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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?
Thank you Sarah for putting this out there!!! A few years ago a neurologist told me to avoid MSG in all its guises to deal with my very severe migraines. It’s in every commercial food package! Even carageenan (sp?) in organic cream is/has “MSG”. Long story short, after some time I could tell you if there was even a trace of MSG in the room. 😀 Never found a packaged broth I could tolerate. It was not until I found WAPF and ordered meat directly from a farmer that I could have beef on a regular basis. (Some people say beef is treated with MSG-like chemicals when processing, I don’t know but there was something in there.)
I just tell people who ask what I should look for on the label, if it has a label, don’t buy it. 😀 WAPF/GAPS is the best thing that happened to me though I still have hormonal problems. Do you think there is a shot that the hypothalamus will ever heal?
I have heard though – that the chicken broth you make at home, if simmered for a long time, will contain natural MSG. I think mushrooms do too. And some people are sensitive enough to be intolerant of that even. But the natural MSG that is formed in these is bound up in protein such that it doesn’t harm the body?
Fascinating stuff…
This isn’t new to me but am glad that more people are aware of this trick food people pull on the consumers. But it is depressing that we have to make everything from scratch 🙁
Sadly, this is another example of how deceptive food labels are. Reading packaging labels and ingredient labels has become almost a science. Thanks for passing on this information.
This post reminds me to call my sister – lol She told me she found these soup stock things from Knorr that were like little gelatin blobs – I guess more like a fume, in a sense. Anyway I checked them out at the store and they are no better than the bouillion crap. She, like my mother, thinks ‘who has time to cook anyways’. sheesh. I had forgotten all about those cube things – thanks for the reminder 😀
this is important to know and understand
Oh my! All I can say is thanks for this information…..you always help us understand things. I also thought when they labeled something as “no” it meant “no”….obviously not! I make all our own chicken and beef stock but my daughter buys organic stock (she works full time). Maybe this is why she gets migraines alot??? Goodness!! Appreciate all your hard work! Oh, we did know that soy is labeled under about 30 other names, we learned that because our grandson is severely allergic to soy!
Do you have a link for the soy names? I would bet you a $1 that this contributes to her migraines. I avoid natural flavors and spices on ingredient list because of hidden sources of gluten (I have celiac) but WOW. Thanks Sarah for keeping us informed.
This is ABSOLUTELY a reason for her migraines! I posted below that my neurologist said to strictly avoid MSG (all names) and just that alone did amazing things for me. I have moved on to WAPF and haven’t had a single migraine in over 2+ years!
Just wanted to mention these were not the “walking down the hall, oh, I have such a migraine” migraines. These were the “the ER docs think you are having a stroke” type of migraines.
Oh Sarah, this really burns me up! That is the brand that I have been buying! Thanks for the heads up! I am tired of these deceivers! I am making my list and these companies are going on it! (Very bad for them!) Sad to have to be so cynical about so many things, but SHOW ME! I am going to watch them like a hawk! Thanks for reminding us not to let the whitewash fool us!
Where can I find a list of alternative MSG names?
There is a link in the post .. click on “yeast extract”