Aside from it’s primary purpose, there are several monosodium glutamate side effects. Technically speaking, monosodium glutamate is a “flavor enhancer”. It stimulates your childs taste-buds, making them more sensitive to food flavors. This improves the taste of food, or rather, your child’s response to that food.

If that was all MSG did, it wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, it isn’t. Monosodium glutamate side effects go far beyond this purpose, and not all of those side effects are positive. Unfortunately, the FDA has not acted on the problems and monosodium glutamate maintains the status of “generally regarded as safe” (GRAS). Considering the negative side effects of this chemical on children and adults alike, MSG should be banned, especially since it is abused by the food industry so much.

So what are the negative monosodium glutamate side effects?

1. Some children are allergic to MSG: A child can consume a small amount of it and have an anaphylactic reaction to it. Like other allergies… peanut, wheat, citrus, shellfish etc. the reaction varies from causing discomfort to being life threatening. Because MSG is commonly used in a wide variety of products that are consumed by children, it should be banned. The reason is simple. If your child had a severe peanut allergy, you would avoid giving them peanuts and products containing peanuts. Products containing peanuts or potential traces of them are required to indicate this on the packaging. Compare this with monosodium glutamate where most processed foods contain it but, because of insufficient labeling laws, it is not required to be listed in the ingredients. This creates a potentially dangerous situation that requires government intervention. Companies should at least be forced to label the foods correctly.
2. Monosodium glutamate dramatically stimulates appetite and causes binging: Have you ever wondered why one potato chip is never enough? Monosodium glutamate is the reason. Your child can be physically full, but monosodium glutamate stimulates a part of their brain that tells them to eat more. Food manufacturers use monosodium glutamate to make their foods addictive. Binging on any food causes obesity. MSG takes away a child’s choice in what they eat by creating a dependance similar to drug addiction. That is immoral and should be illegal. Monosodium glutamate has also been identified as a major contributor to the dramatic increase in type 2 diabetes in society. It’s also a major factor in bulemia. Monosodium glutamate encourages children to binge. That’s why snack producers use it. Thankfully, people are becoming savvy to this and choosing not to allow their children to consume food containing MSG. However, companies are not content to allow even this level of personal choice. Because of the GRAS (generally regarded as safe) designation, they are permitted to include MSG as an ingredient in a list of so-called “secret ingredients”. These are ingredients that are not required to be listed on food labels because doing so may allow competitors to copy their recipe and steal their business. Further, some products contain MSG and if companies list that product, they are not required to label the individual ingredients. The names of these common products include ‘Natural Flavorings’, ‘Naturally Flavored’, Artificial and Natural Flavors’. These are PRODUCT NAMES rather than FDA designations. These names conceal the fact that those products are additives. The primary ingredient in many of those products is monosodium glutamate, so if you see them in the ingredients list, replace them with the words monosodium glutamate…because that is basically what it really means.
3. The most controversial problem with MSG is HOW it stimulates your child’s appetite: MSG is referred to as an “excitotoxin”. This is a chemical that stimulates your child’s nervous system using a mechanism usually used to fight infection or remove damaged tissue. A child’s brain is generally sterile and doesn’t have the same immune system as the rest of their body. The main immune system is based on an inflammatory mechanism. Inflammation in the brain is potentially deadly, so the brain uses a glial system instead. The glial system releases chemicals that destroy invading particles and stimulate the brain. Guess which mechanism MSG uses? Guess what the side effects are? If your child consumes large quantities of MSG then in the long-term it will destroy brain tissue. Monosodium glutamate has also been implicated in Alzheimer’s.

As you can see from these side effects, the consumption of MSG should be avoided not only in children but in adults also. Most modern Chinese restaurants understand this and have now removed this ingredient from their recipes.

The main problem in modern society is packaged and processed foods, especially those at fast food restaurants and snack foods. If you want to avoid your child consuming large quantities of monosodium glutamate you need to limit consumption of those foods.

This post published with thanks to Mr Roger of Fatzilla.org who graciously permitted me plagiarize his work.

This post does not constitute medical advice nor should it be substituted for professional medical advice. This post titled “Monosodium Glutamate Side Effects” is intended for informational purposes only.

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