Food manufacturers sure don’t make it easy for consumers to shop conscientiously. We have to do homework just to decipher the nutrition labels on the backs of boxes and cans, otherwise they’re just a mess of percentages and multi-syllabic words. Even just trying to avoid certain ingredients is hard enough; manufacturers want you to buy their stuff, so they don’t want to make questionable content too obvious. As a result, ingredient lists on processed foods are long, jumbled, and full of words you’d need a science background to understand. Fortunately, figuring out whether foods have ingredients we don’t want—like MSG, sugar, or trans fat—isn’t as intimidating once we know what to look out for. Unfortunately, considering that something as simple as sugar has over twenty names, we clearly have our work cut out for us.
MSG
Monosodium glutamate by any other name is still MSG, an additive that gives food a salty, savory flavor (also known as umami, the fifth taste). You can find it in any number of packaged goods, canned items, and snacks, but you won’t always find it listed as “monosodium glutamate” in the ingredients. If you suffer from MSG symptom complex—having physical reactions, like headaches, nausea, and heart palpitations—or you just want to avoid suspicious additives altogether, look out for these other names for MSG.
- Autolyzed yeast
- Hydrolyzed flours or proteins
- Textured protein
- Sodium/calcium caseinate
- Gelatin
- Glutamic acid
- Vegetable protein extract
Some ingredients aren’t MSG per se, but contain some amount of glutamate, which can cause similar health problems if you have MSG symptom complex.
- Malted barely
- Maltodextrin
- Stock/bouillon/broth
- Protein powders (whey, soy, etc.)
- Soy sauce
- Rice syrup
- Annatto
- Guar gum
- Modified corn starch
