Tag: freeglutamicacid

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If MfG wasn’t harmful, it wouldn’t be hidden in drugs

When MSG and other sources of toxic manufactured free glutamic acid (MfG) are used in pharmaceuticals as excipients (a.k.a. “inactive” ingredients), manufacturers are not required to share that information with the public. This past June the Truth in Labeling Campaign reviewed the excipients found in vaccines with some frightening findings. The MfG we found hidden there will also be found throughout the realm of pharmaceuticals, both OTC and Rx ones.

The following excerpt from the recently posted article “What’s in your medicine may surprise you – a call for greater transparency about inactive ingredients,” published by conversation.com will give you an idea of what consumers are up against.

Product labeling for ‘inactive’ ingredients

“As the so-called ‘inactive’ ingredients in medicines, excipients are often mistaken as being free from potential harm. But the evidence suggests otherwise. Between 2015 to 2019, health-care professionals, patients, and manufacturers filed nearly 2,500 reports to the FDA about an adverse reaction to an excipient.

“While excipients are listed on packaging or package insert for over-the-counter and prescription drugs, this information can be difficult to find. Furthermore, patients often switch from brand name to generic versions, or the pharmacist substitutes one manufacturer for another. While the active pharmaceutical ingredient remains the same, excipients may be different, and even seemingly slight differences can significantly impact patient safety. For example, a patient may be allergic to an excipient in the newly refilled medicine with a different manufacturer.

“Excipients are critical materials and serve a broad variety of functions. They serve as fillers, help the body to absorb the medicine, and add flavor or color to drugs. In fact, some are often found in food products, such as lactose, peanut oil, and starch. In the United States, excipients are approved by the FDA as part of the review process for the finished medicine; they are considered by the regulatory agency as generally recognized as safe or ‘GRAS.’ However, a complete picture of their clinical effect remains unclear.

“Research from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital has found that 92.8% of oral medicines contain at least one potential allergen, a concern for individuals with known sensitivities and intolerances. My recent research, investigating the safety of excipients in biologics, which are large complex molecules that are mostly administered through an injection, found case reports of injection site reaction, severe allergic reaction, spike in blood sugar level, and acute kidney failure associated with these ‘inactive’ ingredients.

“Despite some evidence that excipients are responsible for drug reactions, the amount of each excipient added to each drug is not reported for nearly half of biological medicines. In fact, our study found that 44.4% of the biologics’ labels do not list the concentration of the most commonly occurring excipients. This is true for all prescription medicines, not only biologics.

“This lack of information has important implications for patients with diseases prompting dietary restrictions – such as gluten or lactose intolerance, food allergies, or diabetes – because the amount of wheat starch, lactose, peanut oil, and glucose in their medicine can be potentially harmful.”

Knowledge is power. With the FDA working for both Big Food and Big Pharma, knowledge is your greatest asset.


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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Mainlining delivers toxins better

The Glutes make a big deal out of the fact that some of the studies of MSG-toxicity were done with MSG administered by injection to newborns animals  (conveniently forgetting the fact that other results of MSG-induced toxicity were based on feeding studies).

They suggested that injection of MSG is more lethal than ingestion of MSG, and in humans, they said, MSG isn’t injected.  But that’s not entirely true.  The MSG used in vaccines is injected. Drawing on drug-culture vernacular, one could say that the MSG in vaccines is mainlined.

The CDC list of vaccines and their excipients/additives follows.  Highlighted are ingredients that contain the excitotoxic free glutamate found in MSG.

Pink Book-Appendix B-Vaccines-Excipient & Media Summary
Pink Book-Appendix B-Vaccines-Excipient & Media Summary
Pink Book-Appendix B-Vaccines-Excipient & Media Summary
Pink Book-Appendix B-Vaccines-Excipient & Media Summary

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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Warning! Yeast extract contains the same excitotoxic free glutamate as that in MSG

There’s a world of writers who turn out propaganda pieces on the safety of MSG. They’re much like the “researchers” who authored the MSG-is-safe studies for the International Glutamate Technical Committee in the 1990s. These were individuals with little or no obvious connection to one another, affiliated with variety of universities and medical schools, who had no history of studying the safety of MSG and had no misgivings about using excitotoxic aspartame in their placebos.

