Life without MSG is possible. The longer you work at it, the easier it becomes. Initially, it will be difficult. If you simply take the ingredients list we have offered you on this site, and check it against the food you already have on your shelf, in your refrigerator or in your freezer, you will find that most of it has excitotoxins. You should simply discard it and replace it with excitotoxin free foods. Many will say that can't afford to do that and believe they will use up what they have and then replace it with non-toxic food. If you choose to do that, then you will continue to have the symptoms that have caused you to be on the internet and research MSG in the first place.

Just like an alcoholic that decides to quit drinking, a person must stop the use of excitotoxins all at once and when they do that, their whole life will change. All of a sudden you will become a label reader. If you don't really cook, but just warm up things that are already prepared for you, then you will have to learn how to cook. You will have to learn about spices, if you don't already know anything about them. (This can be fun and we will include a page on spices and how they can be used.) And finally, you will have to be able to tell yourself 'NO'. That's right...'NO'! There is no other way to do it.

Everything today is about "taste". The whole food industry is selling you taste and they are doing it with excitotoxins. Not too long ago, the food industry packaged, canned and bottled products that we bought and then we cooked and flavored ourselves. As we became more of a two income family, and we seemed to speed up our lives, and "fast food" became a major part of America's diet, the simple skill of cooking became a thing of the past and micro-wave skills became something everybody had. Even many restaurants, today, depend on the micro-wave rather than the stove top and oven. The only reason the food industry was able to switch from canned and preserved foods to prepared meals is by using excitotoxins to mask shelf life and package flavors that they had suffered from in the past. The more we demanded faster and faster foods, the more excitotoxins they used.

You have to now break that cycle and learn to create your own "taste" in the food you eat. When you finally are able to recognize that the headache you have has come from a particular item you ate, and you vow that you won't do that again, then you will be on the road to feeling healthy, without the symptoms caused from MSG. It is when you become aware that you and only you can beat the use of MSG in your foods by not ever knowingly eat something with MSG ever again, will your recovery of the addictive use of MSG become apparent.

We will be listing some things to help you make that transition. There will be a list of sites that offer free recipes that can be made in the same time many processed foods take to warm up. There will be a list of spices and their uses. We will discuss snacks we have found to be enjoyable. We will list restaurants that we have ate at, and menu choices that are available at them. We will list those restaurants to avoid that simply have made it impossible to eat at because of their use of MSG. We will also respond to any request we get from people concerning problems they are encountering. Bon Appetit and Good Luck.

Mick

One of the things we tell people that they must learn to do is to read labels. It isn't always easy, but you must practice until you can stand in an aisle in a grocery store and quickly go through the long list of unpronounceable names. If you don't do this, then you will continue to ingest excitotoxins. It may seem like there isn't anything left to eat. If you are affected by MSG, let's face some facts. You will have to change the way you eat, as well as what you eat, if you want to get excitotoxins out of your life.

List of Items That Probably Contain MSG or Other Excitotoxins

• Frozen entrees. Most of these will contain MSG, or hydrolyzed protein or xanthum gum or other excitotoxins. It is why you can simply micro-wave them and they taste good.
• Frozen dinners. Many of us from my generation remember when frozen dinners tasted bad. Now they don't and that is because they use excitotoxins.
• Anything frozen with breading will almost always contain some excitotoxins. Remember it isn't just MSG that is bothering you. Learn the list of other excitotoxins.
• Anything that is seasoned, such as seasoned fries. Do not ever again order seasoned fries in a restaurant. Never buy seasoned frozen fries to bring home and fix.
• Most packets that you use to create a sauce or dressing or gravy. I say most, because I haven't seen them all, but I can say everyone I ever checked has excitotoxins in them.
• Marinated meats you find in the meat department. I have seen pork loin that are packaged in preseasoned juices. They contain excitotoxins.
• If you have a friend that cooks, bakes, barbeques, roasts, etc something for you, and they say they have a secret spice or ingredient they use, question them. Most of the time it is some over the counter seasoned salt or ethnic seasoning and they all have excitotoxins. One of the most popular secret spices is Accent® which is 100% MSG.
• When a restaurant says they have homemade soup, you must ask them if they use a stock from a can or bouillon, because all stocks and bouillon that are purchased have excitotoxins. There is no exception to this rule.
• If a restaurant uses a mix for the breading on their fish, chicken, etc, it will have excitotoxins in it most of the time. If you eat regularly at a location and you take the time to do these checks with the products they use, you can increase the number of items on the menu you may select.
• One of the more recent things that restaurants are doing is using a flavored butter to cook items in. For instance, many are using a "pancake" butter to cook pancakes in and they taste good. They also contain at least three incidences of excitotoxins. This incident happened to me in Algona, IA. STORY Coming Soon!
• If a snack food has a flavor, it has excitotoxins. There are no exceptions. We eat pretzels or plain potato chips. I prefer those that are cooked in sunflower seed oil because they are less greasy. This little side note has nothing to do with MSG, but I just threw in my 2¢ worth.
• All diet drinks and foods that depend on an artificial sweetener, such as Aspartame®, will cause the same side effects as MSG and other excitotoxins.

Note added by Sassafras
Note added by Mick