Channing McKinley Chiropractic, Ltd.

A great blog entry on thehealthycookie.com on MSG (Monosodium Glutamate) which is a common food additive. It is a neurotoxin that excites brain cells and then kills them. All this so that foods have more intense flavor (to replace flavor that is lost because they are processed and preserved). Most people associate MSG with Chinese cuisine, but it is found regularly in common processed and canned foods. Almost all potato chips and canned soups contain MSG as do crackers, instant foods, frozen meals and salad dressings. Take a minute to go through your cupboard and read the labels and I’ll bet it will surprise you.

I write this today to remind everyone to read lables on the foods you eat, and especially the foods your children eat. During childhood when there is so much brain development, keeping the nervous tissue healthy is of greatest importance. We want the foods our children eat to support that developement and provide nutrition, not kill off the cells that are the building blocks of brain activity.

Please take a moment to read the article on thehealthycookie.com and look at the hidden names for MSG so that you know what to look for on food labels. Then do a little research - even better, involve your children in reading the labels of food in your cupboard and make some choices together. Often, it will be foods that are addictive and hard to stop eating that will contain MSG. It’s a good way to begin talking about how food makes you and your child feel while eating, and then after eating it. I find that it’s also a great way to start to notice food’s relationship to some behaviors we see in our kids.