With all the holiday parties I had this crazy idea that it might be interesting to post information on some foods we should avoid.

After a few days of reading and double-checking, I wondered if we were just supposed to live on distilled water. Turns out there’s plenty of good stuff for us to eat, but the information on what’s really in our processed food was overwhelming.

It may not be difficult to stay away from milk or other dairy products, but this series on MSG blew me away. Sure I knew its harmful effects, or so I thought. But not really. I still hadn’t totally eliminated it from my diet. It’s in everything.

Some years ago I got a chance to speak to John Erb, the man who first blew the whistle in a big way with his book  The Slow Poisoning of America. I called him because I wanted to help him market his book. But he told me that when he published it his world had fallen apart. He lost his job, the IRS took everything he owned, and he was literally living out of his car. That didn’t much appeal to me, so I backed away.

What John Erb had done is anger big pharma.  MSG is big money, because it makes us eat more- so of course is highly profitable for the food industry, which is actually the tobacco industry. (Did you know that?) Then of course big pharma makes plenty from the drugs we have to take for the wide variety of food-induced health problems .

However, John Erb was  was brave enough to “get the ball rolling”. And no, things still aren’t much better for him. But now there’s plenty of information out there about the dangers of MSG. The 4 part series on MSG is well worth your time . This isn’t new information. But watching it may give you renewed inspiration to eliminate MSG from your diet.

The information is making a difference. For example, Campbell’s now has a line of soups with no MSG.

Bottom line: we do not understand the impact of MSG. It is linked to permanent impairment of the brain (and it’s in our baby food), cancer and heart disease (they call it cancer fertilizer), and so much more. It may subtract years from your life.

So, Happy Holidays- but let’s do our best to make sure that future holidays are happy also by eating the foods that will  help maintain one of the most important gifts anyone can have- good health.

But let’s start tomorrow.

Posted under Uncategorized