So, it’s only natural to wonder if John Moody’s article “Yeast Extract: Not MSG But Is It Safe?” in The Healthy Home Economist was designed to be MSG-is-safe propaganda. It sure looked that way, but it also sent a warning to consumers that yeast extract contains the same toxic free glutamate that’s in MSG.

To understand the toxicity of yeast extract, you have to understand the basics of toxic glutamate found in food.

Glutamate must be free to be harmful, meaning it can’t exist as part of a protein. And toxic free glutamate found in food will always have been manufactured.

You can make/produce free glutamate (glutamate outside of protein) using carefully selected genetically modified bacteria. Feed the bacteria on some starchy stuff like sugar, and they secrete glutamate through their cell walls. That’s pretty much how the glutamate in MSG is made in Ajinomoto’s plant in Eddyville Iowa.

You can also free glutamate from protein. Begin with something that contains protein — almost any meat, grain, diary product, fruit or vegetable will contain at least some small amount of glutamate. Then, choose your method: 1) extract glutamate from protein, 2) use hydrolysis, autolysis, enzymes, acids or fermentation to break protein into individual amino acids (which would include glutamate), or apply high heat to protein.

All glutamate made/produced by man plus that which has been fermented contains D-glutamate, pyroglutamate and other unwanted by-products of manufacture (impurities which industry has been unable to remove) as well as the desired L-glutamate. In contrast, the glutamate in unadulterated fruits, grains, vegetables, and in the human body, which wouldn’t be manufactured, is L-glutamate only.

To be toxic, free glutamate has to 1) be present in excess – more than the healthy body needs for normal body function, or 2) act as a neurotransmitter, overstimulating and damaging glutamate receptors for some weak area in an individual’s body, the heart, lungs, or stomach for example.

Yeast extract contains toxic free glutamate.

Yeast extract contributes to accumulation of toxic free glutamate in two ways. First, yeast extract itself will contain toxic free glutamate. Moreover, yeast and yeast extract can also interact with other ingredients, causing the protein in those other ingredients to break down and release glutamate.

The way that the yeast extract is produced will vary from one manufacturer to another, but all break the protein found in yeast into free amino acids – one of which will be glutamate. Following are various descriptions of how that’s done:

1: Food Navigator-asia.com: https://www.foodnavigator-asia.com/Article/2019/09/25/Clean-label-less-sodium-and-vegan-Yeast-extract-specialist-company-Angel-Yeast-names-three-mega-trends-driving-the-industry#

“Angel Yeast’s yeast extract products are obtained from molasses-cultured yeast, which are autolyzed to obtain the extract and made into pastes or powders.”

2: European Association for Specialty Yeast Products:
http://www.yeastextract.info/yeast-extract/how-it-s-made

“Yeast extract is … made from natural bakers’ or brewers’ yeast. First sugar is added so that the yeast can multiply. Then enzymes in the yeast break down the proteins present in the yeast into smaller components and make the cell walls permeable. Finally the components present in the yeast cell – the yeast extract – are separated from the surrounding wall and dried.”

3: Biospringer: https://biospringer.com/en/explore-yeast-extract/yeast-extract/production-process/

“Yeast is a microscopic unicellular fungus that has been living on Earth for millions of years. Like any other cell, yeast is made of proteins, amino acids, vitamins and minerals gathered within the cell walls.”

“Yeast extract is simply the yeast content without the cell wall, making it a natural origin ingredient. Its production consists of 3 main steps:

Fermentation
Breaking of the yeast cell (also known as autolysis)
Separation”

4: By Elea Carey for Healthline: https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/is-yeast-extract-bad-for-me#1″ https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/is-yeast-extract-bad-for-me#1

“There are two kinds of yeast extract, autolyzed and hydrolyzed. In both, the cell walls are discarded and the contents of the cell are combined. In autolyzed yeast, the enzymes found in the yeast itself are used to break down the proteins. In hydrolyzed yeast, these enzymes are added to the yeast.”

