Toxins in food

 As Dr. George Schwartz has pointed out in his remarkable book, In Bad Taste: The MSG Syndrome, often MSG and related toxins are added to foods in disguised forms. For example, among the food manufacturers favorite disguises are “hydrolyzed vegetable protein,” “vegetable protein,” “natural flavorings,” and “spices.” Each of these may contain from 12% to 40% MSG. (See Appendix I for more information about hidden sources of MSG.)

Hydrolyzed vegetable protein is a special case and deserves a closer look. If you will recall, the manufacturing process (as described in the introduction) is a series of chemical processes; first boiling vegetables in sulfuric acid for several hours, then neutralizing the acid with a caustic soda (an alkalizing agent often used to make soap), and then drying the resulting brown sludge. Additional MSG may be added as well to the fine brown powder. The result is marketed as hydrolyzed vegetable protein. When particular amino acids are combined with the basic hydrolyzed vegetable protein they can bring out a “beefy” taste that makes it useful in barbecue sauces and fast foods. Other protein combinations bring out a “creamy” taste that is frequently used in canned and instant soups, salad dressings, and sauces.

Analysis of this taste enhancing substance reveals some interesting findings. Not only does it contain three very powerful brain cell toxins–glutamate, aspartate, and cysteic acid–but it also contains several known carcinogens (cancer causing substances). Incredibly, the FDA does not regulate the amount of carcinogens allowed in hydrolyzed vegetable protein, or the amount of hydrolyzed vegetable protein allowed to be added to food products. As we shall see later, this substance poses an even greater danger than MSG itself.

EXCITOTOXINS: TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

By the early forties it was known that the human brain normally contained relatively large concentrations of the amino acid glutamate, which at that time was thought to act primarily as a brain fuel. Based on this idea, in 1949 Dr. Weil-Malherbe tested a group of mentally retarded children to see if glutamate would improve their mental capacity. [14] Fortunately, as it turned out, the experiment was a failure. I say this because had the experiments continued, greater injury to these children’s brains would have eventually occurred.

Then, in 1957 two ophthalmology residents, Lucas and Newhouse, tested monosodium glutamate and aspartate on infant (suckling) and adult mice while studying a particular eye disorder. [15] What they found came as a complete surprise. After completing the experiment they sacrificed the animals and examined their tissues under the microscope. Of the animals that had been tested with monosodium glutamate, virtually all of the nerve cells in the inner layer of the animals’ retinas had been destroyed. The worst damage occurred in the newborn mice, but even the adults showed significant injury. They found that the amino acid aspartate caused similar, though less severe, damage. Keep in mind that aspartate is one of the main ingredients in Nutrasweet®, the artificial sweetener.

Unfortunately this important finding went virtually unnoticed by the medical world, and especially by the food industry, which at the time was adding tons of MSG to foods, including baby foods. It wasn’t until ten years later that someone saw the importance of this discovery. That person was a neuroscientist, Dr. John W. Olney.

In 1968 Dr. Olney, working out of the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis, repeated Dr. Lucas and Newhouse’s experiment using the same kinds of animals and the same doses of MSG. [16] But what Dr. Olney found was even more shocking. He discovered that not only did MSG cause severe damage to the neurons in the retina of the eye, but that it also caused widespread destruction of neurons in the hypothalamus and other areas of the brain adjacent to the ventricular system, called the circumventricular organs. (FIG 3-1) Again, this damage was most severe in the immature or newborn animals. He hypothesized that this area of the brain was affected most because it did not have a blood brain barrier system to protect it from toxic substances circulating in the blood.

from: EXCITOTOXINST The Taste that Kills

HOW MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE, ASPARTAME (NUTRASWEET®), AND SIMILAR SUBSTANCES CAN CAUSE HARM TO THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASES SUCH AS ALZHEIMER’S, LOU GEHRIG’S DISEASE (ALS) AND OTHERS.