Are the ingredients "citric acid" and "natural flavors" always MSG?

Paradox Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:30 am

Would someone please clarify if "absorbing acid" (vitamin C), "citric acid", and "natural flavor" are sometimes/always hidden MSG? What about "spices"?

kijumn Sat Feb 13, 2010 3:57 pm

Natural flavor and spices is definitely the worst, IME ... almost always contain high amounts. Citric acid including citrate as in magnesium citrate or other supplements with citrate may or may not contain free glutamic acid. It's a bit of a coin toss. Even then, citric acid when it does contain free glutamic acid seems to have lower amounts of free glutamic acid as spices or natural flavor.

I pretty much gave up in that 95% of all processed foods contain MSG. The only question is how much they contain and reading the labels really won't tell you how much, IME. Also, the free glutamic acid found in liquid such as soups, protein powders, etc. are the worst. Definitely beware of those. They get into the blood stream and thus penetrate the blood brain barrier in much higher conentrations ... something along those lines. When eating free glutamic acid in solid food, it's more likely to lead to wanting to use the restroom ... causes your colon to spasm.

Here's a good list of free glutamic acid. I could be mistaken but for those in Europe, the European numbers containing free glutamic acid is much higher than posted at the bottom of this list.

Hidden Names for MSG

The following substances contain the highest percentage of factory created free glutamate, with MSG containing 78%:

MSG Gelatin Calcium Caseinate
Monosodium glutamate Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP) Textured Protein
Monopotassium glutamate Hydrolyzed Plant Protein (HPP) Yeast Extract
Glutamate Autolyzed Plant Protein Yeast food or nutrient
Glutamic Acid Sodium Caseinate Autolyzed Yeast
Vegetable Protein Extract Senomyx (wheat extract labeled as artificial flavor)

The following substances contain some factory created free glutamate in varying amounts. Please note that some food labels list several of these items, which can add up to a considerable and dangerous amount in one product:

Malted Barley (flavor) Natural Flavors, Flavors, Flavoring Modified food starch
Barley malt Reaction Flavors Rice syrup or brown rice syrup
Malt Extract or Flavoring Natural Chicken, Beef, or Pork, Flavoring "Seasonings" (Most assume this means salt, pepper, or spices and herbs, which sometimes it is.) Lipolyzed butter fat
Maltodextrin, dextrose, dextrates Soy Sauce or Extract "Low" or "No Fat" items
Caramel Flavoring (coloring) Soy Protein Corn syrup and corn syrup solids, high fructose corn syrup
Stock Soy Protein Isolate or Concentrate Citric Acid (when processed from corn)
Broth Cornstarch fructose (made from corn) Milk Powder
Bouillon Flowing Agents Dry Milk Solids
Carrageenan Wheat, rice, corn, or oat protein Protein Fortified Milk
Whey Protein or Whey Anything enriched or vitamin enriched Annatto
Whey Protein Isolate or Concentrate Protein fortified "anything" Spice
Pectin Enzyme modified proteins Gums (guar and vegetable)
Protease Ultra-pasteurized dairy products Dough Conditioners
Protease enzymes Fermented proteins Yeast Nutrients
Lecithin Gluten and gluten flour Protein powders: whey, soy, oat, rice (as in protein bars shakes and body building drinks)
Amino acids (as in Bragg's liquid amino acids and chelated to vitamins) Algae, phytoplankton, sea vegetable, wheat/ barley grass powders

European numbers for glutamate containing additives:

620 625
621 627
622 631
623 635
624

http://www.msgmyth.com/

Paradox Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:17 pm

Jdp,

Thanks a lot. You're right that it is all but impossible to avoid completely. I also experience a bad reaction to soups and canned liquids. Good to know about citric acid because many times that is the only offending ingredient. It's also impossible to find veggie capsules in everything, and avoid all citrate supplements as well. Am I correct that gluten has high levels? I recall reading that somewhere. I think I have that list bookmarked somewhere too.

kijumn Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:46 pm

Paradox,

I had to double check the book "Battling the "MSG myth" and while I didn't find the answer directly as there is so much contradictory information on that subject, from my understanding it's the barley that's almost always added to the wheat is the problem. For instance, when you go to the store and look at all the breads you'll see barley as the ingredient. Most flours but not all are the same ... barley is added. So techinically, you can cook with or make bread out of flour that doesn't contain barley and you'll be fine regarding not getting an msg reaction.

