Tag: Ajinomoto

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Warning about the hazards of MSG can be hazardous to your reputation

By Linda and Bill Bonvie

Being accused of racism these days is no small matter. And those of Asian descent have seen an increase in incidents of racism targeting them.

So, when a reader review at Amazon.com appeared about our book, “A Consumer’s Guide to Toxic Food Additives,” accusing us of “promoting myths rooted in racism,” it was a bit of a shock, to say the least.

This reviewer, whose comment is called the “top” one from the U.S. (also somehow bumping any other reviews into obscurity), was in fact simply parroting information gleaned from various “news” stories appearing across the web.

It may sound crazy, but just by including warnings about consuming MSG in that book, we now were being accused of spreading a “myth deeply rooted in xenophobia.” In effect, consumer protection had somehow become redefined as ethnic bigotry directed specifically at Asian Americans.

You may be wondering, as we were, just where such a bizarre idea could have originated, and the answer is one that clearly shows how much influence PR agencies – especially large, well- connected ones – have over media of all sizes these days.

It stands to reason that manufacturers of questionable additives would attempt to counter warnings about their products with whatever industry-sponsored hype they could devise. But never did charges of “racism” enter into it until the “global communications” firm Edelman Public Relations entered the scene. They are being paid millions of dollars by Ajinomoto, the world’s largest manufacturer of monosodium glutamate, to conjure up the concept that legitimate concerns about the safety of MSG were nothing but racist myths.

Taking a cue from the removal of “misinformed historical symbols,” according to an Edelman press release, the Ajinomoto creative team apparently had an ‘aha moment’ when it coined “xenophobia-born misinformation” in an attempt to divert attention away from any negative science and adverse reactions associated with MSG.

Has it worked? If you go by the amount of media coverage received, such as this headline at CNN saying, MSG in Chinese food isn’t unhealthy – you’re just racist, activists say, this imaginary imagery seems to have taken hold, even filtering down to that “reader review” of our book. But Edelman, despite its ability to have media lists at its beck and call to run articles on how the term “No MSG,” constitutes racism, can’t seem to even monitor its own client list for conflicts of interest.

A question sent to the Del Monte press office about its College Inn broth product, for example, took a surprising turn with a return email from an Edelman representative speaking on the company’s behalf.

A group of products that say "No MSG" on the label.

Being that the College Inn product sports a rather large “No MSG” symbol on the package front, we asked our Edelman contact if, according to their own high-profile campaign, that would constitute the same type of “racism” and “xenophobia” that we were accused of.

But despite several attempts to elicit an answer, Edelman has now gone dark on us. (We wondered if Del Monte would be looking for another PR firm should its executives connect the dots.)

Which only goes to show how even the best-intentioned causes, such as shining a spotlight on racism, can be distorted and manipulated by industry shills to cast other good causes, such as consumer protection, in a bad light.

Only in this case, the fact remains that keeping MSG out of your diet is no more “racist” than avoiding apple pie sweetened with HFCS is “un-American.”


If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you.  And if you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, we’ll put them up on Facebook.  You can also reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @truthlabeling

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Who are the ‘Glutes’?

For years, the Truth in Labeling Campaign has been calling them the “Glutes,” a name that many now recognize as being those who make money selling their poisons hidden in food. We gave them a name because we want you to know them and start talking about them, and it’s hard to talk about someone or something if it doesn’t have a name.

The founder and chief operating officer of this loosely knit operation is Ajinomoto, the world’s largest producer of monosodium glutamate. Ajinomoto designs and bankrolls its research, bragging of the millions it’s spending on public relations to “clear MSG’s bad name.” Their goal is to counter the fact that every day more and more people are suffering reactions to MSG and other flavor enhancers that contain MSG’s toxic manufactured free glutamate (MfG) by plastering the world with propaganda that MSG has gotten a bad rap.

Without the researchers who execute their double-blind studies using excitotoxic, brain damaging placebos, without the food technologists who incorporate MfG into thousands of processed foods, without the manufacturers that use MSG in their products so they can skimp on quality — aided by the grocery outlets that sell their products — and without the “public servants” at the FDA who for 50 years have turned their backs on research that clearly demonstrates MSG has toxic potential while endorsing the out and out lie that MSG is safe for use in food, MSG would have long ago been banned. And it can be done. As recently as 2018 the FDA acted to no longer allow the use of seven flavoring substances and flavor enhancers deemed dangerous.

Those are the Glutes: the people who work to keep MSG flowing without mentioning that they work for the producer of MSG when signing off on their work.


If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. If you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, and we’ll put them up on Facebook. Or you can reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @truthlabeling.

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Enough to get her fired?