Does yeast extract contain enough free glutamate to cause brain damage or adverse reactions?

If yeast extract was the only source of free glutamate ingested, toxicity would depend on the amount of free glutamate in the particular product ingested, and the sensitivity of the person ingesting it. There are glutamate-sensitive people who react to yeast extract.

But in real life one helping of yeast extract isn’t going to be ingested in isolation. Combined with other sources of glutamate in the diet, yeast extract increases the likelihood of brain damage and adverse reactions.

About MSG-is-safe propaganda

John Moody’s article fits the present propaganda model perfectly. It doesn’t shout out that MSG is harmless, but in several sections feel-good words are paired with the words glutamate, MSG or umami.

“Why we love glutamate”
“the presence of natural glutamates”
“Glutamates… trigger a response in our brains that make us enjoy our food.”
“Glutamates don’t just taste good, they ARE good”
“essential for life itself”
“…glutamates are naturally occurring in a wide range of foods, especially if fermented or slowly cooked or simmered. Also, traditional cultures sometimes prepared foods in such a way to purposefully INCREASE the concentration of glutamates. Clearly, ancestral societies recognized the benefits of natural glutamate in the diet.”

And then there are even more clever sections that the casual reader might think speak of the hazards of glutamates, but actually minimize them: 1) it would be unnatural to ingest too much MSG; 2) it’s processed foods that are the problem if there is one, not MSG; 3) there are a few risks associated with ingestion of MSG, but lots of foods can cause them, and 4) natural forms of glutamates are not a concern.

And finally, at the end of the paper, where psychologists say it will have the longest lasting impression, are the words, “For healthy individuals, glutamates play a vital role both in good health and good hearth (food).”

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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Plant-based meat replacers promote obesity, infertility and migraine headache

Until fairly recently, the thing called “food” used to be food, not manufactured amino acids and other chemicals.

Then, someone discovered that a huge, virtually untapped goldmine was out there for things that could be advertised as protein-containing meat-like “foods” that weren’t made from animals. That market is now reported to be hitting $4.5 billion in yearly sales and expected to grow substantially every year.

These protein substitutes have now become so popular that the Impossible Burger from Impossible Foods and the Beyond Burger from Beyond Meat have made the jump not just into supermarket meat aisles, but to fast-food places like Burger King and Dunkin’ Donuts.

But there’s a problem. This mock meat contains excitotoxic (brain damaging) manufactured free glutamic acid (MfG) — the same toxic ingredient found in monosodium glutamate.

Don’t expect to find that information on the label. And especially don’t expect the fake-food industry to tell you that glutamic acid is associated with Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, stroke, ALS, autism, schizophrenia, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), epilepsy, ischemic stroke, seizures, Huntington’s disease, addiction, frontotemporal dementia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism.

There’s protein in meat, fish and poultry. But what’s made in food-processing plants and marketed as a replacement for meat isn’t protein. Although those products contain amino acids with names like the ones that are found in meat, fish, and poultry, don’t be fooled. The amino acids in these imposters have been manufactured in food- processing and/or chemical plants, and all come loaded with unwanted by-products of production (a.k.a. impurities) such as D-glutamic acid and pyroglutamic acid, three of those amino acids being excitotoxins – meaning they kill brain cells.

The names of some of the ingredients that contain excitotoxic amino acids may be familiar to you. They include monosodium glutamate (MSG), maltodextrin, hydrolyzed mung beans and other hydrolyzed protein products, pea protein isolate and other protein isolates and concentrates, all of which contain excitotoxic MfG. (More are listed here.)

You can find additional information on the webpage and blogs of The Truth in Labeling Campaign.

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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An ounce of prevention, worth even more when you know of no cure

If you were to read the medical literature, you’d find that high levels of glutamic acid in the body (a.k.a. glutamate) are associated with Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, stroke, ALS, autism, schizophrenia, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), epilepsy, ischemic stroke, seizures, Huntington’s disease, addiction, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), frontotemporal dementia, autism and more.

