Charlotte's Web Blog

Hold the MSG: It’s Not Risk-Free

I always assumed monosodium glutamate was like a snowstorm in

Los Angeles

: easy to avoid. I simply needed to sidestep Chinese restaurants and eyeball product labels for those conspicuous three letters: MSG.

At the same time I asked myself, why even go to the trouble? What’s the harm in ingesting this salty filler? If it were a culinary “evil doer” surely Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would pierce it with its mighty sword or at least put it in the stockades for all see and taunt. Since the FDA had no ban and no serious disclosure requirement, I figured all was fine in kitchenville, grocerville and restaurantville. I was wrong.

I suffered from migraines before I was old enough to say the word, “eye ache,” my childhood name for the excruciating pain that pulverized one side of my face eight days out of every month. While my school friends enjoyed recess between classes, I’d lie in my usual spot: on the cot in the nurse’s office.

While my classmates whizzed through standardized tests, I held a cold pack to my forehead and struggled to discern the fuzzy print. While my buddies hoofed it up at the prom, I lay in a hatchback of pain in the parking lot in my date’s Saab. This was my life until 2003 when things took a turn for the worse. 

I started getting migraines every day, and the one prescription medicine that had decreased the pain on occasion, no longer worked. I pushed through weeks, months and years, experimenting with allopathic medicines as well as alternative remedies, such as acupuncture, homeopathy, massage and hypnosis. Nothing helped.

Thursday’s child may have far to go, but on a Thursday in December 2008, I got closer to relief when my husband said, “Maybe your migraines will go away if you stop eating monosodium glutamate.”

“What are you talking about? I hardly ever eat anything with MSG.”

Turns out I was wrong. This substance, which was discovered in 1908 by

Tokyo

University

professor Kikunae Ikeda, is now as ubiquitous as blue jeans.   

After more than 40 years of misery, I have learned the truth about MSG. I have learned it is 15 times more prevalent in food than it was in 1969 and that some people, like myself, are super sensitive to it, despite the fact that the FDA says it is safe at normal levels for most people. I have discovered it is a secret saboteur of health; the food industry tricks consumers into buying products with free glutamic acid (or MSG) by listing it under any one of 43 innocent-sounding names, such as natural flavoring, seasonings, yeast extract, spices, pectin or citric acid. A pesticide company called Emerald BioAgriculture uses an MSG type of “growth enhancer” which they have been spraying onto selected vegetables and nuts since 1999; the company is currently looking to get government permission to use the substance on organic produce.   

Meats, seafood and poultry can be rinsed or injected with MSG before reaching your plate, and restaurant salad bars can get an MSG spritz, giving lettuce that perky look. This toxic additive can be found in vitamins, soaps, cosmetics, chewing gum and intravenous hospital fluids. It can be found in children’s medications, and it might lurk inside your migraine prescription. 

In short, MSG acts as cheap filler, a flavor enhancer and a cosmetic surgeon, fooling unsuspecting consumers into thinking aged, withered foods are fresh. It can hide unpleasant tastes. It has an addictive component much like nicotine, and recent studies in

Spain

have conclusively linked it with obesity. MSG means profits for the food industry and its powerful

Washington

lobbyists; and it is no surprise that proper labeling legislation remains elusive. 

If any additive containing the essential active ingredient of MSG, glutamic acid or free glutamate, is an amount that is less than 78%, the government does not require it to be labeled MSG. This is deceptive because MSG itself contains over 78% free glutamates. Some products will even say “No MSG” when they have glutamic acid in another form.

There are epidemiological studies, such as those brought to light by Dr. Adrienne Samuels, suggesting that up to 40% of the

US

population suffer from adverse reactions to MSG with drowsiness, numbness, chest pains, nausea, facial pressure, difficulty in breathing or headaches. The FDA claims only 2% of the population experience a bad reaction, but even if this is right, it amounts to whopping 6 million Americans, more than the 3 million who are allergic to peanuts.