In January Food Navigator-USA ran the story “Ajinomoto defends MSG as nonprofit petitions FDA to rescind its GRAS status.” And Ajinomoto’s Tia Rains fired back with a classic piece of glutamate-industry propaganda.

It’s not what she said in the piece that’s so interesting, because it’s classic industry talk. What is interesting is the fact that Ajinomoto responded at all.

For 50+ years, the Glutes have pretty much ignored criticism from those who have maintained that MSG is toxic. It would appear that they’ve used this strategy to keep questions of glutamate sensitivity out of the media – just letting any question of harm done by MSG die a slow, quiet death. And this strategy, along with rigging the research they’ve presented to the FDA as evidence of MSG’s safety, has been incredibly effective, for this excitotoxic, brain damaging food additive is still being advertised as generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by the FDA.

So why the change in strategy? Or did Tia Rains make a terrible mistake. Terrible enough to get her fired.

Reminder: Please take a moment to comment on this petition at the link below.

Go to www.Regulations.gov, and put this docket number FDA-2021-P-0035 in the search box, click “search.” There you’ll see a link to the petition and a button that says “comment.”

NOTE: If you’re commenting on Tuesday or Thursday an extra step is needed as the FDA site is being updated twice a week. On those days:

Go to www.regulations.gov and put this docket number FDA-2021-P-0035 in the search box, click “search.”

On the left side, it will say “Document Type,” check the “other” box and then click on the second document titled “Citizen petition from Adrienne Samuels” and you’ll see a “Comment” button at the top.


If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. If you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, and we’ll put them up on Facebook. Or you can reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @truthlabeling.

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High anxiety and 60 Minutes

October 1991 will always be a month to remember. We had learned that 60 Minutes was considering doing a piece on MSG, and Jack had volunteered to provide them with accurate information about this toxic food additive that would cause him to go into anaphylactic shock.

In early 1990, we had become aware that a segment on MSG was in the works, and over the course of its development, Jack had provided information to Grace Dickhaus and Roz Karson, producers of the 60 Minutes segment.

In March 1991, a producer for the CBS news show called Ajinomoto announcing that they were thinking of doing a segment on Ajinomoto’s product. According to the Wall Street Journal, a group of trade associations launched one of the largest pre-emptive campaigns in public relations history. Specifically, “A crisis-management team specializing in 60 Minutes damage control has been hired to help the industry execute an elaborate game plan to forestall a repeat of the 1989 Alar-on-apples scare.” It was a copy of that crisis-management team’s “July-December 1991 Communications Plan” designed (or possibly simply distributed) by the International Food Information Council (IFIC) that Jack sent to the Wall Street Journal. We had received the “war plan” for IFIC’s assault on 60 Minutes from an anonymous donor on September 4, 1991.

From 1990 till the story aired in 1991, Jack provided information on the toxicity of monosodium glutamate to the 60 Minutes team and later to Bruce Ingersol of the Wall Street Journal – information that they were delighted to confirm. Following are excerpts from Bruce Ingersol’s October 31, 1991 article, “A Case of TV Jitters.”

Adrienne Samuels

Excerpts from A CASE OF TV JITTERS, by Bruce Ingersoll, Wall Street Journal

It has become a business executive’s worst nightmare. The phone rings. A woman on the other end identifies herself as a producer for the CBS News show 60 Minutes. “We are thinking,” she says, “of doing a segment on your product.”

For the food industry, that nightmare began last March. The call went to the Glutamate Association, which represents manufacturers and users of monosodium glutamate. But the shock waves spread quickly. Monosodium glutamate, a flavor enhancer better known as MSG, is used in everything from chicken chow mein to corn chips. A 60 Minutes attack on MSG would be felt throughout the $280 billion-a-year food industry.

No one outside CBS knows when, or even whether, the show will go on the air. No one knows for sure what position it will take or what will be said.

That hasn’t stopped a group of trade associations from launching one of the largest pre-emptive campaigns in public-relations history. They are assuming the worst: A Fearing show’s segment will assail monosodium glutamate, the industry launched a public relations defense.

A crisis-management team specializing in 60 Minutes damage control has been hired to help the industry execute an elaborate game plan. Industry officials have been peppering 60 Minutes producers with letters to try to ensure that their views aren’t ignored. At a minimum, they say, the show should note that the Food and Drug Administration, World Health Organization and European Community all regard MSG as safe. And platoons of public-relations specialists are trying to generate favorable publicity before the show airs.

Indeed, the pre-broadcast ruckus has been so great as to lead the FDA to reconsider its policy on MSG labeling sooner than it would have otherwise. The proposed policy change would blunt any allegation the FDA is letting food companies mask the presence of MSG in food.

