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Do you buy chicken broth labeled “No MSG” on the tetrapak or can from the store thinking this is a safe and healthy option for homemade soups you make at home?
Maybe you even go to the trouble and expense of buying chicken broth from the healthfood store that is labeled free range and organic believing this is a quality choice for your family.
Let’s dig into the label of these supposedly “no MSG”, “100% Natural” products and see what the real story is.
Are you ready for another Food Label Smackdown like the recent article shredding commercial coconut milk and almond milk in cartons?
Why You Must Avoid MSG
First, let’s take a brief moment to explain to any new readers why you must avoid MSG when you shop.
MSG is a dangerous neurotoxin that must be avoided as much as possible in your food. It kills neurons in the hypothalamus part of the brain stem that most likely never recover and are lost forever. The hypothalamus is the Master Controller of your endocrine system, so if you would like to have a healthy, balanced hormonal system, you must avoid MSG just like you avoid soy and BPA in your foods.
This goes for your children as well.
Mice fed MSG get morbidly obese. I truly believe, although I have not seen any studies on this yet, that the rampant use of MSG in processed foods plays a big role in the epidemic of fat and obese children in our society today.
Food manufacturers insist that MSG is natural because it is found naturally occurring in small amounts in some foods. When MSG is found in whole foods, however, it is bound to another molecule, usually protein and is therefore not able to cause neurological damage like the MSG that is freed from these molecules and present in large amounts in processed foods.
Products Labeled “No MSG” Usually Have MSG in Them
Once you realize just how dangerous MSG is to your neurological system and have resolved to avoid it, the next thing you must get your head around is the incredibly misleading, downright deceptive labeling of monosodium glutamate (MSG) in the United States today and probably elsewhere in the world.
Just because a product is labeled “no MSG” and is certified organic does not mean there is no MSG in it.
Huh? Say what?
Let’s come at this from a different angle and more closely examine the organic chicken broth labeled “No MSG” pictured above. To the right is a picture of the ingredients label.
What is immediately apparent is that this product most definitely contains MSG due to the presence of Yeast Extract.
While the name “yeast extract” seems nonthreatening enough, it in fact always contains MSG and is a hidden source that very effectively fools consumers which is why it is a very popular label with manufacturers.
If you think about it, what in the world is “yeast extract” doing in chicken broth in the first place? Yeast is more used for baked goods, isn’t it? If you make chicken broth yourself at home, you don’t add any yeast. That would be completely ridiculous!
Why else would manufacturers be adding “yeast extract” to chicken broth except to synthetically enhance the flavor?
Another suspect ingredient in the label is “Organic Spices”. Another benign sounding name which most likely contains MSG.
If a spice mix is less than 50% MSG, food manufacturers don’t have to label the MSG at all!
Big Food is apparently allowed to pretend products they manufacture don’t contain any MSG when they very definitely do and even get away with trumpeting “NO MSG” on the front label of the product to catch the eye of wary consumers and fool them into purchasing their goods.
Since all chicken broth from the store, organic or not, contains MSG that I’ve ever seen, it is a MUST to learn how to make bone broth yourself at home. It is not hard to do and will do a world of good for the health of yourself and your family by introducing real nutrition to your homemade soups and sauces rather than synthetic and dangerous flavors and enhancers that will harm your brain and more than likely disrupt your hormones and metabolism.
In a report issued by General Foods in 1947, chemists predicted that the day would come when nearly all flavors, “natural” or not, would be chemically synthesized.
That day has long since arrived, so don’t be fooled by false and misleading advertising of broths, soups, and other goods labeled “No MSG” when the truth is, they are loaded with it.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
More Information
Healthy and Easy Bouillon Cubes Recipe
Bone Broth and MSG: What You Need to Know
Headaches? MSG the Likely Cause
Stock or Broth? Are You Confused?
Whenever I roast a chicken (I just brine it in 1 T sea salt overnight, them roast at 350 for 1 hour) I save the gooey drippings, freeze it, and use it as a concentrated broth. Very convenient. And tasty. I’ve been doing this for many years and never once have been tempted to buy packaged chicken broth.
