafes and dairy bars. And the one thing they all had in common was they cooked the food they served. If they had a chicken soup on the menu, they had boiled chickens for the stock and then deboned it to add to the soup. If they had breaded chicken, they breaded it themselves. French fries were pealed and sliced on a French fry cutter. Hamburger was bought in bulk and patties were pressed. I know this because in the early 60's at 16 years old I worked first as a soda jerk and then as a short order cook.

There were no flavor enhancers added unless you want to count salt and pepper and butter. Then msg was introduced to the food industry. Gordon Foods, a supplier to the restaurant industry, began as an egg and milk deliverer over 100 years ago. Their history is interesting, but in 1960, they became committed to supplying frozen foods to the grocery industry, with the completion of a very large freezer in the Grand Rapids, MI area and in the early 70's became committed to supplying the food service industry with frozen foods. Gordon Foods is well known in the mid-west and there are other companies that have a similar history and are regional suppliers as well. The big guy, though, is Sysco Co. They were founded in 1969 and went public in 1970. They are the number one supplier of prepared foods to the restaurant trade.

They as well as the other regional suppliers depend on msg and other excitotoxins. Remember, msg is a flavor enhancer. It will make dirt taste good. Anybody my age, will remember the frozen TV Dinners of the 50's and early 60's and how horrible they were. But starting in the 70's and the increase in the use of msg, frozen foods started to become better and better. Today, a simple walk through the frozen food section of any grocery store will tell you how far the frozen food industry has come. MSG and other excitotoxins are used to mask, frozen flavors, package flavors, old age flavors, and mixed dishes, such as casseroles taste sparkly and not just a conglomerate flavor of everything in the bowl. It would seem as if they were freshly baked.

So local restaurants started filling their menu with items that were already breaded, marinated, mixed, diced, sliced and of course frozen for longer shelf life and these products all need flavor enhancers to overcome the "frozen" taste. Suppliers also found that by adding a flavor enhancer to canned goods like tuna fish, green beans, stewed tomatoes and also adding spicing to turn it into Italian style, Greek style, Mexican style, etc, shelf life increased two fold because the flavor enhancers covered up the can taste that slowly permeates into products. Restaurant menus started filling with 'warm-up' items and you and I ate them and said, "Boy, is this good." And the restaurant didn't take down the Home Made sign and everybody was happy. Well, some of us started getting headaches and the runs and became lethargic and maybe had heart arrhythmia and so we went to the doctor and they gave us pills and the symptoms went away...sometimes.

In the mean time as expressways were built, what I call 'expressway' restaurants were created. You may call them fast food and some of them are, such as McDonalds and Burger King. But others had a menu and tables to sit at and waitresses and they seemed like restaurants we used to have but they were chain restaurants such as Apple Bees, TGI Fridays, Perkins, Bob Evans, and others. These creations all had a district center for preparing food ahead of time. They also contracted with Gordon Foods, Sysco and other food processors to create meals for them that were frozen for added shelf life and they all depended on flavor enhancers to mask the frozen flavors. The local restaurant either went out of business or fell into line and filled their menu with prepared food from the different food processors.

This allowed corporations to increase their bottom line by using machinery to prepare large amounts of food at the regional level and then they are able to hire young inexperienced kitchen help in their restaurants to warm the food up. I'm not sure this could have all happened if the microwave oven hadn't been invented. Flavor enhancers allowed these restaurant chains to prepare large quantities in advance and freeze them. The production of our food at the local level became mechanized at the district level and the warm up experts became in control of the kitchen.

It was about this time when our server (not waitress) started asking us, "How do things taste?" I have found this question one of the most irritating things about this whole chain restaurant thing. It's a loaded question. They have smothered their food with excitotoxins so it will always taste good. I like to ask the waitperson, "Did you prepare this meal?" When they tell me no, I then suggest that they should ask me how the service was. That is something they can control. They can't control the "taste" of the food, since they didn't prepare it. I don't think they truly get it, but I enjoy doing it. Of course, they have been taught to ask that particular question because their corporate restaurant uses excitotoxins and the food they serve will always taste good.

So the food suppliers and the chain restaurants with district distribution centers that copied food suppliers, are able to keep their prices lower, which attracts more people and the bottom line is increased. It's all about profit. If a few people suffer from the chemicals they use, hey, it's within the allowable standard, a standard their cohorts have set. Don't believe the people in control aren't aware of the damage that excitotoxins cause many people. Hell, anybody with a computer and the ability to search on Google will find tens of thousands of words that explain in detail, every thing they would need to know about excitotoxins. Oh, yeah, they know, but they also know that their careers depend on the bottom line and let's face it, GREED trumps doing what is right for many.

