At home and at school I have made a serious attempt in the last few years to serve more and more organic and preservative-free foods, whole grains, etc. Thank goodness price and access have made more organics possible. My reading over the last couple months, though, has really shed light on just how tainted so much of the food we eat is. Now, I love a good treat like the next girl--ice cream, a burger with bacon and jalapenos, a Coke on ice. But it's not the infrequent treats that will get you--it's the "stuff" in routine items you and I serve our family, most especially our young children, that are causing the most long-term harm.
Let's just consider food additives. We've all heard for years that we should avoid MSG, and some people have a terrible headache or reaction after consuming it. I bet you, like me, had no idea that almost all of us are having daily doses of it! Of the many articles and explanations I have read, this excerpt of an interview with Dr. Russell Blaylock, a neurosurgeon who now devotes his time to studying the relationship between nutrition and wellness, really hit home for me:
"Excitotoxins are a special group of amino acids that are building blocks of proteins that we call glutamate, aspartate, and cysteine. The food manufacturers add tons of these excitiotoxic amino acids to foods of all kinds, including baby foods. The only reason glutamate and similar excitotoxins are added to foods is because they greatly enhance the taste of foods--they make food taste scrumptious. For instance, MSG (monosodium glutamate) is a dangerous brain-toxic compound that should not be added to baby food, or any food. MSG is not the only taste-enhancing food additive know to cause damage to the nervous system. There is a whole class of chemicals that can produce very similiar damage. They all share one important property: When neurons are exposed to these substances, they become very 'excited' and fire their impulses very rapidly until they reach a state of extreme exhaustion. Several hours later these neurons suddenly die, as if the cells were 'excited' to death. As a result, neuroscientists have dubbed this class of chemicals 'excitotoxins' . . .
So much negative information had come out inititally on MSG that they came up with yet another substance called hydrolyzed vegetable protein that contains three known excitotoxins and, in many cases, also has added MSG. This substance is even more dangerous than MSG. As soon as negative information gets out they always find another way to fool the public; now they are adding even more excitotoxins, but they are called caseinate, autolyzed yeast extract, beef or chicken broth, or natural flavoring.
Ironically, the government regulatory agencies allow food manufacturers to call these excitotoxin additives by any name they choose as long as the glutamate conted is less than 99 percent pure.
Now, what if someone told you that a chemical added to food could cause brain damage in your children, and that this chemical could affect how your children's nervous systems formed during development so that in later years they may have learning or emotional difficulties. How would you feel?" (pg. 189)
Dr. Blaylock went on to say:
". . . a recent study showed that if you fed an animal MSG early in life for about six doses--six doses, that's not much--when they reached adolescence (and the same goes for being a human being having the same amounts early in life), these animals were still generating high levels of free radicals in the walls of their arteries at an age equivalent in humans to ages twenty and twenty five . . . one short dose of MSG early in life is still producing free radicals for two decades, which is the cause of arteriosclerosis, not elevated cholesterol as it was thought to be. Cholesterol has little to do with it. In essence, what I am saying is that the high excitotoxin additve intake causes chronic inflammation and this results in most of these diseases." (pg. 198-199)
Somers, Suzanne. Breakthrough: Eight Steps to Wellness. New York, Crown Publishing Group, 2008, pg 189, 198.
I went through my pantry shelves and checked out some of my food using a list like this: http://www.msgmyth.com/hidename.htm At least in Europe they have some handy-dandy numbers that must be listed on products containing this junk, but we get to sort through 18-66 names of things we should consider before buying a product . . .
In the trash went a box of stuffing mix, chicken broth, several kinds of "healthy, wholegrain crackers", ranch dip mix, a bottle of "healthy" vinaigrette, hot chocolate mix, and more! We went through the school pantry and eliminated several of the same. See what you find in your pantry . . . I think you'll be as shocked and &*^%$ off just like I was!
~Leslie