It has been six months since I decided to eat, drink and be MSG free. I consume carefully scrutinized items from a health food store because Dr. Russell Blaylock--author of a book about the toxicity of MSG called Excitotoxins: the Taste that Kills--claims 75% - 90% of the foods sold at traditional grocers are laced with the unhealthy additive. I try to avoid restaurants and “brown bag it” to dinner parties. Miraculously the daily migraines have disappeared.

I am not goof-proof and have had seven consumption mishaps. Three resulted in four-day migraines which appeared exactly 18 hours after I ate the questionable foods. Only three migraines in six months or 12 days of sickness is better than Christmas when you are accustomed to a life as an invalid.    

If migraines are your curse, limit yourself to healthy food. Eat only organic fruits, vegetables, nuts and whole grains. Read every package. Ask every question. Petition every politician for better labeling laws.  

President Obama has described current procedures for regulating food safety as a “hazard to human health” and plans to overhaul the system for the first time in more than 70 years. Yet, the toxicity of monosodium glutamate is not on his radar. Tell him it should be.

Tell him MSG is not risk-free.

_______

Charlotte Laws is a member of the Greater Valley Glen Council in

Southern California

. Her council recently passed a motion which states, “For any new product or recipe change, food manufacturers must measure for free glutamic acid and disclose it as MSG on the label with levels present in milligrams.”   

The motion has been forwarded to the Los Angeles City Council and to Sacramento Legislators for further consideration.

Fred Travalena dies at age 66.

Photo of (left to right) Victoria McMahon (Ed McMahon's ex-wife), Charlotte Laws and Fred Travalena, taken at a party in Washington DC in the early 1980's.

Charlotte Laws, Michael Jackson and Brooke Shields

Michael Jackson died today at the age of 50. Photo taken backstage at the Grammy Awards.

Ed McMahon and Charlotte Laws

Ed McMahon has died at the age of 86. This photo was taken in the early 1980's in Las Vegas backstage at the Frontier Hotel.

Adam Lambert: Don’t worry, Elvis would have lost American Idol, too

This year’s American Idol competition was the embodiment of America's culture war. It was never a singing contest.  

Today, I was interviewed on the Sirius radio show “Across the Nation with Bob Dunning,” and I correctly predicted Kris Allen would win the American Idol (AI) title even though Adam Lambert is the true talent and will be a worldwide superstar. Allen will most likely disappear into the woodwork within a year.

Why did I predict this? Because five of the seven past winners have been Christians and all of the past AI winners have come from culturally more conservative states than their opponents. Allen is from a small town in Arkansas, and Lambert is from a big city in  California. Allen is a church leader, and Lambert has never disclosed his religious beliefs.  

The majority of Americans identify as politically right of center. During the 2008 election, polls showed them to be more in line with the values of John McCain than Barack Obama. Barack Obama was able to overcome this hurdle and win the election because he was seen as a moderate. Lambert can in no way be described as moderate on stage. His flashy stage presence and the lingering questions about his sexual orientation put him firmly in the liberal camp.

Last night I reviewed the states that supported Lambert as opposed to Allen on the “Dial Idol” website, and then compared it with the map of red vs. blue states from the 2008 election. There was tremendous similarity. Lambert won many of the same states as Obama. He carried California, Oregon, Washington, New York and all of New England except Vermont. Allen won Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, Utah and Arizona.

American Idol is not a singing contest in which the most talented is crowned in the end. It is a show based on a democratic process in which callers—who tend to lean conservative--choose the performer with whom they can identify. The majority seek a winner who is wholesome as apple pie and who share their value system. Additionally, the AI demographic tends to be white, middle-aged females who are slightly more conservative than the average American.

Lambert is an iconoclast and was never the front-runner in this race. He was always the underdog.

Memorable newspaper headlines called the Allen-Lambert showdown: “Good vs. Evil” and “David vs. Goliath.” Did anyone actually believe ordinary Americans would vote for a contestant equated with “evil”?

A Kris Allen win is the expected and a continuation of the same. 

The real story would have been a Lambert win. It would have indicated a cultural shift in America, especially as same-sex marriage initiatives sweep the land.

Elvis Presley’s appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show horrified the masses who thought the singer was upsetting the morals and mores of society.

Elvis was the Adam Lambert of his time.And he would have lost American Idol as well.