The Pharmaceutical Industry

The pharmaceutical industry is a business. Never forget that. It produces products that can help you, but the bottom line is most important. The business plays on our need for comfort and our fear of death. For life saving medicine, it has fouind it can charge just about anything, and the charges do not have to relate to the cost of production or the cost of research.

So, what is wrong with a company maximizing its profit? Not a thing. It is what is expected of a business. Isn't it? On the other hand, criminals also are trying to maximize their profits and though the pharmaceutical industry may not be criminal in its actions, it truly is immoral.

The pharmaceutical industry has a long and sullied history of cause and effect. For them to create a medication to alleviate the effects (symptoms), they need to know the cause. This would seem to be an axiomatic supposition. So, if they know the cause of our symptoms, why not simply announce the cause and we would all be free of symptoms caused by the use of excitotoxins? This is a fair question to ask, isn't it? Why would an industry, dependent on research of human physiology, simply create symptom masking medication instead of sharing the knowledge they have of the cause of the symptoms. The answer is, of course, "bottomline".

Let me give you a few examples of pharmaceuticals not sharing some pretty important informatioin. These examples all come from my own experiences. I am not a scientist or have any training in physiology, but I have found cures for "symptoms" I suffered from in the past.

In my early twenties, I was debilitated with heart burn. Seriously, I, at times, would fall to my knees holding my stomach in pain. I called myself a roll of Rolaids a day, man. When things got tough, I would mix a cocktail of baking soda and water to alleviate my pain. Twice I was put on ulcer diets and both times it helped, but I didn't have an ulcer, just an "ulcer condition." In my late 30's, I suffered a second heart attack, and I decided to cut down on beef products to help lower my cholesterol. I actually cut beef out completely and amazingly my stomach problems went away. I literally did not have any heart burn. I could drink orange juice without complications, eat onions, gravy, pork and all the other foods that used to cause me distress. I found through my own research, we have an enzyme we need to digest beef, which disappears after 3 to 4 weeks of not eating beef and this enzyme can cause heart burn and other complications in certain individuals. I found this information in a pharmaceutical journal at our library. It had been known for a very long time, but selling medicine to alleviate pain was more profitable than telling us about the cause.

Another example was when I started to take a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar daily for uric acid build up and my extremely dry skin simply disappeared. Earlier that year I had a doctor tell me to quit bathing because it would take the natural oils away, don't use any skin cream because some of the ingredients could add to the condition, but he didn't tell me to take apple cider vinegar and it would balance my ph, which was the problem. On the other hand, I found the pharmaceutical industry knew of this interaction of apple cider vinegar and ph for a very long time and was trying to harnass its properties in a pill form. They didn't share the information their research had given them because of bottom line.

The pharmaceutical industry thrives on secrets. They do know the cause of many of the maladies we suffer from, but it is more profitable for them to sell us a cure rather than to share information that would aid us in avoiding these problems. The pharmaceutical industry used a chemical called carrageenan to kill brain cells in lab animals so they could test medicine they were developing for Parkinson's Disease. Let me repeat this, carrageenan was used to kill brain cells. Today, carrageenan is used in the food industry as a stabilizer to keep mixtures from separating and a thickener. It is used in toothpaste and most ice creams. It is killing brain cells as you are reading this in millions of individuals and the pharmaceutical industry knows this. Remember, they used it to create Parkinson Disease type conditions to test their medications. Now, we are being used as the lab animals and they are standing in the wings waiting to sell us their pharmaceuticals to alleviate Parkinsons's disease developed by the use of carrageenan. It isn't criminal, because there isn't a law that applies, but it is truly immoral.

The pharmaceutical is the head of the msg monster. Conceivably, the food industry and the medical industry could be considered no more than the arms of the monster with the head controlling them. I don't know about you, but it gives me the shivers. I do not know any way of chopping this head off. It is why it is so important for us to read labels and eliminate excitotoxins from our diet.

The Medical Industry

I recently read a survey that put doctors near the top of the list of professionals that can be trusted. I nearly fell over laughing. On the other hand, the top profession the survey found for trust was the military and the military follows orders and these orders come down from politicians (the Secretary of Defense and Commander in Chief are both politicians). Tell me, if politicians had been one of the professions on the survey, how high do you think they would have registered? It seems the American public is sorely lacking in the ability to judge trust in an individual. I would think trust would come from a demonstration of morals and values. Trust would be the result of actions that are exemplary and words that are inspiring. Trust would be the result of trustworthy behavior.