Of course, those who manufacture and sell Manufactured free Glutamate (MfG) claim it’s harmless. And to back up those claims they rig their “scientific” studies and pay millions to PR firms to spread their propaganda.

Propaganda: more powerful than research
How the ‘MSG safe’ game is played
Recipe for deception
Propaganda 101
Is this propaganda hiding in the business section of your newspaper?
‘Sometimes, you just have to stand up there and lie’
Writers engaged in spreading the Glutes’ propaganda and the outlets that enable them
Another MSG YouTube propaganda video

Don’t be a victim. Don’t make your children victims. Avoid the hidden sources of excitotoxic MfG along with excitotoxic aspartic acid (found in aspartame and aliases) and excitotoxic L-cysteine (found in dough conditioners). Yes, you really can avoid them when you know what to look for.

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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Are you feeding your infant brain-damaging additives?

In 1969 the moms and dads of America were promised by the top three baby-food manufacturers that monosodium glutamate would be taken out of their products.

Sure, the baby food executives whined and complained and told how the public had been “unnecessarily alarmed and confused,” but they had hit a brick wall. Dr. John Olney, a top researcher at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, had recently published data showing that when newborn mice were exposed to the additive, they suffered extensive brain damage and endocrine disorders, and he coined the term “excitotoxin” to describe monosodium glutamate. As the late Dr. Jean Mayer, a highly respected nutritionist who taught at Harvard for 25 years (and went on to be named president of Tufts University), said at the time: “I would take the damn stuff out of baby food.”

But half a century later, that “damn stuff” is still being fed to babies – only now added to infant formula.

A formula for disaster

Asked to report on the use of toxic manufactured free glutamate (MfG) in infant formula, we were appalled by the many articles available online that talked of the pros and cons of using various brands, but never once mentioned the presence of excitotoxins.

While monosodium glutamate may have been removed from those little jars of baby food, the same excitotoxic glutamic acid found in monosodium glutamate, now in ingredients such as whey protein concentrate and soy protein isolate, began appearing in infant formula. One product made by Enfamil shockingly lists among its ingredients monosodium glutamate, advising caregivers that it can be continued on as a “milk substitute in the diet of children.”

There are a variety of ways MfG harms the body. When Olney testified in 1972 before the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, he was attesting to the brain damage and subsequent endocrine disorders caused by the MfG in monosodium glutamate when fed to the very young.

Now, people realize that monosodium glutamate also causes adverse reactions such as asthma, migraine headache, irritable bowel, skin rash, seizures, and heart irregularities.

But along the way to this enlightenment, the link between MfG and brain damage seems to have been forgotten. Perhaps that’s because you can’t see brain damage with the naked eye. There’s no pain, no upset stomach, no itching or wheezing.

And stealthily, the glutamate industry has invested millions of dollars in propaganda intended to reassure the public that monosodium glutamate is merely a harmless food additive.

It’s not that health authorities don’t seem to care what’s in infant formulas. The public has been alerted to various toxic ingredients that have been found in these products over the years, including melamine (a compound used to make plastics) and perchlorate (a chemical found in rocket fuel). In fact, the plastic additive BPA has been banned from baby bottles.

But there’s no warning about excitotoxins.

That’s why if you’re thinking of using – or currently use — infant formula, it’s essential that you read the ingredients. Think carefully about the chemicals that are commonly used in these products and beware of hidden excitotoxins.

In March, 2019, we found the following 10 brands of infant formula listed at Amazon.com and searched out their ingredients. These included:

  • Enfamil,
  • Similac,
  • Earth’s Best,
  • Kirkland Signature
  • Good Start
  • Happy Baby
  • Good Sense
  • Member’s Mark
  • Plum Organics
  • Parent’s Choice

In the following ingredient lists, excitotoxic ingredients are highlighted. Only ones that make up more than 1 or 2 percent of the product are included.

