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What is this food additive that makes you 3x more likely to be overweight?

There are many chemicals and flavor enhancers in processed foods and those so-called “diet” foods that packaged as “diet” dinners, desserts, snacks, etc., and many of those are addictive. MSG is one good example. People who eat monosodium glutamate, or MSG, as a flavor enhancer in their food are more likely than others to be overweight or obese even though with the same amount of physical activity and caloric intake, according to a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health.

Researchers at UNC and in China studied more than 750 Chinese men and women, aged between 40 and 59, in three rural villages in north and south China. The majority of study participants prepared their meals at home without commercially processed foods. About 82 percent of the participants used MSG in their food. Those users were divided into three groups, based on the amount of MSG they used. The third group who used the most MSG was nearly three times more likely to be overweight than non-users.

Because MSG is used as a flavor enhancer in many processed foods, studying its potential effect on humans has been difficult. Study participants were chosen from rural Chinese villages because they used very little commercially processed food, but many regularly used MSG in food preparation.

The bottom line is that you should avoid MSG as much as possible since it can stimulate cravings and lead to weight gain, among other problems.  The best way to avoid MSG is simply to avoid all processed foods.  For some people, that may sound difficult, but it really becomes simple if the only foods that you buy at the grocery store are 1-ingredient foods – that means fresh whole unprocessed foods that are only 1-ingredient instead of processed into dozens of ingredients.

Among the most common processed ingredients are refined/enriched flour, colors, preservatives (which go by hundreds of different names), and chemical flavorings –which may legally be called “natural flavors” even if they include MSG. (As a side note: most varieties of processed or “textured” soy protein (TSP or TVP) use MSG for flavor and call it “natural flavors.”)

Many nutrition experts believe that the more refined a food is, the less satisfying it is to the body. Because the body is unable to extract what it needs from denatured, highly processed junk foods, it craves more nourishment. Cravings are usually a signal your body is not getting the nutrients it needs, however, sugars and starches stimulate appetite and increase cravings for sugar — as do most artificial sweeteners.

Even the best food companies, whose apparent goal is to promote health and wellness, are still in business to make a profit. Corporations selling diet foods and low-cal foods are hardly motivated to make a product that really helps people consume less and lose weight. If they did, their captive audience–people who are overweight–would disappear, taking their money with them.

Weight loss products are highly suspect for their harmful and addictive artificial ingredients, and for the elusive promise of “quick, easy” weight loss they promise but almost never fulfill. The only certain way to lose weight permanently is to focus on healthy nutrition such as organic fruits and vegetables, raw nuts and seeds, grass-fed meats, free-range poultry and raw dairy products, an active lifestyle, reducing stress, and creating balance and harmony in our lives.

If you liked today’s topic, this is just a sample of the dozens of nutrition topics that we talk about in our program —

The Fat Burning Kitchen: Your 24-Hour Diet Makeover to Turn Your Body into a Fat-Burning Machine!

Remember that this program also contains a special bonus section — The 23-Day Advanced Fat-Burning Strategies — the exact step by step blueprint of how I went from 10.2% bodyfat to 6.9% bodyfat in 23 days.  This section gives you all of the advanced techniques — everything from the exact foods I ate in what combinations and why, as well as the exact spices, teas, herbs, and other natural metabolism boosting nutrients I used, and the exact advanced workout techniques that burn off ab fat faster than usual.

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You can read about The 23-Day Advanced Fat-Burning Strategies that comes with The FatBurningKitchen program on this page:

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Enjoy!

Article provided by
Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist
& Cat Ebeling, RN, BSN
co-authors: The Fat Burning Kitchen