The medical industry, with its ability to charge us anything it chooses, with no regard for anything but the bottom line is amazingly untrustworthy. I went to a doctor because of symptoms of diabetes and found I did have Type II diabetes. This doctor and I treated my disease for three years until I moved 300 miles. Of course, I started seeing a new doctor. Years later, when I moved back to the community I first found my diabetes, I attempted to see my original doctor. In fact, I naively assumed I would be seeing him. I, in fact, had asked my last doctor to transfer my records to him. When I called for an appointment, I was told that they (they meaning their doctor business) did not accept patients that have quit them in the past. When I said I had moved 300 miles, the lady said it didn't matter. This doctor business said it was too much bother to deal with people that changed doctors. In other words, some sort of bottom line decision.

Doctors deal with symptoms. If you have a headache, they will give you something to alleviate the pain. They may even request some tests, but they will always have you return for follow up calls. The more symptoms you have, the more medicines they get to prescribe and the more tests they get to schedule.

The medical industry has invented all sorts of names of diseases to explain your symptoms. The most recent is the "gluten syndrone." We are running into more people that are told they have a gluten allergy. Go ahead and look up "gluten allergy." See what you find. Most people that suffer from it, die before they are 20. Another we have encountered is an allergy to corn products or soy products. In actuality, these people probably are suffering from the hydrolyzing of the protein in corn and soy which creates an excitotoxin but treating these people for their symptoms is very profitable.

Now, I truly believe most doctors simply don't know anything about excitotoxins. It is not a part of their studies. They also know little to nothing about nutrition, which is why there is a field nutrionists out there. And nutrionists know little to nothing about msg and other excitotoxins because there is no nutrional value in excitotoxins. Expecting these participants in the excitotoxin drama to have any knowledge of cause and effect of these flavor enhancers, is like expecting them to be able to tell you the size cam a NASCAR mechanic should put into one of his motors. So they simply treat symptoms, trusting the pharmaceutical industry to find cures and assuming the food industry wouldn't do anything to harm us, particularly in the name of profit and their own bottom line continues to grow which is their reward for being and staying naïve.

The real problem is we need them. We cannot get prescriptions without them and cannot get tests without them. They have information we do not have and we trust that their many years of schooling has put them in position to tell us what is causing our discomfort and help us to eliminate problems. Most of us do not begrudge their profit mongering and, somehow, the profession of being a doctor has transformed from a dedicated individual that sacrifices his own comforts to comfort others, to an individual that expects to be wealthy shortly after getting his license to practice medicine.

And we suffer for their ignorance of the cause of our problems. Can they ease our pain? Sure they can, with medicines from the pharmaceutical companies. Will they tell us to stop using the chemicals that are causing our problems? No, because they are ignorant of them and simply will not take the time to educate themselves in them as well. I have offered many doctors, nurses, physicians assistants and practicing nurses information on excitotoxins and the only one that showed interest is one practicing nurse in the small town of Mackinac City, MI. She not only took information but did research on her own and shared it with me and thanked me, stating she was going to use it in her practice.

The medical industry and the insurance industry have become tied together in a very unhealthy way. It is now not uncommon to hear of a situation where a treatment is denied by an insurance company because it is too expensive. How can a business, and an insurance company which is strictly a business of making money from money, dictate to a doctor what treatments he can prescribe? Simple, bottom line. If the insurance company says they will not pay for the treatment, then the medical industry will simply deny the patient the treatment. It doesn't sound very trusting to me.

Finally, we have to even be aware of the medicines that are given us to alleviate our symptoms. Vaccines may have msg in them as part of the immune system/weakened pestilent paradigm. Some ibuprofen has fake sugars in them which will cause headaches in people that are affected by excitotoxins. The pumice your dentist uses, has msg or other excitotoxins in it to mask unpleasant flavors.

Final

I have not written this essay to simply attack the users and abusers of excitotoxins. I have written it to simply emphasize to you the reader and might be sufferer of the importance for you to take control of your own life. You have to read labels. You have to become familiar with ingredients found on the labels. You have to be aware of your own body and its response to different things you are involved with, which would include not only foods, but toothpastes, hair conditioners and shampoos, waterless cleaners, vaccines and anything else that you ingest or touches your skin. You have to quit blindly trusting the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical industry. When you do these things, you just may eliminate those symptoms that caused you to read this essay. You just may get mad enough to quit allowing these people of greed to continue to hurt you all in the name of the "bottom line." Good luck, my friend.

 
What is GRAS?

GRAS stands for Generally Recognized as Safe. The name of this classification suggests that any item which is "recognized" is "safe", and that is simply NOT TRUE.

This page - GRAS - Generally Recognized as Safe - gives a much more indepth definition of GRAS, touches on the diseases associated to MSG, and cites a Petition asking for the revoking of the current GRAS standing.

 
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