If you clicked on this link "How can I help?", I assume that you are interested in what you can do to fight this ugly monster. For a start, you must learn to read labels and refuse to buy anything that contains excitotoxins. This will not only make you healthier and happier, you will be making the best statement you can to the food manufacturers. You aren't giving them any money. The food distributors will carry what sells. That is there only motivation, it seems. If you don't believe this, ask your local grocery store to carry a particular product by name or size of flavor that they don't already carry. Most will agree to order them for you, but few will stock them simply because you asked them for the product. Use your power as a consumer to show you are serious about the food industry changing their ways.

Second, share any and all information you are gleaning with friends and families. Let your children know why their diet is changing. Do not eat any fast food again ever. Not for expediency or because of a "Mac Attack" or because you caved when your children begged you. Simply put it out of your realm of possibilities for a meal. When you are in a restaurant, ask about MSG. Do not accept the statement "Oh, we don't use MSG." Everything here is home cooked. Home cooked to a restaurant has a different meaning than the meaning the rest of us have.

• Home cooked to a restaurant means they will take a box of breading off the shelf (loaded with MSG) and bread their own chicken and fish before the deep fry it.
• To a restaurant it means they will open a can of stock or broth for their soup base and then add bullion cubes for flavor (all loaded with MSG).
• To a restaurant, opening a can of gravy or adding a spice packet to drippings is considered a sign of home cooked. To us, it means, have a helping of MSG.
• If you order turkey, ask if they are going to use turkey gravy or chicken gravy. I think 90% of the restaurants I encounter use chicken gravy. The reason is simple. They have bought a processed turkey breast (with MSG), cooked it but used a chicken gravy from a can(loaded with MSG) If they actually cook a turkey, like they will tell you, it stands to reason they would have turkey gravy.
• Same for a hot turkey sandwich. Ask about the gravy.
• Homemade sausage gravy almost always has a spice packet (dependent on MSG) added. Or you can bet, if the sausage used is one of the big names like Jimmy Dean or Bob Evans, the sausage itself has MSG.
• Most pies are bought frozen and then baked. This doesn't affect you normally as far as excitotoxins go, but it does highlight how the use "home cooked" means something different to you vs the restaurant.

Third, do something clever for yourself. We printed Say No To MSG business cards with the back filled with a list of many of the excitotoxins that people should look out for. In fact, if you are reading this, go to the right column to request a copy of this handy pocket card free. In the mean time, print a list from this site. Carry it with you at all times. Make reference to it while reading labels.

Lastly, don't give in. This is not only about your health, but it is about your health twenty years from now. Excitotoxins do damage over the long haul. See the increase of brain lesions in the USA since the introduction of excitotoxins to our food industry. Eliminating excitotoxins will make you a happier, healthier, smarter, calmer, more secure person. I guarantee that.

Mick Zellar