Few news enterprises stir greater anxiety among business people than 60 Minutes, CBS’ longest-running, most successful prime-time program. Its impact is resounding, its audience huge. Hewitt and his big-name correspondents have won many Emmy Awards and other honors for distinguished reporting and public service. But they also have attracted plenty of criticism for sometimes taking too strong a stance and practicing ambush journalism.

The food industry has been trying to track every 60 Minutes move. In Los Alamos, N.M., Bradley interviewed an 11-year-old schoolboy who had been the archetypical problem child – hostile, disruptive, extremely hyperactive, according to his parents – before being put on an MSG-free diet. “It was a five-year battle looking for the little boy we once had, and he’s back,” the Los Alamos Monitor quoted his mother as saying, after the 60 Minutes interview. The newspaper said the boy, diagnosed as probably suffering from attention-deficit disorder, told Bradley how much his grades had improved after he stayed away from MSG.

The 60 Minutes team also interviewed Dolores Nick, a 55-year-old suburban Chicago woman, and her 30-year-old daughter, Sandy. Dolores Nick says exposure to MSG leaves her so groggy and “drugged-out” that she has to go to bed. Her daughter, she adds, suffers migraine headaches, sometimes so severe that she requires hospital treatment.

And in Santa Fe, N.M., Bradley interviewed George Schwartz, an anti-MSG physician who wrote a 1988 book called In Bad Taste: The MSG Syndrome. Schwartz, as much as anyone, has made MSG a consumer issue.

The show’s producers also began looking for food-company executives to go on camera. None would agree. That doesn’t surprise the industry’s crisis manager, Nick Nichols, president of Nichols Dezenhall Communications Management Group. The CBS show has “a nightmarish track record on stories involving science and technology,” he says. “The spectacle tends to overwhelm analysis.” What’s more, he adds, 60 Minutes has a history of “rewarding” the viewing public’s extraordinary trust in its reports “by scaring the hell out of them.”

The only scientist to step forward and say what the industry believes – that MSG is not a health threat – was a Washington, D.C., allergist named Fred Atkins, whose academic specialty is adverse reactions to foods. “People said, ‘Why would you do it?’ ” Atkins says. With 10-second sound bites, he concedes, “They can make me look foolish or they can make me look reasonable.”

But Atkins believed that a scientist had to provide an authoritative response. “There may be some individuals with transient mild reactions after ingesting MSG in food,” he says. The common symptoms, sometimes called the Chinese restaurant syndrome, are numbness, tingling or burning in the upper chest, neck and face. “But if the story is that MSG is causing everything from seizures to kids with serious learning disabilities to severe allergic reactions, then viewers are going to be misled,” Atkins asserts.

By early summer, the food industry was fully mobilized to counter the TV show. Its effort was led by the International Food Information Council, a veteran of several food-safety fights, including those over aspartame and food dyes.

At a strategy session at Washington’s Sheraton Carlton Hotel, industry scientists and public relations people viewed a videotape of Schwartz, just to take his measure. The scouting report on the bearded doctor’s TV presence: Very glib. Quite telegenic. Well-rehearsed. Holds up brand-name products.

Impression left on viewers: It’s buyer beware. Next to Schwartz, Atkins seemed like a television tyro.

The industry also prepared a seven-page “communications plan” for blunting the 60 Minutes story. Among other things, it called for gathering intelligence on the assertions of anti-MSG activists who have the ear of 60 Minutes; sounding out other PR tacticians who have taken on networks in similar food-safety controversies; and coordinating efforts to inform opinion leaders.

One objective, according to a copy of the plan obtained by this newspaper, was to create the “best possible climate” of public opinion before the show aired. The International Food Information Council published a reassuring brochure called “What You Should Know About MSG.” In press releases to 2,000 weeklies, the group also trumpeted the news that a European Community scientific panel in June had judged MSG to be safe, even for infants. And thousands of MSG information kits were distributed to food retailers, school-lunch officials and others.

Leaving nothing to chance, the council also tested focus groups to determine the “most effective message points,” and it did a telephone survey to establish a baseline for consumer attitudes about MSG.

After the broadcast, the industry plan called for further focus-group testing and polling, and then striking back with a flurry of press releases to newspapers and video news releases to TV stations. Industry spokesmen would offer to appear on network morning shows.
On Aug. 30, with television’s new season only a fortnight away, the industry went on war footing and started firing shots across the bow. Trade associations sent CBS one letter after another impugning the credibility of Schwartz and other critics and reminding 60 Minutes producer Grace Diekhaus that the FDA puts MSG in the same “generally recognized as safe” category as sugar and salt.

Caught in the middle of this imbroglio was the Food and Drug Administration. The agency briefed Diekhaus on its scientific assessment of MSG and its labeling policies, but then told her that “nothing more would be gained through an on-camera interview.”

