Tricked by grilled chicken - MSG linked to obesity

Although sometimes lower in fat, fast-food chicken is
loaded with MSG which also leads to weight gain.
- Photo by Adriana Cal
 

Doctors tell us to avoid high amounts of sodium, particularly the flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate (MSG) because of its impact on blood pressure. Researchers have suspected for years, however, that MSG may also lead to obesity.

Studies on animals have long indicated that the use of glutamates leads directly to weight gain. Since in the industrialized world MSG use goes hand-in-hand with the consumption of processed food, it has been problematic to isolate the effects of MSG from that of starch, sugar, trans-fats, and HFCS.

A recent study from UNC Chapel Hill and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, however, adjusted for this by looking at the association of MSG use and obesity in villages in rural China, where 82% of the population uses this popular seasoning, but most meals are prepared from scratch in the home.

Dr. Ha Ke, M.D. and his team studied 750 men and women, ages 40-59, comparing their body-mass indices (BMI) to the amount (by weight) of MSG consumed. The results, controlled for differences in caloric intake, physical activity, and other physical differences, showed that those with the highest MSG intake were almost three times as likely to be overweight than those who did not use it.

What does this mean to us? No more Chinese take-out? That’s where MSG comes from, right?

It’s not as easy as that. MSG is used as a flavor enhancer in a number of items that you may have thought were great for fat loss. You already knew that BBQ-flavor potato chips, mac-n-cheese, and fast-food gravy were bad for you, so knowing the glutamate impact probably won’t change your opinions.

That fast-food grilled chicken sandwich you so proudly chose over the greasy burger however? Also laden with MSG. So is the soup you ordered before your meal at the sit-down restaurant. And many food products also contain “protein hydrolysates”, which is a food-label-friendly way of including glutamate and glutamic acids (the breakdown products of MSG) without having to print “monosodium glutamate” on the ingredients list.

The best bet, as always, is to do as much cooking at home from fresh foods as you possibly can.

Not that it’s impossible to put your own MSG in dishes of course. Soy sauce, bouillon, many salad dressings, and most canned soups and broths have significant amounts of MSG, and many seasoning blends contain it as well. Accent, sold as a “flavor enhancer”, is simply the brand name under which MSG is sold in North America.

Once again it appears that restaurants and food scientists continue to make it challenging to eat healthfully and stay lean, and once again the best way to meet the challenge is to know what’s in your meals. Read your labels, and try to stay with ingredients that your great-grandmother would recognize as food. If you can’t pronounce it, or suspect it has origins in a lab rather than a farm, field, or stream, you probably shouldn’t be eating it.