Are the ingredients "citric acid" and "natural flavors" always MSG?

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Originally Posted by Linda Well I checked the company website and the brand I used last night does not have msg. Nonetheless, I'm going back to my usual salsa with only defineable and recognizeable ingredients. I wonder what "natural flavor" means to the average industrial food manufacturer . . .

My dh (RegGuheert on the WTM boards) is very sensitive to MSG, and sometimes gets a headache from food with natural flavors. We usually avoid it. Unfortunately, I believe that unless their product contains Monosodium Glutamate, a company will tell you it is "MSG Free." We've seen foods that say "MSG Free" on the label that contain soy protein isolate or other ingredients that contain processed free glutamic acid, the part of MSG that gives you headaches.

Because it is really hard to tell, we usually avoid products that contain natural flavors. Exceptions to this are Hellman's mayo and those that say things like "natural vanilla (or raspberry, rosemary, etc.) flavor." We buy the Hellman's because the Spectrum regular-fat organic mayo was just too expensive. 

We make our own salsa with home-grown tomatoes, peppers, onions, etc., and can it in the summer. If we run out we buy Muir Glen salsa. It's tasty and available from our natural foods co-op and from Amazon.

Sorry about your headache. MSG headaches are no fun at all.

GardenMom




Natural flavor and spices is definitely the worst, IME ... almost always contain high amounts. Citric acid including citrate as in magnesium citrate or other supplements with citrate may or may not contain free glutamic acid. It's a bit of a coin toss. Even then, citric acid when it does contain free glutamic acid seems to have lower amounts of free glutamic acid as spices or natural flavor. 

I pretty much gave up in that 95% of all processed foods contain MSG. The only question is how much they contain and reading the labels really won't tell you how much, IME. Also, the free glutamic acid found in liquid such as soups, protein powders, etc. are the worst. Definitely beware of those. They get into the blood stream and thus penetrate the blood brain barrier in much higher conentrations ... something along those lines. When eating free glutamic acid in solid food, it's more likely to lead to wanting to use the restroom ... causes your colon to spasm.

Here's a good list of free glutamic acid. I could be mistaken but for those in Europe, the European numbers containing free glutamic acid is much higher than posted at the bottom of this list. 

Hidden Names for MSG

The following substances contain the highest percentage of factory created free glutamate, with MSG containing 78%:

MSG Gelatin Calcium Caseinate 
Monosodium glutamate Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP) Textured Protein 
Monopotassium glutamate Hydrolyzed Plant Protein (HPP) Yeast Extract 
Glutamate Autolyzed Plant Protein Yeast food or nutrient 
Glutamic Acid Sodium Caseinate Autolyzed Yeast 
Vegetable Protein Extract Senomyx (wheat extract labeled as artificial flavor) 


The following substances contain some factory created free glutamate in varying amounts. Please note that some food labels list several of these items, which can add up to a considerable and dangerous amount in one product:

Malted Barley (flavor) Natural Flavors, Flavors, Flavoring Modified food starch 
Barley malt Reaction Flavors Rice syrup or brown rice syrup 
Malt Extract or Flavoring Natural Chicken, Beef, or Pork, Flavoring "Seasonings" (Most assume this means salt, pepper, or spices and herbs, which sometimes it is.) Lipolyzed butter fat 
Maltodextrin, dextrose, dextrates Soy Sauce or Extract "Low" or "No Fat" items 
Caramel Flavoring (coloring) Soy Protein Corn syrup and corn syrup solids, high fructose corn syrup 
Stock Soy Protein Isolate or Concentrate Citric Acid (when processed from corn) 
Broth Cornstarch fructose (made from corn) Milk Powder 
Bouillon Flowing Agents Dry Milk Solids 
Carrageenan Wheat, rice, corn, or oat protein Protein Fortified Milk 
Whey Protein or Whey Anything enriched or vitamin enriched Annatto 
Whey Protein Isolate or Concentrate Protein fortified "anything" Spice 
Pectin Enzyme modified proteins Gums (guar and vegetable) 
Protease Ultra-pasteurized dairy products Dough Conditioners 
Protease enzymes Fermented proteins Yeast Nutrients 
Lecithin Gluten and gluten flour Protein powders: whey, soy, oat, rice (as in protein bars shakes and body building drinks) 
Amino acids (as in Bragg's liquid amino acids and chelated to vitamins) Algae, phytoplankton, sea vegetable, wheat/ barley grass powders 


European numbers for glutamate containing additives: 

620 625 
621 627 
622 631 
623 635 
624 

http://www.msgmyth.com/

Paradox,

I had to double check the book "Battling the "MSG myth" and while I didn't find the answer directly as there is so much contradictory information on that subject, from my understanding it's the barley that's almost always added to the wheat is the problem. For instance, when you go to the store and look at all the breads you'll see barley as the ingredient. Most flours but not all are the same ... barley is added. So techinically, you can cook with or make bread out of flour that doesn't contain barley and you'll be fine regarding not getting an msg reaction. 

Also, I wouldn't doubt that there is small amounts of free glutamic acid that isn't bound in wheat. Just like meat juice or seaweed or mushrooms or tomatoes. But again, it's really the barley that's the problem. I could be mistaken but the reason why is the barley is breaking down the wheat creating free glutamic acid. Just like how fermenting something can create free glutamic acid. That's basically what barley is doing. 

With that said, keep in mind that when reading labels on processed foods, when it says gluten, most likely it contains free glutamic acid/MSG ... the food industry is able to make free glutamic acid out of almost anything, lol.






I found the source regarding your question about gluten. Here you go. 

1. Although some people may not agree, I do not believe that gluten should present an MSG problem. What is a problem is that many, if not most flours (not graham or whole wheat flour) include malted barley, sometimes referred to as barley malt, or malt. These ingredients introduce enzymes into the flour and when you use the flour to make bread or something else, the enzymes break down the protein, at least in part, resulting in some processed free glutamic acid (MSG).

If you look at bags of flour in stores you will see malted barley listed on the labels, but that does not mean that it is necessarily in the flour. Apparently, when the wheat is harvested following a very wet season or if the farmer's field is somewhat depleted of nutrients, the flour does not act properly in recipes. Therefore, the flour company adds the malted barley. Since they do not know when or if they will need to add malted barley, they leave it listed on the label.

Hogsdon Mills (on Internet) produces a white flour that is free of malted barley.

http://www.curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=920206#i

 That's awesome Jdp- thanks! I am starting to realize that there is really no way to avoid it unless I avoid all processed foods (including baked goods) altogether. It seems that there will always be critics of any particular type of diet- veggie vs. meat, raw vs. cooked, dairy or no dairy, fruit vs no fruit...etc etc. It becomes very difficult to actually figure out what to consume. I'm with you that we can't avoid msg completely, but I think it's enough to get rid of as much as is practical.





Hey Paradox,

What's interesting is that once you start eating normal food, food actually tastes a lot different. The blah foods before are more satisfying and the processed foods taste odd and a bit disgusting actually. 

Same with fast food restaurants ... high amounts of free glutamic acid as well as others. Restaurants do the same. 

Here's a quote

"... if you regularly eat a diet of processed foods, whole foods seem to lack flavor. You have become conditioned to think that these chemically altered foods are the norm, when in fact the opposite is true."

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/02/13/david-wolfe-interview.aspx