MSG THE UNTOLD TRUTH Essay

Submitted By C7rerH
Words: 491
Pages: 2

Boosting flavor, boosting weight

Have you ever felt like you couldn’t stop yourself, from consuming an edible guilty pleasure? You just lost all self control after taking the first bite. Or maybe you just never noticed when your hand continuously reached for more. Majority blame the amount of fat, sugars or calories required to complete the perfect flavour. Minority know that there is another factor that majority of people are unaware of. It’s in thousands of processed foods and probably in your kitchen cabinets right now. Monosodium glutamate, also known as sodium glutamate. The immense proficiency of the words makes it unfamiliar to the ordinary person. Its acronym is MSG, which is much more recognizable. MSG is a salt of the amino acid - Glutamic Acid (glutamate). For nearly a century MSG has been used successfully as a flavor enhancer making foods more delectable (The Glutamate Association).This may sound like a delicious positive but opinions may diverge in the weight loss department. This flavor booster could be Boosting your weight.
MSG induces obesity. Scientists inject laboratory rats with MSG to induce obesity. Rats alone are not naturally overweight. Many studies using MSG treated vermin confirm an enhanced appetite once injected. It also has been shown to increase appetite in male rats and to induce obesity in female rats and chickens. Scientists in Spain have recently concluded that MSG when given to mice increases appetite by as much as 40% (Gregory Paul Johnson). In a world where obesity is a vast problem, it would be simple to remove MSG so it would be easier to resist guilty pleasures. MSG is very difficult to exercise and diet off. Although, because MSG is so cheap, the food industry can use much lower quality foods and simply add MSG as a flavor enhancer. Therefore they save money on actually producing high quality foods (Wells S. D). For the minority that knows about MSG there is great suspicion