Note: The excitotoxin content of milk depends on whether or not whole milk is used in the milk product. If whole milk is used, the excitotoxin content of the milk depends on the pasteurization process (higher heat for longer time frees more glutamic acid and aspartic acid from the original milk protein). If low fat or non-fat milks are used, there will be excitotoxin in the low fat and non-fat milk because those milks are made from milk powder which contains free glutamic acid and free aspartic acid as unavoidable consequences of manufacture.

Enfamil PREMIUM Infant Formula, Powder

NONFAT MILK, LACTOSE, VEGETABLE OIL (PALM OLEIN, COCONUT, SOY, AND HIGH OLEIC SUNFLOWER OILS), WHEY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE…

Similac Advance

Nonfat Milk, Lactose, Whey Protein Concentrate, High Oleic Safflower Oil, Soy Oil, Coconut Oil, Galactooligosaccharides…

Earth’s Best Organic Dairy Infant Formula with Iron

Organic Lactose, Organic Nonfat Milk, Organic Oils (Organic Palm or Palm Olein, Organic Soy, Organic Coconut, Organic High Oleic Safflower or Sunflower Oil), Organic Whey Protein Concentrate…

Kirkland Signature Infant Formula

Nonfat milk, lactose, whey protein concentrate, high oleic safflower oil, soy oil, coconut oil, galacto-oligosaccharides…

Gerber Good Start non-GMO powder Infant Formula

WHEY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE (FROM COW\’S MILK, ENZYMATICALLY HYDROLYZED, REDUCED IN MINERALS), vegetable oils (, PALM OLEIN, SOY, COCONUT, AND , HIGH-OLEIC SAFFLOWER, OR , HIGH-OLEIC SUNFLOWER) , LACTOSE, CORN MALTODEXTRIN…

Happy Baby Organic Stage 1 Infant Formula Milk Based Powder with Iron

Organic non-fat milk, organic whey protein concentrate…

Good Sense

Corn syrup, non-fat milk, whey protein hydrolysate…

Member’s Mark

NONFAT MILK, LACTOSE, VEGETABLE OILS (PALM OLEIN, COCONUT, SOY, HIGH OLEIC [SAFFLOWER OR SUNFLOWER] OIL), WHEY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, GALACTOOLIGOSACCHARIDES‡…

Plum Organics

Organic Nonfat Milk….Organic Whey Protein Concentrate…

Parent’s Choice Non-GMO Premium Infant Formula with Iron

Nonfat Milk, Lactose, Vegetable Oils (Palm Olein, Coconut, Soy, High Oleic (Safflower Or Sunflower] Oil), Whey Protein Concentrate, Galactooligosaccharides…

However, infant formula isn’t the only way a baby can be exposed to MfG.

The bizarre connection between Big Food and breast milk

Research done in the 1980s and 1990s confirmed that monosodium glutamate and other ingredients that contain MfG are passed by pregnant women to their fetuses, and by lactating mothers to their newborns. Studies found that MfG can cross the placenta during pregnancy, can cross the blood brain barrier (BBB) in an unregulated manner during development, and can pass through the five circumventricular organs that lie outside the BBB.

In the 1960s and 1970s Olney described the brain damage done by monosodium glutamate, which was found to destroy brain cells when fed in large quantity to animals whose brains were not protected by blood brain barriers. Olney observed that the BBBs of fetuses and newborns seen in the laboratory left certain areas of their developing brains unprotected, and he cautioned that human fetuses and newborns were similarly at risk. The unprotected areas included the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus, the area of the brain that, when undamaged, regulates reproduction and weight (telling us when to stop eating).

Every woman who breast feeds her baby will want to make sure that her diet does not contain excitotoxins – or contains as few as possible. That list includes aspartic acid (found in aspartame, e.g., Nutrasweet, Equal, Amino Sweet, and other aspartame-based sugar substitutes); L-cysteine, found in dough conditioners, and the many ingredients that contain MfG.

Certainly, every parent wants a healthy baby, but there are industry giants out there who only care about their bottom lines. Consumer beware.