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is MSG and Aspartame slowly poisoning us?

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Garcia

Member
maharg said:
At any rate, the 'natural is safe' movement is under the delusion that only 'unnatural' things kill you slowly.

Delusion? How is that a delusion? I don't get that logic at all.

Branduil said:
If only we had a large regulative government organization to protect us from these things, so we could never suffer from them.

In the meantime you are free to choose wether or not you consume those chemicals. It's a matter of choice actually. It's been years since I last drank Coke and I only eat junk food like, once every 3-4 months.
 

Ela Hadrun

Probably plays more games than you
DKnight said:
How can you ban an herb? oh, let's ban mint, because nobody can patent it... wtf? I hope you're joking, if not, that truly sucks and it should change. Aspartame is the sweetener of the devil.

The FDA said it didn't meet their standards as a safe food product to be sold in the States. I think it can actually be sold as an "herbal supplement," but legally you are not allowed to label, advertise or sell it as a sweetener. Theoretically this could have happened because the herb was dangerous, but most people agree it was corporate and agribusiness lobbies who didn't want what is basically a public domain low-calorie sweetener on the market.

See above posts, where Coca-Cola and other companies are trying to derive a sweetener from Stevia, so that they have the low calorie proprietary sweetener.

I don't really blame the corporations like Coca Cola though; I think it was probably the corn lobby.
 
I recently discovered I was mildly allergic to MSG and I was surprised to find out just how many products have it. A lot of Chinese food places go out of their way to put "No MSG" on their menu, so why don't other companies list this on their product? They always put things like Eggs, Peanuts, and things like that, so why not bold MSG in their ingredients list? I found it in a lot of snack food ingredient lists like Doritos. I know 10 years ago Doritos didn't have MSG cause I could eat them all the time. Now when I have a small bag of them I get really bad headaches.
 

iapetus

Scary Euro Man
Adonymous said:
bold pls.

For Junior Members and recently approved Members:

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10. tl;dr (including variant "BOLD PLEASE")
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=184138
 

JimiNutz

Banned
I hope so. People are living far too long these days!
Hurry up and die you greedy fucks so that I can buy your house, marry your wife, steal your parking space, and harvest your organs.
 

tri_willy

Member
Stormwatch said:
I recently discovered I was mildly allergic to MSG and I was surprised to find out just how many products have it. A lot of Chinese food places go out of their way to put "No MSG" on their menu, so why don't other companies list this on their product? They always put things like Eggs, Peanuts, and things like that, so why not bold MSG in their ingredients list? I found it in a lot of snack food ingredient lists like Doritos. I know 10 years ago Doritos didn't have MSG cause I could eat them all the time. Now when I have a small bag of them I get really bad headaches.

most chinese foods have msg in them. its rare to go out to a chinese restaurant and not find any msg in the foods. i noticed that an over consumption of msg can leave to a bad headache and sometimes migraines.
 
I kind of doubt that aspartame is so bad for you that it should be banned outright or anything (if anyone I know who drinks way too much diet soda ever got cancer, I feel pretty safe in saying it wouldn't be from the soda) but it does seem kind of emblematic of the whole processed-food problem. Something like stevia really is a better solution, but it's one that's been actively blocked by lobbyist-driven government intervention -- not for any actual reason, but solely because it would hurt the business model of the companies that provide sweeteners now.
 

zer0das

Banned
The FDA boggles my mind sometimes. I was interviewing at a place where they ran toxicological tests for the US government, and one of the guys gave the example that Yellow 5 has been around for like 30-40 years and that no one had any idea about its toxicology, despite the fact that it is in a ton of food items. Also I did some article review for an inorganic chemistry class, and it mentioned the fact that chromium(III) was used in supplements even though as far as we know, it isn't used in any of the human body's enzymes. From what I read, it has some kind of effect on insulin levels in megadoses, but as to its toxicology no one has a freaking clue where it goes or what it does after it is ingested. That's what I pulled away from the article anyways.

You would think they would have a better idea about this kind of stuff... at least before letting it into the food supply.
 

speedpop

Has problems recognising girls
It's not that hard or expensive to eat organic food let alone a shitload of vegetables or drinking water. I eat meat maybe once a week, if that, and even then we make sure it's organic. I get the occasional craving to munch on some MSG covered fried chicken wings but they usually pass within an hour.

Heck a friend of mine from Canada will not touch anything that hasn't been from within a certain radius of his house or town. He shops exclusively at markets and pays the farmers up front.
 

zer0das

Banned
White Man said:
Of course they are :)

The initial claim of the Snopes link is one that addresses the fear mongering about aspartame. The way it is initially stated, you can't ever really prove anything, so of course it is false.

If you actually read the links, the FDA itself says "Carefully controlled clinical studies show that aspartame is not an allergen. However, certain people with the genetic disease phenylketonuria (PKU), and pregnant women with hyperphenylalanine (high levels of phenylalanine in blood) have a problem with aspartame because they do not effectively metabolize the amino acid phenylalanine, one of aspartame's components. High levels of this amino acid in body fluids can cause brain damage. Therefore, FDA has ruled that all products containing aspartame must include a warning to phenylketonurics that the sweetener contains phenylalanine. "

Now, that isn't the general populace. The one news article cited as saying aspartame is safe doesn't really do that at all. It only says the cognitive abilities of people who consume lots of it for 4 months doesn't decrease. What does that say about cancer? Nothing.

A quick search of ACS Pubs yields this article: http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=29a262ffaf7d5d51a9a051bd106648de

Which basically says, aspartame may be causing formaldehyde to accumulate in the tissue. Which just happens to be a suspected carcinogen.

So what does that tell me? We should probably be investigating it further and I don't feel comfortable consuming it. A quick glance at its original approval process that declared as okay to use it in foods also makes it seem pretty sketchy. It's only been around in food for 30 years or so, which isn't that long.
 
I'm not too worried about MSG. Our taste receptors have the ability to detect MSG and there's an indication that this is an evolved trait. I'm fairly certain its highly present in japanese kelp and seafood.

Like everything else, its too much that kills you, not the substance itself.
 
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