Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is another additive besides high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) that has interested me to learn more about it.

I had always heard that it was “bad” and when I used to order chicken fried rice (I can make my own version now), I always stated “no MSG”. I didn’t really know exactly why it was so bad, though.

I am quite certain that you have heard of MSG, but do you really know what it is? I’ve done some research on this topic and would like to some of the points that I’ve learned.

I first learned a little bit more about MSG while reading the book “You On A Diet“. There is a small side line about it on page 117 that states that MSG may influence the body’s metabolism in a negative way. It “over stimulates the glutamine receptors of the brain”, which means that it heightens the salty and sweet tastes of the dish containing MSG, while at the same time, it dampens the bitter and sour tastes. Interestingly enough, MSG “may cause us to eat more” (Remember my post on HFCS? It does the same thing), and it can also cause higher levels of insulin to be produced.

That right there may be enough information to cause you to take a second glance at the list of ingredients on the processed food that you buy, as well as think about the fast and restaurant foods that you eat. Here are a couple more tidbits of information that I recently learned about MSG (source: MSGTruth.org, where Carol Hoernlein is the main writer.)

1. MSG stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin. As mentioned above, “You On A Diet” pointed this out, however on MSGTruth, it is made a bit clearer to me. You see, MSG stimulates the pancreas to release insulin into the blood stream even when there are not any carbohydrates in the dish for the insulin to act on.

Your blood sugar ends up dropping because of this flood of insulin, and then you end up hungry again an hour or so later. Reading this gave me a “Wow” moment because of that saying “No matter how much Chinese food you eat, you still end up hungry an hour later.” I never connected this with the additive MSG. This really gives you something to think about, especially if you are working on losing weight.

2. MSG tricks your body into thinking that the food you are eating is nutritious, even if it is not. The reason for this is that your taste buds detect the free glutamic acid that is in MSG. In “taste bud language”, this translates to “hey, there’s protein in this food I’m tasting!”. Therefore, your brain gets the signal that the food you are eating is actually nutritious, while more than likely, it is not.

These are just a few reasons (enough for me to avoid it, what about you?) that MSG is an additive to be avoided, which is an added incentive to read labels. If you would like to read the full article, please visit MSGTruth.org.

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