Epiphany

Yesterday I came home later than expected from the office and realized that even though I had soaked the chickpeas for my healthy soup recipe, I would still have a couple hours of preparation before it was ready for the table. The kids were "fainting" from "severe starvation" and I was in a hurry to eat myself. I grabbed a couple pounds of frozen ground beef from the freezer, defrosted it in the microwave and prepared two boxes of Cheeseburger Macaroni Hamburger Helper.

There were cheers from the kids and Shawn was impressed with how quickly I was able to sit us down at the table. Not a healthy supper but it tasted good and was cheaper than take-out. In fact, as I was sitting there revelling in the tastiness of this convenient meal, I had a thought.

"This tastes too good. I bet there is MSG in this."

I voiced this assumption out loud and then asked the kids to pass me the flattened box on the counter. Sure enough, Monosodium Glutamate was listed in the ingredients plain as day. Why had I never noticed this before?

I knew that Hamburger Helper was not nutritious but like Kraft Dinner, Hot Dogs, and frozen Costco pizza it is a staple for those nights where a healthful meal is just not going to happen and you're two seconds from heading to McDonald's. But MSG? My children have no idea that they just ate the last boxes of Hamburger Helper I will ever buy in my lifetime.

I go through tremendous lengths to buy soup bases with no MSG and I avoid Chinese food except for a couple times a year. The last Chinese food I had was New Year's eve and I literally got numbness around my mouth, which I later learned was a reaction to the MSG in the food. Yuk!

In fact, my 7 Pillars of Health book explains that MSG is a flavour-enhancer that doesn't make the food taste better...it actually sensitizes your taste buds to trick your body into believing that the food tastes better than it does. This is not how other herbs and seasonings work.

There are all sorts of bad reactions you can get from MSG and because it makes food taste so good, often those foods become addictive. Everything from headaches to frequent urination. It's quite the list.

The worst thing is that MSG is not always listed on the food label as clearly as the Hamburger Helper box so it's not so easy to avoid. I checked the Kraft Dinner box and it's not listed. Don Colbert published a list of foods that ALWAYS contain MSG and another one of foods that SOMETIMES contain or produce MSG. I was shocked at some of the ingredients listed. Whey and soy protein was in the second category! I've been drinking whey protein almost daily for years.Do the protein powders I buy have MSG in them?

I think when I read the MSG section of Don Colbert's book, my mind kind of switched off. At the time I was battling bigger giants: Sugar & Caffeine. MSG was a minor player and I wasn't going to worry about it. Something about my discovery yesterday and that inner sense that I don't want to be exploited by the food processing companies anymore has brought this issue to the forefront.

Why take supplements, make my own almond milk, and avoid sugar & caffeine if I'm going to eat convenience foods loaded with a toxic, body-altering chemical? No thank you!