Eden Organics Products contain MSG
Eden Organics Black Beans contain MSG in the form of Kombu "sea tangle"
Eden organics would have you believe that you are eating something organic, healthy and wholesome. But if you know anything at all about MSG (free glutamate) you’d know that simply is not true just by reading their label.
Eden Organics Black Beans
Ingredients
Organic Black Turtle Beans, Water, Kombu Seawood.
“EDEN Organic Black Beans are expertly prepared at our certified organic, circle k kosher cannery in east central Indiana. Beans are washed, soaked overnight and thoroughly cooked with water and a bit of kombu sea vegetable. You don’t taste the kombu, but its natural glutamic acid softens and enhances the flavor of beans. All water that contacts EDEN beans, for washing, soaking, and cooking, is purified water.”
It appears that Eden Organics entire line of canned beans contain MSG in the form of Kombu seaweed. If you buy canned beans the only thing you should see on the ingredient label is: “Beans, water and salt (optional). If there is anything else listed, you don’t need it. If you’re making soup or your own homemade chili with it you can add your own spices so you know without a doubt the content of the food you’re eating.
Remember organic MSG/free glutamic acid is still MSG/free glutamic acid, just as organic rat poison is still rat Poison. It doesn’t matter what you call it, it is what it is.
EdenSoy Organic Soymilk contains MSG in the form of Kombu Seaweed
EdenSoy Original Organics Soymilk
Ingredients:
Purified Water, Organic Soybeans, Naturally Malted Organic Wheat and Barley Extract, Calcium Carbonate, Kombu Seaweed , Sea Salt
Not only does this contain MSG in the form of Kombu Seaweed (sea tangle), but soy is naturally high in glutamate. During processing of soy beans the glutamic acid is released from it’s protein creating free glutamic acid (MSG). Russell Blaylock M.D. states this in his book Excitotoxins. Kombu has been used for centuries in asian cooking to add flavor to their cooking, however, just because it has been used for a long time throughout history doesn’t make it healthy. If this were true we could continue painting our houses with lead-based paint and eat the nutritious paint chips that flake off. Of course, we’ve learned over the years that lead-based paint is not a very good choice for the general publics health. We live and we learn.
I’ve been told that cyanide has a wonderful nutty flavor, that’s natural and could be considered organic, however, just because it tastes good doesn’t mean we should eat.
Eden Organics Wasabi Chips contain MSG (free glutamate)
Wasabi Chips, Hot N Spicy
Ingredients:
Potato Starch, Organic Tamari Soy Sauce (Water, Soybeans, Sea Salt, Grain Alcohol, Koji), Rice Bran Oil, Carrot, Cabbage, Spinach, Bell Pepper, Wasabi (Japanese Horseradish), Parsley, Lettuce, Sea Salt, Potato Syrup (Potato Starch, Barley Malt)
Yes, soy sauce contains MSG, in fact it’s very high in free glutamate. It doesn’t matter if it’s listed at monosodium glutamate, soy sauce, hydrolyzed vegetable protein or yeast extract, they all contain MSG (free glutamate). Period.
Always read the labels to know what you’re buying before you put in in your cart, or in your mouth.
I like a lot of the information on this site.
I do take exception to some of the information though.
To say “msg in the form of kombu seaweed” is misrepresenting the science. Many unprocessed foods contain glutamate naturally. It is an amino acid. It is when it is ‘freed up’ and then added to foods that the serious health risk come in. MSG is the manufactured, processed, industrialized production of glutamate. Kombu is a plant. The body knows how to deal with the L-glutamate in the plant, kombu. It does not react well to the D-glutamate that is in all the different forms you’ve discussed on your site.
Kombu is not a hidden name for MSG. It does have glutamate, but not in a form that the body does not know how to metabolize, and flush out excess amounts.
Virtually everything I write about on my site is from a credible source. I’m not sure if you actually read the entire post. I gave a quote from the most knowledgeable expert on the subject. Russell Blaylock M.D. a board certified neurosurgeon for over 25 years writes in his book Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills,
“Kombu has been used for centuries in asian cooking to add flavor to their cooking, however, just because it has been used for a long time throughout history doesn’t make it healthy. If this were true we could continue painting our houses with lead-based paint and eat the nutritious paint chips that flake off. Of course, we’ve learned over the years that lead-based paint is not a very good choice for the general publics health.”