In the 1850’s the average man live to be 52 and the average woman lived to be 35. The average man stood five foot two inches tall. I’ve seen soldier uniforms from the Civil War. Amazing. What changed? Nutrition. We had an agricultural revolution that fed us more; we grew larger and lived longer. Now things are beginning to change. We’re living longer unhealthy lives. Our children are falling prey to adult degenerative diseases and the rate of Autism has skyrocketed from one in ten thousand to one in seventy; in some states the rate of Autism are even higher, some as high as one in forty six. Our population is growing increasingly obese and the average person is too busy to know what to do about it. They don’t know where the food comes from…they think it comes from the store. The average person has no connection to the land; many may never have even played in the dirt as a kid. I read somewhere that they found bacteria in the soil that stimulate the production of melatonin and serotonin; things that give us pleasure. No wonder kids like to get dirty, it feels good.
We need to reconnect with the land and learn how to do things like make a REAL nutritious meal.
well said, thank you for that.
PLUS, the perk in making your own homemade chicken broth for soups and stuff is you only use what you need. When you open those tetra-packs from the store, not only do they contain MSG, but if you don’t use the entire amount in 14 days or so, it expires and you have to throw it out! Before I started making my own broth, it seemed like I never used the full amount in the tetra-packs for my recipes. That’s a lot of money wasted. When you make your own, you just thaw what you need and keep the rest in the freezer. Yay!
Hi Sarah
My bouillon base , which I use when I run out of homemade broth, lists yeast as it’s first ingredient, then onion,natural chicken flavour, celery, black pepper, glucose, molasses,
herbs and spices. I liked it because there is no salt. So what can you use in emegencies?
You must keep a bunch of homemade broth frozen in the freezer for emergencies and for a quick thaw for a fast meal of homemade soup.
Bouillon cubes are LOADED with MSG. You can absolutely never ever use them as a sub for homemade broth.
When I read the title of your article, I thought “oh, no, here we go again. another article that will depress the hell outta me.” Well, it does depress but it’s sooooo important to know. I had no idea!! I thought I was being so clever buying no MSG broth. What a fool I’ve been! The depressing part is that our food industry is just out to make a buck and where did pride in your product go? Who knows? I guess the byword (and the “buyword”) is that you have to take TOTAL responsibility for what you eat. You can’t trust BIG FOOD anymore than you can trust Big Pharma. It hurts but it’s true.
I’m sorry to depress you Karen :0 I’m actually a very upbeat, cheerful person believe it or not. I am just so sick and tired of these Big Food companies HARMING OUR CHILDREN with these lies and deceptions. Someone has to blow the whistle on these crooks. And, many of the organic food companies are not as innocent as they pretend to be.
I agree with all of the Nourishing Traditions way of preparing and eating. It is difficult to find chicken that is healthy, to make my own broth and not break the bank. I do my best and pray for the day when wholesome food wouldn’t be a luxury. I feel for ones less financially secure than we are. I can see how the cheap food industry has most coming back for more. Most are clueless on the whole good food/bad food situation.
Thanks for the info! I used to buy a little bit of broth to use for some recipes. Now I only make my own and we always make soup from scratch – for real 🙂 The thing is though, there are a few packaged foods I buy that have ‘natural flavor’, I know that’s a no no. I just don’t have time to make my own everything, I already make so much…
This isn’t knew information to me but a great post nonetheless. You’re kicking *ss for real food class. You are doing a great service for so many people. I NEVER miss your posts. Ever.
Thanks Tina 🙂 I try to balance the newbie posts with more in depth posts as best I can. There is quite a mix of readers here for sure. Very hard for me to decide sometimes how deep to dive with a particular topic without losing new people. I know sometimes I am preaching to the choir with some of this, but the goal is to cast an ever widening net and you more experienced readers are a HUGE help in the comments section with newbies needing clarification on various points covered.
I would also be very wary of the term organic chicken flavor. I’m always curious above “flavors” and flavor enhancers. Some company just put out a flavor enhancer packet that you’re supposed to add to your cooked foods – I saw it advertised but didn’t catch the whole ad so don’t know who makes it. Can you just imagine what’s in that stuff? Blech.
Someone might have mentioned this above but i don’t get these “articles” until about 2 days after they’re out for publication (don’t know why – I’m signed up on email and on RSS feed but by the time I get them there are always at least 40-50 responses or more, so my thoughts are usually not very original sounding! Sorry if it was mentioned before but I don’t have time right now to read a bunch of responses.
I once had a list of food ingredients that were other names that msg goes by. It was very long! It’s very deceptive that natural food manufacturers put this in their products. There are many, many people who trust these companies’ products because they are “natural” and even “organic.”
Chicken broth and other broths are super-easy to make at home. It’s cheaper and more nutritious. Thank goodness we can each make choices to eat, healthier, homemade, traditional foods at home, instead of buying some of the yucky, aux-food found at the health food store.