Here is the dark secret we are not warned about.

I went to a wedding once.

They served some weird cold cucumber & dill soup. Clearly I don't have the taste buds for so called "rich" or "Healthy" food. Sadly...I like cucumbers an dill. Just not as some weird cold soup slush slurree thing.

I was pretty sure I'd need PTSD therapy after all that.

I stopped talking to those people who invited me.

Just the thought..gah!

Sirscrapntruckalot - Why is it everything supposedly good for you tastes like bleh?

 

That I can work with. We neti pot on a regular basis, eat things with garlic and onion in it often, there is something we call antibiotic broth that we drink more when germs seem to be going around school or work, keep a clean environment, if we are sick we stay home. (Which is rare any of us are sick.) Take our vitamins and eat vitamin rich food. Keep a healthy digestive track. All things I found in books backed by research, not internet findings. Kombucha tea (especially if home made) is great year round to help keep the nasty stuff away and colloidal silver water. Those are just a few.

 

Colloidal silver has not been shown to be helpful.
Antibiotics don't help against viruses. Vaccines do.
Kombucha has no evidence for it's effectiveness and can actually be harmful depending on what's in it.
Neti pots seem to have some positive effects, but only use it with distilled water or boiled water as using tap water with them can actually make you sick.
Staying home is helpful for everyone outside your family, but if you have children in the home unable to defend against certain dangerous diseases it could be the worst thing to do.
A clean environment is great for everyone.
Vitamins and staying healthy are great for your personal immune system, and it's great to be healthy. Just don't overdose on vitamins.
If you really want to find stuff out you should research in places other than those who are credulous to these treatments. Look at the NIH or FDA literature on them. After learning about something too good to be true add skeptic, debunk, study, or review to it to see if there's legitimate criticisms. You should take far more stock in scientific studies than anecdotal evidece from bloggers. Oh, and above all else, don't listen to the foodbabe, natural news, or infowars for your health information.

 

I've done all the research. Odd that you tell me you don't want to hear I do all my research on the internet and then you give me links. JS.
I know for a fact these things work. Scientists are paid to disprove each other. It is how the scientific world works.
I always properly neti pot and kombucha tea (done properly) is EXTREMELY worth while.
If someone tells you one thing and you witnessed something totally different with your own experience, which would you believe?

 

What do you base scientists knowing everything good for you off of, because they're supposedly the smartest people? You go back far enough all the "smart" people thought the world was flat and everythinh revolved around it. How many about the whole egg is bad for you, no just the white, no wait, just the yolk, oh we were wrong eggs are good for you. I don't trust scientists for anything, they're all being paid by somebody and the person paying them is looking for certain outcome.

 

Can I get mine with You'll Never Mistake It For Butter™?

 

I haven't read all of this topic yet, but from what I've read in medical or regulatory journals (e.g. Food Ingredients of Public Health Concern). MSG is like any other food. It is generally recognized as safe by the USDA. Generally, because some people are allergic to (or otherwise physically upset by) any food in different amounts. In fact, everything we eat can be toxic in large enough amounts, but that varies for different people (or the same person on different days).

I gather this is the whole story: monosodium glutamate is a flavor enhancer and all it does is improve the taste of food (similarly to table salt). However, if it seems to bother you in usual amounts, then don't eat it (or try it by itself to test this).

Anyone can have too much of a good thing, and that's evident by looking at them for the most part. We don't have to declare anything universally bad because some people are over eating and/or reacting to it. For example, some lady had a heart attack from eating too much black licorice in one week (remember, anything is dangerous, so it is best not to eat anything exclusively). What the USDA, CDC, EPA, WHO, et.al. do is study such things, and MSG has been around long enough to presume they have taken no real issue with it, besides that of informing the public what foods contain it (as an ingredient of general interest). This doesn't mean individuals can't have real reactions to what is generally recognized as safe, it just isn't common.

What is common are digestive aids. Obviously just about everyone was upset by something they ate, and either got to know better, or guess who eats all those digestive aids... then guess why nothing can be recognized as completely safe (including digestive aids).

Guess what else... some eating patterns may cause dementia (especially overeating), and the population of demented people could double in the not too distant future. Happy Thanksgiving, by the way.

 

Actually, I found that there's more to the story, after reading about umami as a basic taste, and glutamate as a neurotransmitter. I think the thing to keep in mind is this: "Glutamate is a main constituent of dietary protein . . .", so you eat it anyway.

Well, I just got around to finding some MSG (umami seasoning) that is made in the USA, and it's said to be "naturally fermented using corn glucose", so apparently this savory flavor doesn't have to come from kelp, or animals perhaps (as with inosinate and guanylate).

When added to soup, MSG has been found to reduce the amount of table salt necessary for 'salting to taste' . . ., so it can enhance other basic tastes, as well as being one itself (otherwise known as "savory" or "umami"). Basic tastes are not arbitrary. They are for nutrients we need (as neurotransmitters, etc.), especially if the taste is pleasant (whereas unpleasant ones, like bitter tastes, would be more questionable). Glutamate can be invloved in disorders, just as other salts, sugars, or acids can, although these basic tastes usually prevent disorders, as part of the balanced diet. Monosodium glutamate contains sodium too, of course, yet it does not make sodium chloride taste saltier to me; it actually reduces or blends the saltiness into savoriness, methinks (like how combining a sour lemon with sugar makes it taste sweeter, or smoother that is: each flavor is enhanced, in other words). I think when people over salt food, maybe they're going for something more savory instead; the funny thing is, I can enjoy eating steamed potatoes with little or no salt, and just found out that glutamate is characteristic of their flavor . . . , no wonder (or some of that has to do with the Maillard reaction, depending on how they're cooked, since glutamate is said to be a precursor of that too, and I guess this is technically a 'dark' secret, as it were, but I'd say don't read into that, or ya might be a redneck; coincidentally I wonder if MSG still seems too foreign, even though it has been proven to be a natural flavor—at least as natural as citric acid, which is less controversial, yet produced about the same way).

Looking at the nutrition facts, MSG has around 1/3 (32%) as much sodium as NaCl, by weight: 1/4 tsp (1.5g) Iodized Salt = 590mg sodium vs 1/4 tsp (1.0g) Monosodium G. = 125mg sodium. The difference in volume depends on the crystal size; for example, 1/4 tsp of kosher salt weighs 0.7g, with 280mg sodium, so iodized salt tends to be ground finer than kosher salt and MSG. But as far as nutrition facts go, sodium is all that's listed for monosodium glutamate (as there's no upper nutritional intake limit or daily value set for glutamate otherwise).

 

Well, there may be more to this little detail in the subtext too, as far as MSG being used to induce neurotoxicity in the brain for anthropomorphic lab tests:

• Resistance exercise reduces memory impairment induced by monosodium glutamate in male and female rats

• The Neuroprotective Effect of Dark Chocolate in Monosodium Glutamate-Induced Nontransgenic Alzheimer Disease Model Rats

• A review for the pharmacological effect of lycopene in central nervous system disorders... 'lycopene can prevent neuro-toxicities induced by monosodium glutamate (MSG)'.

So I guess that's a fair warning (to me, besides not feeling prone to Chinese restaurant syndrome) anyway, rather than assuming as I may have that the absence of an upper limit wouldn't necessarily make me a lab rat for eating too much of this stuff (which I hadn't made a habit of, although I might have otherwise). Okay, so I wouldn't judge it by the limit for sodium content after all. It seems that I especially don't need the additional concentrated glutamate (in MSG), on top of what occurs naturally in foods.

 

I never liked dark chocolate, and many on our forum have made fun of me for eating so much ketchup and tomatoes.