In September, 60 Minutes opened its 24th season, intensifying the pressure on the FDA. “Hewitt is pounding on me,” Don McLearn, the agency’s chief spokesman, said at the time. “The problem is, they won’t be fair.” McLearn also complained that the show’s producers wouldn’t sketch out their line of questioning. “That’s ambush journalism,” he said, adding that he wasn’t about to provide “a warm body” that “they can badger.”

Finally, Hewitt laid out the focus of the interview.

“He said the segment will raise three points: Is MSG a problem? Are we working on it? How is MSG labeled?” McLearn says.

Knowing that, FDA officials met late last month to figure out how to handle Ed Bradley’s questions. Commissioner David Kessler discussed his misgivings about the agency’s MSG labeling policy. Currently, food processors have to list MSG as an ingredient only if they add it to products. They don’t have to note its presence in hydrolyzed vegetable protein, a widely used flavor enhancer.

Senior FDA officials ultimately decided to have Deputy Commissioner Michael Taylor sit for an interview with CBS. While being taped, he would break news: The FDA had decided that consumers have a right to know the MSG content of their food, so food processors must declare on labels that hydrolyzed vegetable protein “contains glutamate.” Taylor would emphasize that the policy change wasn’t inspired by health concerns.

The long-awaited interview took place Oct. 1 in the FDA’s Washington office. “We had Mike Taylor pretty well coached,” says McLearn, who had played the role of Bradley in practice. Although the real Bradley “came on strong,” he says, “Mike didn’t get flustered.”
Two days later, 60 Minutes interviewed another food-industry nemesis: John Olney, a professor of psychiatry and neuropathology at Washington University medical school in St. Louis. His position on MSG: “It’s a potential poison, and it’s especially poisonous to the immature nervous system.” He argues that MSG levels in many soups and other foods aren’t safe for infants or children. FDA officials and industry scientists say he’s wrong.

While the industry’s anxiety builds, neither Diekhaus nor Bradley will comment on their roles in the MSG segment. Hewitt expresses great reluctance to discuss a segment before it airs. “I’m telling you a lot of pressure is being brought on us,” he says. “Chances are we will probably air it. If we don’t, it will have nothing to do with Accuracy in Media or the Glutamate Association.”

The Grocery Manufacturers’ Nedelman hopes to pick up a warning before the show airs. The group won’t “wait for them to drop the bomb,” he says. Before that, it intends to contact a dozen important editorial writers and reporters, such as Jane Brody of The New York Times and Daniel Puzo of the Los Angeles Times, and “let them know that 60 Minutes is going to yell fire in a crowded theater,” just as its critics say it did with Alar.

The International Food Information Council is gearing up for video tit for tat with 60 Minutes. If the segment is as alarming as feared, video news releases will be flashed to TV stations nationwide. Overnight letters will go out at once to the news media and others, followed by press releases the following Monday.

Says Nedelman: “It will be like the Democratic response to the president’s address to the nation: Here’s the other side of the story.”

*********************************************

Editorial note. As with all the other promises from the FDA when under pressure to tell the truth about MSG, declaration that manufacturers “…must declare on labels that hydrolyzed vegetable protein “contains glutamate” never happened.

Now, thirty years after the 1991 MSG program was aired, we know things that we didn’t realize before:

  1. It is only manufactured free glutamate as opposed to glutamate found in whole protein that, when eaten, causes brain damage and a host of reactions ranging from skin rash and fibromyalgia to heart irregularities and seizures.

  2. Manufactured free glutamate is always accompanied by unwanted by-products of manufacture, called impurities by industry and medical practitioners.

  3. Glutamate is an excitotoxic amino acid. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a man-made product composed of L-glutamic acid (L-glutamate), sodium, moisture, D-glutamic acid (D-glutamate), pyroglutamic acid, and other impurities (unwanted and unavoidable by-products of the manufacture of L-glutamate). MSG is manufactured in plants throughout the world. In the United States, MSG is produced in Ajinomoto’s factory in Eddyville, Iowa. Its principal ingredient is its excitotoxic, brain damaging, L-glutamate.

    L-glutamate is the L enantiomer of glutamic acid (glutamate), an acidic amino acid which when present in protein or released from protein in a regulated fashion (through routine digestion) is vital for normal body function. It is the principal neurotransmitter in humans, carrying nerve impulses from glutamate stimuli to glutamate receptors throughout the body. Yet, when present outside of protein in amounts that exceed what the healthy human body was designed to accommodate (which can vary widely from person to person), glutamate becomes an excitotoxic neurotransmitter, firing repeatedly, damaging targeted glutamate-receptors and/or causing neuronal and non-neuronal death by over exciting those glutamate receptors until their host cells die.

