Posted by Ueli (195.162.167.253) on May 19, 2000 at 14:53:33:
In Reply to: Very interesting and informative. What posted by Donna on May 19, 2000 at 12:39:39:
The European Community has created a numbering system for all food additives, so the (mandatory) declarations can be language independent; and Switzerland has adopted this system too. There are about 200 entries in this list, running from E 100 (curcamin) to E 1520 (propylenglycol). The salts of glutamic acid run from E 620 to E 629. The most commonly used, MSG, has the number E 621.
When I go shopping, armed with a loupe, these E-numbers come handy in avoiding this poisonous additive.
As an example: When I realized that the salad dressing I used was causing me 'headaches', I went to get another one. But the whole dozen of ready made dressings I checked were laced with E 621! So I decided to make my salad dressing from scratch, but from the 6 brands of vinegar in the shop only one was without MSG!
Raw tomatoes are harmless, but cooking them generates MSG, and into a bottle of ketchup go a lot of tomatoes and a lot of cooking. Ketchup is a heavy trigger for me.
Other natural sources of MSG are soy beans and see weed (from which the chinese traditionally extract their beloved MSG). The MSG from these natural sources is made up from L-glutamic acid (L for Left twisting) only and is far less dangerous (for CH and many other conditions) than the industrially produced MSG (by a multi G$ business, that apparently even bought the FDA, see link below) which is heavily contaminated with D-glutamic acid (D for Dextral, right twisting).