Also on page 220 of Excitotoxins he writes “Kombu, miso, and soy sauce all contain MSG.” Also on page 33 he starts the chapter by saying the discovery of “glutamate” as we know it was found in Kombu or sea tangle.
And finally, in the preface of his book:
“For thousands of years Japanese cooks have added a special ingredient to their recipes to magnify the desired taste of foods. This ingredient was made from an ingredient known as “sea tangle” or kombu. Yet it was only in this century that the active chemical in this “taste enhancing” ingredient was isolated. Most of you will immediately recognize the chemical which has this almost magical property – it’s called monosodium glutamate or MSG.”
I can understand the thought process behind thinking that MSG (bad glutamate) can only come from “processed” foods, but it actually originated from a seaweed, the one that started it all. So yes, Kombu does contain MSG. You do understand that MSG in it’s most technical sense is glutamate with a salt added right? So when the doctor says that Kombu is MSG, he’s correct, minus the salt which is not the bad guy in this situation. Its’ the glutamate. I would recommend you read some of Dr. Blaylock’s books. They are all on Amazon and you can even search the book for key terms, like Kombu! Good luck.
-Mike
Mike: I think you missed what frimplesin is saying. Stereoisomers generally make the difference between “natural” and “synthetic,” and it is generally the case that only one is found in nature, but both are in a synthetic products. frimplesin is implying that it is likely the natural form of glutamates aren’t harmful, whereas the artificial forms are. And this seems perfectly reasonable when one looks at the example of vitamin E. The natural forms are good for you (there are 8 different vitamin E’s), whereas the synthetic forms are so harmful they can shorten your life (all the studies resulting in dire warning about vitamin E supplementation were performed using the synthetic version). Same goes for beta carotene.
Beyond that, it would be virtually impossible to avoid all naturally occurring glutamates, as they occur in so many foods. A glutamate-free diet would be a nutritionally deficient diet, because too many foods would be prohibited.
Hi Hawkeye,
Sorry, it makes no difference if it’s “Natural” or “Synthetic” glutamate, it reacts the same. This is the same as saying Organic Arsenic is okay but Synthetic Arsenic is bad, it’s still going to damage your organs. I’ve never said that we should avoid all glutamates, this would be impossible and very unhealthy. The body needs glutamates to function correctly, However! An excess of glutamate such as MSG liberally added to our food supply in most grocery store items on the shelf is not healthy! Glutamates and amino acids are naturally bound by a peptide link, and the body can break these down slowly and naturally, when the link is broken as in MSG free form glutamate it is like a bum rush of glutamate that surges through the system, passing the blood-brain barrier and attacking all of the glutamate receptors throughout the body. Nobody has ever said we need to eat a glutamate-free diet. Please read through the site more to understand what we are saying rather than setting up a strawman argument against me that I’ve never said.
-Mike
Mike: I didn’t set up a straw man argument against you; merely expressed an opinion that you don’t seem to appreciate frimplesin’s argument about stereoisomers.
The arsenic analogy is spurious. It’s not a question of organic vs inorganic, but rather naturally occurring food components vs synthetically produced additives. [For what it’s worth, inorganic arsenic *is* significantly more toxic than organic arsenic compounds (some of which are even considered non-toxic), but that’s a non sequitur to the discussion of stereoisomers.]
Natural glutamates are all the L form, such as L-glutamic acid. And yes, these react the same in the body, whether from a synthetic or natural source. This is the form which the body needs – and will manufacture as needed – if we don’t get sufficient quantities from the food we eat.
Synthetic glutamates, on the other hand, also contain the D form, such as D-glutamic acid, as well as other by-products of production, which the natural sources don’t. It is the D form, and many of the other by-products, which are toxic. Therein lies the difference between natural and synthetic glutamates, and why the synthetic is bad, whereas the natural isn’t.
Of course, as with any natural compound, it’s possible to get too much of a good thing. That’s a different argument, though. Even natural vitamins can be toxic in too large a dose. But that is rarely possible eating only foods in the raw state. It’s when we start creating extracts and use them as food additives that we generally run into problems. So a hypothetical shaker full of pure L-glutamic acid, while perhaps not as toxic as a shaker full of MSG, has the potential to be bad (due to its unnatural concentration). But adding a little seaweed to a can of beans isn’t likely to produce detrimental effects.