We have gotten rid of all excitotoxins in our daily diet and it has made a huge difference. Excitotoxins are ADDICTIVE. Suddenly my kids eat regular food and love it.
MSG has so many hidden names (google about it) that you have to avoid all foods with ANY of them in the ingredients, including the nice-sounding euphemism “natural flavors.”
99.9% of all supermarket packaged foods have them in them. All crackers (except your most basic) have msg. But MSG is what makes people want to eat more and more and more of something. When we get any truly natural baked goods, my family seems to only eat a smaller amount and be satisfied.
Eating MSG and aspartame and HFCS means you are addicted to unhealthy chemicals. Try going off them (but it also means you have to carry your own food around because there is not much in a snack machine you can eat any more) for far better health and the natural taste of real foods.
Glutamate occurs naturally in most foods and is available in large amounts in food you eat every day. It's nearly impossible to avoid it if you eat a balanced and varied diet. Your body cannot differentiate between the glutamate found naturally in foods and that in MSG. Your body creates glutamate naturally in much greater quantities than the average person consumes.
But MSG is what makes people want to eat more and more and more of something.
Your body handles glutamate in the same way regardless of its source. Glutamate has not been shown to have any impact on our metabolism.
Eating MSG and aspartame and HFCS means you are addicted to unhealthy chemicals.
Considering glutamate occurs naturally in almost all foods, and the fact that your body couldn't survive without it, you're going to have a hard time proving it is an unhealthy chemical. Aspartame is comprised of three components that are found naturally in food we eat every day. HFCS is made up of the same two chemicals as table sugar. If HFCS is evil then so is regular old sugar.