  4. The research referred to by glutamate industry agents as demonstrating MSG’s safety is flawed to the point of being fraudulent. The most easily understood of their devious experimental methods has been the use of excitotoxic amino acids deceitfully called “placebos” used in double-blind studies.

  5. Prior to 1957 MSG was produced by extracting glutamate from a protein source. This was a slow and costly method. In 1957, Ajinomoto began producing MSG using bacterial fermentation, whereby carefully chosen genetically modified bacteria fed on a nourishing medium, excreted glutamate through their cell walls. With that change, production of MSG skyrocketed, making it possible for a consumer to ingest sufficient (excessive) amounts of this manufactured glutamate during the course of a day to cause the glutamate to become excitotoxic.

It was shortly after this change in production that the first published reports of reactions to MSG appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, the first report of MSG-induced brain damage appeared in the journal Science, obesity rose to epidemic proportions, and the incidence of infertility escalated. MSG-induced brain damage leads to both obesity and infertility.

  1. The so-called scientific bodies that have attested to the safety of MSG have done no research of their own. only reviewing the research of others. Neither did any of them search the literature for relevant research. The studies that they reviewed were given to them by the FDA (whose work suffered from serious conflicts of interest) and/or by agents of the glutamate industry.


If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. If you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, and we’ll put them up on Facebook. Or you can reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @truthlabeling.

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Is it sound science, or does it simply sound like science?

It’s “just sodium and the amino acid glutamate, which is found in nature” is how Leslie Nemo, writing in discovermagazine.com, leads into the latest piece of MSG-is-good-for-you propaganda that’s been sent to us recently.

Not having a party to go to on New Year’s Eve, I thought it might be fun to pick apart what Nemo had to say about monosodium glutamate, starting with her title: MSG Isn’t Bad For You, According to Science.

So, let’s start at the beginning with “According to Science.” My guess is that Nemo’s version of science is what David Michaels wrote about in his book The Triumph of Doubt, Dark Money and the Science of Deception.”

The Triumph of Doubt reveals how “science for hire” tactics that can be traced from Big Tobacco to the current day affects food, cosmetics, cars and even professional sports.

If, for example, you use only subjects who have never had any reactions known to be caused by MSG, chances are good that the subjects in your study won’t have MSG reactions. If you limit your subjects to people on anti-migraine drugs, chances are good that your subjects won’t have migraines. Research by Ajinomoto (likely the world’s largest producer of MSG) has been carried out by a variety of academics from various universities and medical schools who were given study protocols and supervised by Andrew G. Ebert (Ajinomoto’s agent in charge of research at the time). Although they had common elements, no two studies were identical.

There was, however, one element that was shared by all — the use of excitotoxic amino acids in “placebos.” By giving subjects placebos that cause the same reactions as those caused by MSG, there could be as many reactions to placebos as there are to MSG test material. From that, researchers could declare they had demonstrated that people really don’t react to MSG. But to make sure the conclusion that MSG is harmless would be beyond reproach, glutamate-industry researchers guaranteed that subjects would react to placebos with the same reactions that are caused by MSG. They did that by using aspartame as the toxic ingredient in their placebos, which worked well because the aspartic acid in aspartame and the glutamic acid in MSG cause virtually identical reactions (as well as identical brain damage). Having set that up, glutamate-industry researchers (and the propaganda artists who quote them) will say “These people aren’t sensitive to MSG, they reacted to the placebo too.”

What Leslie Nemo would have us believe may sound like science but doesn’t begin to be sound science. First Nemo claims that research hasn’t backed up claims that physical symptoms develop after eating MSG. Study participants she says, given MSG or a placebo capsule are typically just as likely to get headaches or numbness, no matter which one they consumed.

Such studies would have been done under the direction of Dr. Ebert wherein placebos contained amino acids known to cause the same brain damage and reactions as those caused by the glutamic acid in MSG.

Another study mentioned in the Discover article was of 60 individuals, finding that two who had ingested MSG broth felt tightness or numbness — but so did six people who had coffee and spiced tomato juice which didn’t contain MSG.

In that study, the key to producing negative results (no effect of MSG) would have been to add “Equal” and/or aspartame to the coffee and spiced tomato juice “which didn’t contain MSG.” Both of those additives contain aspartic acid, an amino acid known to cause the same brain damage and adverse reactions as MSG.

Nemo also details a study where researchers who recorded the responses of 130 people who thought they were sensitive to MSG found that some individuals may show more symptoms when eating the additive without other food. But when participants ingested the MSG serving as part of their breakfast, their symptoms disappeared.

