MSG by Any Other Name: Part II

People get excited about food.  And people get especially excited (even defensive and agitated) when we start talking about what's in their food.  At least that is what I experienced from my last post, MSG by Any Other Name.  Perhaps it is because they are unknowingly consuming hidden neurotoxins or excitotoxins in the form of monosodium glutamate (MSG) and MSG-related additives.  So, let me clear some things up by providing definitions and scientific evidence about what MSG is, exactly, and why it is so bad for us.

MSG by Any Other Name

I am writing this because I had a whopper of a headache after eating some seemingly innocent "all natural" onion ring snacks.  Man were they tasty!  Sure, I probably ate more than I should have, but they were soooo good.  Shortly thereafter, my migraine set in which prompted me to look at the ingredients on the bag of my delicious new friends.  I wondered what could have been in them that made me feel so awful.  I had suspected  monosodium glutamate (MSG) since I know I am sensitive to it, but MSG didn't pop out at me on the ingredient list.  What did catch my eye was modified food starch.  Guess what?  It's MSG.

Get Real! Reclaiming Authenticity in an Artificial World

Wow, that’s a hefty title.  And, this may be a somewhat ironic topic by virtue of the fact that you’re most likely “plugged in” to the Internet right now reading this.  More ironic, still, is that I was “plugged in” when I wrote it.  But beyond the technicalities and plays on words, there is a deeper meaning in the form of questions.  How do we live authentically, find meaningful work, and have meaningful relationships in an increasingly artificial world?  Have we become like the characters in the movies The Matrix, or Avatar?  Whereby our daily lives have become boringly dull and we do not find any joy or meaning unless we are somehow “plugged in” to an artificial (and admittedly fantastic) electronic world?  We text, we tweet, we IM, we email, we Facebook, we play video games and more often than not, avoid direct face-to-face human interaction.  Are we losing our ability to discern between reality and fantasy, between fact and fiction, between real and artificial?

About Face! Lookin' Good the Natural Way

Beauty is only skin deep.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  You are what you eat.  We've all heard these sayings before.  But you may not have heard this one:  You are what your skin eats.  What?!?!  Over the period of one year, over four pounds of cosmetics can be absorbed through the skin of someone who wears makeup every day.  Your skin is literally eating (or absorbing) your makeup and becoming part of you!   And, with that, one could almost argue that going makeup-free would be a sure-bet weight loss plan.  But that's not what this is about.

On My Soapbox -- Fight Club Re-Run with a Twist

Faceoff:  Soap vs. Laundry Detergent  

Are we that much dirtier than we were 50-60 years ago?  (Keep those thoughts clean, I'm talking laundry here!)   And, do we really require industrial-strength, petroleum-based detergents and fabric softeners to get the grime out of our clothes?  Given that we've entered into the 21st century and much of our work is hardly strenuous, I would argue that most of us stay pretty clean on a day-to-day basis.  And, that relatively plain old soap and water can get our clothes clean just fine.