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| My yoga instructor was recently telling us that MSG found in most flavoured crisps etc is bad stuff. What exactly is it and why is it bad for you?
My favourite salt and vinigar crisps contain it - shock! HORROR!
kat |
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| That stands for monosodium glutamate, and it is primarily a flavoring and a preservative. Definitely not wonderful for your system! Some people find it affects them with dramatic headaches and other reactions, others have no reaction at all.
How is the rest of your diet otherwise? Do you generally eat healthy and take care of yourself (exercise, etc)? If so, occasionally indulging in your favorite treats won't be the end of the world!  |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 5098
 
Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | MSG is some bad stuff!! Someone once told me that It actually came from Japan - they discovered it...then discovered it caused all kinds of problems, including cancer...then they quit using it. Now the Chinese use it in EVERYTHING!! Even in Nepal they use it because it makes everything taste good - yea right!! I can't even go to Chinatown in Atlanta anymore cause' I KNOW its there, even if they say they don't use it, it is in almost all processed products such as instant soups, soups in general and forget the Chinese Buffets. Now, some places in NYC Chinatown don't use it, but you have to know where to go cause' even MOST Chinese people don't like it...at least the ones I know.
In America, MSG is in all the chips, campbells soups, instant soups, boullions, sauces..you name it. BUT, the good news, if you shop at Whole Foods, Earthfares, Wild Oats..you won't find many products, if at all, with MSG. Frito Lay has an entire line of Natural Chips and they are very good, NO MSG.
It takes me 2 days to recover from an MSG Headache/Hangover. Talk about having to flush your system out - UGH!! I don't even want to think about indulging in poison. |
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| I am a Chinese.I have it everyday, because it is a very important condiment in Chinese dishes. But I know it is bad for health, especially bad for eyes.
Too much MSG can make the retina thinner and thinner.and can cause glaucoma. So I am try my best to have it least. I think just a little is ok. |
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| There is abolutely no reason to use MSG as a flavouring.... it enhances flavour more or less as sodium chloride does and we all know what too much salt does to you. My local Chinese take-away tries to avoid it but it is very difficult as many pre-prepared condiment sauces are laden with the stuff. The owner told me it was best to stick with dishes that don't use the pre-prepared sauces such as black bean or oyster as they didn't use MSG in the ingredients they had control over.
It sounded to me like a business opportunity going missing..... MSG-free Chinese ready-sauces.
See http://www.msgtruth.org/ for more info.
Fee
Edited by Orbilia 2005-06-23 4:42 AM
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| Wow! Sounds like pretty scary stuff! My diet is generally ok (although I have a passion for chocolate biscuits and crisps!)- but it sounds as if it is in lots of hidden stuff. It's really hard to know what you're actually eating! |
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| That's basically the problem with any food not cooked from raw but pre-prepared for you. Some additives have to be there to ensure the meal doesn't rot before it even reaches the supermarket shelf, some to maintain an appetising colour, and some to ensure that degradation of flavour doesn't occur due to the effects of the packaging and the time between preparation and being eaten. Others are totally unnecessary from a nutrition/safety aspect but are there so that less scrupulous manufacturers can get away with using poor quality ingredients, encourage you to eat more of their product, or simply to hide the fact that the food's on the turn.
In the UK, food labelling has been improved immensely in the last few years as research has shown the link between food addititives and behavioural and health issues. Typically we now get a list of ingredients, a nutritional break-down detailing saturated v unsaturated fats, total salt content, sodium chloride content, daily allowances for adults, warnings dicals if the product contains popular/series allegens (e.g. nuts), as well as the cooking instructions (where appropriate).
Fee
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
  
| Fee - have you watched Jamie Oliver's school dinners program? Ugh!    It was sooo maddening that they can serve all that pre-packaged junk to kids but then say "you can't add salt to your fresh mashed potatoes!" I was amazed to see the mum of 7 ( ) kids actually agree to give up the junk food and have her notice so clearly what a wonderful difference it made to their behaviour. I wonder if she has been able to keep it up. |
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| I LOVE Dim Sum, but the hangover that I get later in the day has kept me away from eating in a long time. My heart rate does weird things and I feel shaky and become depressed. Its terrible. There are several Chinese places around here that don't use MSG...and it makes a huge difference.
A general rule when grocery shopping is to skip the middle aisles, because its mostly just processed foods. Of course, you are still going to run into veggies that have been grown under heat lamps, meat from animals who we can only imagine how were treated, etc. Ugh...when you think about it it can drive you crazy!!
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| Yes, I finally caught up with Jamie's school dinners on repeats. I'd never even heard of turkey twizzlers prior to that series.... oh the look on the kids's faces when he demonstrated how to make a chicken nugget!
I think the bit that grossed me out the most was when he was describing how kids were getting so constipated that things were coming up that more properly should have gone out of the body in a more southerly direction
The show and tell using vegetables was stunning too. I could just about understand how they wouldn't recognise asparagus given that the school in question was in a fairly impoverished area of London, but when they didn't even know what a carrot was! The mind truly boggles in horror.
I hope that someone will soon think about amending the school curriculum too.... food science is all very well but only if you also tell them how to cook from raw rather than how to 'cook a balanced meal' using packet stuff. And to think I was amazed when the first cookery class at my secondary school (age 15 up) involved making cups of tea and coffee. Judging from this series, we're now at a point where this is actually a much needed essential!!!!!
Fee
Edited by Orbilia 2005-06-23 11:35 AM
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| I used to like spicy food very much. it is the typical local flavor of where I live in. But my taste changed since I practice yoga. I don't use pre-prepared sauce. I just don't want to be too precise, and the taste is very important for me. I think my diet will be better gradually.
I am reading some ancient books these days. It says that a lot of food which we often have are a little poisonous, such as lettuce, eggplant, cucumber, apricot, peach,etc.  |
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| I remember when I was in school I always bought the "hot lunch" and once they served us pancakes with a side of french fries! Of course, as a third grader, I was delighted.
I didn't learn anything about cooking actual food until I was out on my own and decided to cut out the meat and dairy. I couldn't find anything pre-made (besides spaghetti with marinara) so I had to learn how to cook or starve to death. To this day I may still be the only one in my family that knows what an asparagus looks like!  |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| Mr. tourist was cooking himself a pork chop last night for dinner (I can't eat late so he is on his own most nights) and while that was cooking he made himself a lovely hot dog with fancy European franks from the deli. When I gasped at this "menu" which is extreme even for him he laughed and said "It's ok. I'll make up for it by not having any veggies..."  |
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| something irrelevant to the topic----jeansyoga, my dog looks alike yours very very much!!!
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Weird. My diet is slowly changing too. Don't know if it's because of yoga or not but is a bit bizarre.
susanchain - 2005-06-27 12:24 PM
I am reading some ancient books these days. It says that a lot of food which we often have are a little poisonous, such as lettuce, eggplant, cucumber, apricot, peach,etc.
Does this mean the food is naturally a little bit poisonous? That's weird too!
Kat |
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MSG