In that kind of study, potential subjects (usually graduate students) were told they would be paid several hundred dollars to participate in the study if they said they were “sensitive” to MSG. Sensitivity was never verified.

As told by Leslie Nemo, some of the world’s largest food safety governing bodies have approved MSG, and the FDA considers it to be “generally recognized as safe.” Many other organizations have decided the same, she says, including JECFA, an international scientific committee administered jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Health Organization.

It is true that persons who have identified themselves as representing The Glutamate Association, an organization created and maintained by Ajinomoto, have declared that both the FDA and regulators around the world have found monosodium glutamate to be safe. However, neither independent scientists nor independent regulators have deemed monosodium glutamate safe. FDA studies, which were actually reviews, have always been staffed by persons with ties to the glutamate industry. And those regulators and/or authoritative bodies did no research of their own, but were given copies of FDA opinions on MSG safety or were provided review information by Ajinomoto, its not-for-profit corporations, and/or its agents — the International Food Information Council (IFIC) and the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), for example.

In addition to citing research, Nemo plays the “naturally occurring” card: “monosodium glutamate is just sodium and the amino acid glutamate, which is found in nature.” True, glutamate is found in nature, but the glutamate used in MSG isn’t culled from nature. In the United States it is produced in Ajinomoto’s factory in Eddyville, Iowa. The glutamate used in MSG is L-glutamate, the L enantiomer of glutamic acid (glutamate), an amino acid which when present in protein or released from protein in a regulated fashion (through routine digestion) is vital for normal body function. It is the principal neurotransmitter in humans, carrying nerve impulses from glutamate stimuli to glutamate receptors throughout the body. Yet, when present outside of protein in amounts that exceed what the healthy human body was designed to accommodate — an amount now readily available in a diet of processed foods — glutamate becomes an excitotoxic neurotransmitter, firing repeatedly, damaging targeted glutamate-receptors and/or causing neuronal and non-neuronal death by over exciting those glutamate receptors until their host cells die.

Predictably, Nemo failed to site research demonstrating the toxic potential of MSG – such as brain damage followed by gross obesity and infertility. You can learn more about that at the Truth in Labeling Campaign — https://truthinlabeling.org/evidence_brain_damage.html — tells part of the story.


If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you.  And if you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, we’ll put them up on Facebook.  You can also reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @truthlabeling

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There’s no such thing as ‘natural’ MSG

The FDA is fond of saying that there are “naturally high levels” of MSG in some foods, notably tomatoes and processed tomato products. That’s simply not true. MSG is manufactured. There’s no such thing as “natural” MSG.

This is a picture of the plant in Eddyville Iowa where Ajinomoto manufactures monosodium glutamate (MSG). What do you think Ajinomoto had to do to get the FDA to parrot its fiction that “MSG is naturally occurring?”

If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. If you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, and we’ll put them up on Facebook. Or you can reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @truthlabeling.

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Being the number one producer of MSG didn’t just happen

Ask successful business people and they’ll tell you that while it’s great to have a decent product, it’s really the marketing that counts. And there’s no better marketing tool than having the FDA follow your script, broadcast the virtues of your product, and ignore all data that say your product kills brain cells. Brain cells that if not obliterated would have regulated appetite (preventing obesity) and reproduction function (preventing infertility).

References:

Industry’s FDA: https://www.truthinlabeling.org/fda.html

Samuels, A. (2020). Dose dependent toxicity of glutamic acid: A review: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10942912.2020.1733016

Olney, J.W. (1969). Brain lesions, obesity, and other disturbances in mice treated with monosodium glutamate. Science 164: 719-721.


If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. If you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, and we’ll put them up on Facebook. Or you can reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @truthlabeling.

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If it wasn’t harmful, it wouldn’t be hidden

There’s a really nice article detailing the history of MSG production in Worldkings — an Indian organization that notes significant achievements in a number of categories.

They featured Ajinomoto as one of the top 100 companies that have been in business over 100 years. But more than just a tip of the hat, Worldkings follows Ajinomoto from the day they introduced the original MSG into the market in 1909 through World War I, the opening of an office in New York, even noting that in April 1946 the company changed their name to Ajinomoto Co., Ltd. By 1950, the article says, exports from Japan accounted for 95% of the company’s revenue, with trade to Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States increasing in subsequent years.

Then we learn that in the 1970s, Ajinomoto diversified further, launching a flavored seasoning called “Hon-dashi” in 1970 and beginning production of frozen foods in 1972.

But wait! Big things happened between 1950 and 1970. In 1957 a new and brilliant method for producing the glutamic acid used in MSG was introduced — a method that soon would be used world-wide for manufacture of amino acids. Brilliant science! Amazing profits! So, why was this not mentioned?

