It's the finale of all that dashing around, planning and shopping -- the Christmas dinner. 
And if you're the one heading up the December 25th mission control center (AKA your kitchen), I know you want everything to come out perfect. 
But there are some things that you definitely don't want to invite to your Christmas table. 
And, no, I'm not talking about a Tofurkey, which doesn't even belong in our vocabulary, let alone on anyone's dinner table! 

You better watch out... 

 

I know cooking isn't easy. And we can't suddenly turn into Julia Child and start making everything from scratch. 
But there are some short cuts that are best left on the supermarket shelf. I'm talking about the ones that contain MSG. 

Now you may think that by carefully reading labels you're safe from MSG. But Big Food is sneaky. It knows that we've become smarter consumers, so it's trying to outsmart us. And some of the places it always manages to sneak in MSG are those broths, soups, stuffings and gravies that we buy over the holidays. 

And you won't always find "MSG" on the ingredient list, either. In fact, you may see "NO MSG" in great big letters on the package. But most times, that's just a trick to get you to buy the product. But how to find -- and avoid -- MSG is something we can all do. It might take a bit of extra effort, but it's well worth it. Especially where your heart is concerned. 

When you eat foods that contain MSG, your blood levels of glutamate will rise. That can go on and on throughout the day -- and those levels can remain high during the night as well. Now, there are triggers on your heart called "glutamate receptors" that are activated by MSG. A group of these receptors controls your heart rhythm. And eating all that flavor-enhancing MSG can short-circuit your heart's electrical system causing a chaotic heart rhythm call A-fib. (And that's an even bigger threat if you're low on magnesium). 

That's how seemingly innocent dinner-helpers can turn into nightmare health problems. 
Experts who have closely examined the effect MSG has on your heart have been warning about it for years. One doctor from the University of Toledo College of Medicine even wrote a letter to a prestigious cardiology journal to warn other doctors about it. He told about a physician who was otherwise healthy, yet every time he ate food with added MSG, he would go into A-fib. And where A-fib is concerned, doctors usually start patients on one of those dangerous blood thinners immediately. 

Now that you know the "why," here's the "how," as in how to keep this additive off your dinner plate. Watch out for these seven names used to hide MSG:

  1. anything "hydrolyzed" such as a "hydrolyzed protein",soy protein, including soy protein concentrate and soy protein isolate,
  2. autolyzed yeast,
  3. sodium caseinate
  4. textured protein
  5. yeast extract, and of course,
  6. the Big Kahuna -- monosodium glutamate.

And any foods that contain these additives will always have MSG in them -- even if the package says "NO MSG" on it.  All these ingredients can have the same bad effect on your heart, especially if you're sensitive to glutamate, which millions of us are. Many people can react to very small doses and not even know what hit them. 

By keeping MSG out of your holiday meal you'll be able to concentrate on the really important parts of Christmas dinner...
Like seating all the relatives next to the ones they get along with!

Jenny Thompson, The Health Sciences Institute