Also, I wouldn't doubt that there is small amounts of free glutamic acid that isn't bound in wheat. Just like meat juice or seaweed or mushrooms or tomatoes. But again, it's really the barley that's the problem. I could be mistaken but the reason why is the barley is breaking down the wheat creating free glutamic acid. Just like how fermenting something can create free glutamic acid. That's basically what barley is doing.

With that said, keep in mind that when reading labels on processed foods, when it says gluten, most likely it contains free glutamic acid/MSG ... the food industry is able to make free glutamic acid out of almost anything, lol.

kijumn Sun Feb 14, 2010 9:26 am

I found the source regarding your question about gluten. Here you go.

1. Although some people may not agree, I do not believe that gluten should present an MSG problem. What is a problem is that many, if not most flours (not graham or whole wheat flour) include malted barley, sometimes referred to as barley malt, or malt. These ingredients introduce enzymes into the flour and when you use the flour to make bread or something else, the enzymes break down the protein, at least in part, resulting in some processed free glutamic acid (MSG).

If you look at bags of flour in stores you will see malted barley listed on the labels, but that does not mean that it is necessarily in the flour. Apparently, when the wheat is harvested following a very wet season or if the farmer's field is somewhat depleted of nutrients, the flour does not act properly in recipes. Therefore, the flour company adds the malted barley. Since they do not know when or if they will need to add malted barley, they leave it listed on the label.

Hogsdon Mills (on Internet) produces a white flour that is free of malted barley.

http://www.curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=920206#i

Paradox Sun Feb 14, 2010 10:55 am

jdp710 wrote:I found the source regarding your question about gluten. Here you go.

1. Although some people may not agree, I do not believe that gluten should present an MSG problem. What is a problem is that many, if not most flours (not graham or whole wheat flour) include malted barley, sometimes referred to as barley malt, or malt. These ingredients introduce enzymes into the flour and when you use the flour to make bread or something else, the enzymes break down the protein, at least in part, resulting in some processed free glutamic acid (MSG).

If you look at bags of flour in stores you will see malted barley listed on the labels, but that does not mean that it is necessarily in the flour. Apparently, when the wheat is harvested following a very wet season or if the farmer's field is somewhat depleted of nutrients, the flour does not act properly in recipes. Therefore, the flour company adds the malted barley. Since they do not know when or if they will need to add malted barley, they leave it listed on the label.

Hogsdon Mills (on Internet) produces a white flour that is free of malted barley.

http://www.curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=920206#i

That's awesome Jdp- thanks! I am starting to realize that there is really no way to avoid it unless I avoid all processed foods (including baked goods) altogether. It seems that there will always be critics of any particular type of diet- veggie vs. meat, raw vs. cooked, dairy or no dairy, fruit vs no fruit...etc etc. It becomes very difficult to actually figure out what to consume. I'm with you that we can't avoid msg completely, but I think it's enough to get rid of as much as is practical.

kijumn Sun Feb 14, 2010 11:38 am

Hey Paradox,

What's interesting is that once you start eating normal food, food actually tastes a lot different. The blah foods before are more satisfying and the processed foods taste odd and a bit disgusting actually.

Same with fast food restaurants ... high amounts of free glutamic acid as well as others. Restaurants do the same.

Here's a quote

"... if you regularly eat a diet of processed foods, whole foods seem to lack flavor. You have become conditioned to think that these chemically altered foods are the norm, when in fact the opposite is true."

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/02/13/david-wolfe-interview.aspx

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Are the ingredients "citric acid" and "natural flavors" always MSG?

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Re: Are the ingredients "citric acid" and "natural flavors" always MSG?