FDA petitioned to update food safety list — here’s how you can help!

According to the FDA’s “best advice” on food safety, monosodium glutamate (MSG) is considered an “added chemical hazard.”

That warning will be found in the FDA’s Food Code, considered to be the agency’s “best recommendations” on food safety issues for retail food establishments. MSG has been included in Annex 4, table 2b, Added chemical hazards at retail, since 1999, with advice to “avoid using excessive amounts.”

Requesting that the list be expanded to reflect the ever-growing use of excitotoxic chemical hazards in food, Adrienne Samuels, Ph.D., director of the nonprofit Truth in Labeling Campaign has submitted a Citizen Petition to FDA Acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock, M.D., asking that additives containing manufactured free glutamate (MfG) – the same toxic ingredient found in MSG – also be included in the Food Code’s list of Added chemical hazards.

“Monosodium glutamate is not alone in containing potentially excitotoxic (brain damaging) MfG” says Samuels. “MfG can be found in dozens of additives used in processed foods, and they should all be listed as ‘chemical hazards’ along with MSG.” A list of the ingredients that always contain MfG is kept up-to-date on the webpage of the Truth in Labeling Campaign.

You can read and comment on this petition at the FDA docket here: https://www.regulations.gov/document/FDA-2021-P-0267-0001

This is the third petition Samuels has sent to the FDA this year. To read the others, one to strip MSG and manufactured glutamate of their GRAS (safe) status and the other to replace the FDA’s inaccurate webpage, “Questions and Answers on Monosodium Glutamate,” go to the Truth in Labeling Campaign’s website petition page here: https://www.truthinlabeling.org/petition.html

And remember, your comments at the FDA docket on these petitions matter, so be sure to tell them exactly what’s on your mind regarding these toxic additives!


If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. If you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, and we’ll put them up on Facebook. Or you can reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @truthlabeling.

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