Hidden MSG is still found in thousands of food products

For years we’ve all been trying to get monosodium glutamate (MSG) out of our diets.

And with good reason.

This dangerous food additive has been linked to agonizing headaches, brain cell damage, and serious heart problems like AFib.

But even if you’re a careful shopper — and even if you read every label before you add a food to your shopping cart — you may be getting a mouthful of toxic MSG in meal after meal.

Because major food companies have found a major government loophole they’re using to dump tons of this poison into just about everything we eat.

All without ever warning us it’s there.

Food fraudCompanies keep you in the dark about the MSG they’re secretly adding to your food using a dirty industry trick that’s been around for years.

They call it “clean labeling” — but “trick labeling” would describe it better.

Under FDA rules, a food must say on its label when MSG is added as an ingredient.

To get around that, food companies use a three-step process:

Step 1: Use ingredients that have MSG hiding in them, like soy protein concentrate and yeast extract (I’ll give you a more complete list in a moment).

Step 2: List those ingredients — which you may not even realize are dangerous — instead of MSG.

Step 3: Declare the products “MSG-free” or as having “No Added MSG.”

The soup giant Campbell’s is one of the worst offenders. Recently the company got kudos for declaring that its new line of kids’ soups wouldn’t have any added MSG.

But Campbell’s makes the exact same claim for literally dozens of its soups — and they nearly all have MSG. Even the organic ones.

Campbell’s and a lot of other food companies often won’t include MSG on their labels unless it was added as a stand-alone ingredient. And that’s because they’re out to protect their bottom lines more than your health.

Of course, it didn’t used to be this way.

Decades ago, if a food company claimed its products didn’t have MSG — but were sneaking it in through other ingredients — the FDA actually took action. The agency would send out warning letters and threaten to seize the products.

But that hasn’t happened in quite a while. And while our government looks the other way, food manufacturers have taken full advantage.

Since the FDA has stopped policing MSG in foods, the only way to stay safe is to take matters into our own hands — especially when you’re buying soup, snacks, frozen dinners, or any other processed food.

It doesn’t matter if a product claims to have “No MSG,” “No added MSG,” or “No MSG added.” If it contains any of these ingredients, leave it right on the store shelf:

• anything “hydrolyzed” such as a “hydrolyzed protein,”
• soy protein, including soy protein concentrate and soy protein isolate,
• autolyzed yeast,
• yeast extract,
• monopotassium glutamate,
• sodium caseinate, or
• calcium caseinate.

Sources:

“Campbell continues to shift portfolio toward faster-growing categories and regions” Press Release, July 22, 2015, campbellsoupcompany.com

“MSG is sometimes hidden in food with labels that say “No added MSG,” “No MSG added,” and “No MSG” Truth in Labeling, truthinlabeling.org