Has it got something to do with the method itself? According to a 1996 article by Leung and Foster in the Encyclopedia of common natural ingredients used in food, drugs, and cosmetics (the only such article without Ajinomoto’s authorship or sponsorship), the glutamic acid in monosodium glutamate is generally made by microbial fermentation. In this method, bacteria are grown aerobically in a liquid nutrient medium. The bacteria have the ability to excrete glutamic acid they synthesize outside of their cell membrane into the liquid nutrient medium in which they are grown. The glutamic acid is then separated from the fermentation broth by filtration, concentration, acidification, and crystallization, and converted to its monosodium salt.

Official patents dealing with the manufacture of glutamic acid confirm that Ajinomoto’s monosodium glutamate is made by this process of bacterial fermentation wherein carefully selected genetically engineered bacteria that are fed on various carbohydrate media secrete glutamic acid through their cell walls.

In stark contrast, the FDA, The Glutamate Association, and all of Ajinomoto’s other “divisions” maintain that MSG is usually produced through a fermentation process similar to that used in making beer, vinegar and yogurt, with MSG production beginning with the fermentation of corn, sugar beets or sugar cane.

Could there be concern that hearing about use of bacteria, particularly GMO bacteria, might turn people off?

Maybe they’re worried that discussing the way in which MSG is manufactured would suggest that there’s nothing “natural” about it.

Perhaps there’s fear it will leak out that unavoidable by-products (impurities) are produced when L-glutamic acid (the flavor-enhancing constituent of glutamic acid) and MSG are manufactured. D-glutamic acid and pyroglutamic acid are two powerful neurotoxins that would certainly attract the attention of toxicologists. (In all of their writings about the safety of MSG, Ajinomoto has never acknowledged the existence of impurities. That stands to reason because truly natural products wouldn’t have impurities.)

Possibly more important, however, would be hiding the fact that with virtually unlimited production of MSG it could become available in such quantities that the glutamate in MSG would become excitotoxic – capable of killing brain cells. And with the change in glutamic acid’s production method, that’s exactly what happened. There is now sufficient glutamic acid in food to become excitotoxic for anyone consuming more than one glutamate-containing product during the course of a day. Not hard to do considering the vast amounts of cheap processed and ultra-processed foods available.

Other important and unmentioned things happened between 1950 and 1970:

  • In 1968, Dr. Ho Man Kwok wrote to the New England Journal of Medicine describing a set of reactions following MSG ingestion, that were eventually dubbed “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.”
  • In 1969 Dr. John Olney observed that free glutamic acid and MSG administered to infant mice caused brain lesions in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus, and that brain damage was followed by obesity, behavior disorders, reproductive dysfunction and a variety of other neuro-endocrine disorders.
  • The term “excitotoxin” was coined to stand for an amino acid (like glutamic acid) that serves a necessary function when present in controlled amounts, but kills brain cells when quantities greater than required for normal body function become available.

The adage “If it wasn’t harmful, it wouldn’t be hidden” seems to apply perfectly here.


If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. If you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, and we’ll put them up on Facebook. Or you can reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @truthlabeling.

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The Truth About AJI-NO-MOTO®

Reading about the Umami Seasoning Day celebration in Lagos, Nigeria, we came across an article titled The Truth About AJI-NO-MOTO, which we felt needed clarification. The update we offer here is based on the motto of The Truth in Labeling Campaign: “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about MSG.”

Note: our revisions are in red type and the patently false statements have been crossed out.

The Truth About AJI-NO-MOTO® — clarified by the Truth in Labeling Campaign

Since 1909 AJI-NO-MOTO® Umami Seasoning has been used to bring out the best taste in food all over the world. The extensive body of research produced by Ajinomoto which exists about this widely used ingredient has been reviewed by independent Ajinomoto’s scientists and regulatory authorities (to whom Ajinomoto provided all materials for review) throughout the world – all have found of whom claim that MSG to be safe is harmless.

You can find out more about this from our parent site the Truth in Labeling Campaign here.

Feel safe enjoying tastes and eating

AJI-NO-MOTO® (MSG) has been safely used as a food ingredient since 1909. However, due to the common misconceptions, growing numbers of reports of adverse reactions caused by MSG, it is now claimed to be one of the most thoroughly tested of all food ingredients, with hundreds of scientific studies financed by Ajinomoto confirming proclaiming its safe and effective use. MSG’s safety has been repeatedly affirmed by regulators and scientific agencies around the world who were given selected studies done by Ajinomoto’s agents to use in drawing their conclusions that MSG is harmless.

History of scientific studies for MSG around the world

In the early 1950s, as processed foods increased in many countries all over the world, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) of the United Nations established a new committee, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), to evaluate the safety of food additives.

