MSG in Your Pregnancy Diet

Just before Christmas I went on one of the health and fitness industry’s most well respected and authoritative courses on advanced Kinetic Chain Assesment, (taught by my ex-boss, friend and mentor, Dax moy). That probably means nothing to you apart from a load of gobbledeegook but the stuff I learnt is going to affect you in a BIG way!!

One thing that shocked me beyond belief and made me scared first and foremost for my own baby and secondly for all of my pregnant clients, friends and readers was a little known fact about MSG and how seriously it can affect your pregnancy health.

Now I think that most of us know full well that MSG during pregnancy is bad for us, right? There was a big panic a few years ago and a lot of Chinese restaurants banned it from their food ingredients, but what none of us know (or very few of us) is that MSG can come under different guises of at least 40 different names that we would never suspect AND because it is combined with other food additives, the food manufacturers are NOT REQUIRED to list it as an ingredient on the label – which makes it very difficult to exclude from your pregnancy diet.

And do you know where it is most widely used?

In BABY FOOD.

…….

I know….I hear you – I was just as shocked, if not more so than you and my heart dropped out of my chest when I thought of all the instances where I have given River those pre-packaged organic baby foods over the last few months and thought that “natural spices” meant naturally sourced spices.

But apparently the Food Agencies don’t require it to be listed if it is combined with something else. So after my shock dissipated a little, I did some digging so that I could find out as much as possible about this to tell you guys today so that you can exclude it wherever possible from your pregnancy nutrition.

What is MSG?

MSG comes from glutamic acid which is found in many natural foods like tomatoes, wheat, mushrooms, molasses and corn. It is even present in breastmilk and functions as a neurotransmitter. In this natural form it is known as L-glutamic acid. When broken down by our normal digestive process it is harmless but in a factory the glutamic acid is made free by various processes which you will recognise – hydrolysed, autolysed, modified or fermented by harsh chemicals, bacteria or enzymes.

These processes then produce a white crystallised substance which looks similar to sugar – MSG. MSG is then used as a component of food additives such as hydrolysed protein, whey protein, yeast extract, natural flavouring, spice extract, natural spices….. the list goes on. Because it is used as a component, the Food Agencies don’t require it to be listed as MSG.

What Does It Do To Us?

MSG is an excitatory neurotransmitter that destroys synapses  and nerve cells in the brain and body. It runs around the body telling all of our nerve cells to FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!!! But what happens when they get overstimulated and fire all the time? They die.

The hypothalamus uses glutamate as a neurotransmitter and is also responsible for controlling fear, rage, hunger and cold. When hypothalamus cells die as a result of overstimulation by glutamate it results in things like ADD, ADHD, obesity and seizures.

Dr. Liane Reif-Lehrer, Harvard Medical School, has done extensive research on this, including trials on removing MSG from the diets of children with seizures and convulsions which resulted in a complete and full cure of the affectation.

MSG during Pregnancy

It is a common belief that the placenta is able to protect or at least partially shield the developping foetus from toxins such as MSG but in fact the opposite occurs. The placenta in primates (yep, that includes us) maintains amino acids in significantly HIGHER concentrations than found in the maternal circulation. The ratio is in fact is even greater than 2:1!

This means your baby is getting double the amount of neurotoxins that you are getting.

Now considering the very delicate balance of the developping nervous system, that spells BAD NEWS.

Symptoms of MSG Toxicity

One of the problems with MSG toxicity is that the symptoms can easily be disregarded as something else. Common symptoms include:

IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)

Colitis

Constipation/diahorrhea

Asthma

Hormonal symptoms like irritability, mood swings, temper, rage and hostility

Restless Leg Syndrome

Ulcers and sores in the mouth

Sleep disorders

Memory loss

Migraine

Chronic cough

The list goes on…

So what can we do to protect our little ones from this horrible neurotoxin?

Avoid ALL pre-packaged, processed food and diligently check the labels of everything you put on the table or in your mouth.

Where possible cook everything from scratch using organic whole ingredients

Speak to your childresn school abou their menu and what they can and can’t have on it

Check the list below for common names:

Hidden Names for MSG

The following substances contain the highest percentage of factory created free glutamate, with MSG containing 78%:

MSG	Gelatin	Calcium Caseinate
Monosodium glutamate	Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP)	Textured Protein
Monopotassium glutamate	Hydrolyzed Plant Protein (HPP)	Yeast Extract
Glutamate	Autolyzed Plant Protein	Yeast food or nutrient
Glutamic Acid	Sodium Caseinate	Autolyzed Yeast
Vegetable Protein Extract	Senomyx (wheat extract labeled as artificial flavor)

The following substances contain some factory created free glutamate in varying amounts. Please note that some food labels list several of these items, which can add up to a considerable and dangerous amount in one product:

Malted Barley (flavor)	Natural Flavors, Flavors, Flavoring	Modified food starch
Barley malt	Reaction Flavors	Rice syrup or brown rice syrup
Malt Extract or Flavoring	Natural Chicken, Beef, or Pork, Flavoring “Seasonings” (Most assume this means salt, pepper, or spices and herbs, which sometimes it is.)	Lipolyzed butter fat
Maltodextrin, dextrose, dextrates	Soy Sauce or Extract	“Low” or “No Fat” items
Caramel Flavoring (coloring)	Soy Protein	Corn syrup and corn syrup solids, high fructose corn syrup
Stock	Soy Protein Isolate or Concentrate	Citric Acid (when processed from corn)
Broth	Cornstarch fructose (made from corn)	Milk Powder
Bouillon	Flowing Agents	Dry Milk Solids
Carrageenan	Wheat, rice, corn, or oat protein	Protein Fortified Milk
Whey Protein or Whey	Anything enriched or vitamin enriched	Annatto
Whey Protein Isolate or Concentrate	Protein fortified “anything”	Spice
Pectin	Enzyme modified proteins	Gums (guar and vegetable)
Protease	Ultra-pasteurized dairy products	Dough Conditioners
Protease enzymes	Fermented proteins	Yeast Nutrients
Lecithin	Gluten and gluten flour	Protein powders: whey, soy, oat, rice (as in protein bars shakes and body building drinks)
Amino acids (as in Bragg’s liquid amino acids and chelated to vitamins)	Algae, phytoplankton, sea vegetable, wheat/ barley grass powders

European numbers for glutamate containing additives:

620	625
621	627
622	631
623	635
624

So what do you think? Are you shocked like I was?

Do you think manufacturers should be allowed to get away with this? Leave your comments and let me know!!

Nisha is a leading authority on Pre/Postnatal Fitness and is the author of three Pregnancy Fitness Coaching courses for expecting mums. To get your free copy of Nisha’s latest ebook “The 5 Health Secrets Every Expectant Mother MUST Know” please visit The 9 Month Club at http://www.the9monthclub.com

This entry was posted on 13/02/2010 at 05:42 pm and is filed under Pregnancy Fitness, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.