JECFA* evaluated the safety of glutamate in 1970, 1973 and 1987, all overseen by members of the glutamate industry. After three safety evaluations, JECFA placed MSG in the safest category, “Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) not specified”.

In 1991, the European Commission’s Scientific Committee for Food (SCF), after considering studies brought to it by Ajinomoto’s agents, also affirmed MSG’s safety. Having reviewed the most advanced and up-to-date research created by Ajinomoto on glutamate, the SCF published a report in 1991 which designated an ‘ADI not specified’ for MSG.

In 1995, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), with a review panel staffed by persons with conflicts of interest, reaffirmed the safety of MSG for the general population. In its review, commissioned by the FDA, FASEB’s panel of reviewers with serious conflicts of interest, found looked for no evidence linking MSG to any serious or long-term health effects, which led the FDA used to again reaffirm that MSG is a safe food ingredient at normally consumed levels.


If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. If you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, and we’ll put them up on Facebook. Or you can reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @truthlabeling.

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Fraud?

Almost 30 years ago RN’s Rose Chop and Mary Silva writing in the Journal of Professional Nursing noted that “Scientific research typically has been founded on high ethical standards established by researchers in academia and health care research institutions. Scientific fraud, an act of deception or misrepresentation of one’s own work, violates these ethical standards. It can take the form of plagiarism, falsification of data, and irresponsible authorship. Scientific fraud has been attributed to misdirected attempts to attain high levels of personal and professional success. Researchers so prone commit scientific fraud in a search for promotion, status, tenure, and the obtaining of research grants.

With Big Food, we have seen another kind of scientific fraud – one that has nothing to do with attaining high levels of personal and professional success. Research grants are not needed by those who are paid up front to turn out these studies. And there is no need to falsify data as these studies were rigged in advance to produce the numbers that would be needed to draw the conclusions that their sponsor(s) had pre-ordained.

In a 2018 article titled “How do we tackle scientific fraud?” Anne Cooke writing for the British Society for Immunology stated that “fraud or scientific misconduct includes fabrication of data, falsification of data (including data selection and image manipulation), plagiarism (including self-plagiarism and use of other people’s data/ ideas), failure to meet ethical obligations such as obtaining patient consent, misuse of research funds, misrepresentation of data by, for example, not disclosing relevant findings, making inappropriate claims to authorship or failing to include an author who has made a significant contribution.”

Ajinomoto’s program for scientific fraud incorporates little or none of that. They don’t fabricate or falsify data, they simply design studies that will produce the results they are looking for.

If you use only subjects who have never had any reactions known to be caused by MSG, chances are good that the subjects in your study won’t have MSG reactions. If you limit your subjects to people on anti-migraine drugs, chances are that your subjects won’t have migraines. However, those designs aren’t foolproof.

Foolproof

There’s nothing second rate about Ajinomoto’s research. A variety of academics from various universities and medical schools were given study protocols and supervised by Andrew G. Ebert (Ajinomoto’s agent in charge of research) without the involvement of Ajinomoto being disclosed. Although they had common elements, no two studies were identical.

There was, however, one element that was shared by all — the use of excitotoxic amino acids in “placebos.” It’s actually elegant in its simplicity.

In a double-blind study, test material is given to a subject on one occasion, and on another occasion the subject is given a placebo. The placebo, if it’s a true placebo, looks, tastes and smells like the test material, but it will not cause a reaction. If the subject reacts to the inert placebo, the researchers could conclude that the subject is some kind of nut case who might react to anything, and therefore any reactions to MSG test material are coming from what the subject was thinking or imagining, not from the MSG. In industry studies of MSG-safety, subjects were not given true placebos.

That’s it. Simple. By giving subjects alleged placebos that cause the “right” reactions, there may be as many reactions to placebos as there are to MSG test material. From that, researchers could declare they had demonstrated that people really don’t react to MSG. But to make sure the conclusion that MSG is harmless would be beyond reproach, glutamate-industry researchers guaranteed that subjects would react to placebos with the same reactions that are caused by MSG. They did that by using aspartame as the toxic ingredient in their placebos, which worked well for them because the aspartic acid in aspartame and the glutamic acid in MSG cause virtually identical reactions (as well as identical brain damage). Having set that up, glutamate-industry researchers (and the propaganda artists who quote them) will say “These people aren’t sensitive to MSG, they reacted to the ‘placebo’ too.” Case closed!

Resources
FDA Adverse Reactions Monitoring System (ARMS) – Collected Reports of Adverse reactions to monosodium glutamate.

FDA Adverse Reactions Monitoring System (ARMS) – Collected Reports of Adverse reactions to Aspartame.


If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. If you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, and we’ll put them up on Facebook. Or you can reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @truthlabeling.

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