I am taking this directly from Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions book. (http://www.amazon.com/Nourishing-Traditions-Challenges-Politically-Dictocrats/dp/0967089735/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326124769&sr=8-1).
Guess which product these ingredients belong to:
Salt, Hydrolyzed vegetable protein, corn syrup solids, sugar, beef fat, monosodium glutamate (flavor enhancer), dextrose (corn sugar), onion powder, water, garlic powder, caramel color, natural flavorings, disodium guanylate & disodium inositate (flavor enhancers), partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (soybean oil and/or palm oil and/or cottonseed oil), artificial color.
Before I tell you what this is, let's go through the ingredients a little closer. I'm assuming we all know about salt, and that it's bad for us. This is listed as the FIRST ingredient! This means that the majority of this product is salt.
Next is Hydrolyzed vegetable protein....what that supposed to mean? I found a link to a book that goes into what this can mean. It was written by this doctor. I suggest reading over some of the articles (http://www.russellblaylockmd.com). Many companies use the term hydrolyzed vegetable protein to disguise the addition of MSG. (which is a known neurotoxin). Classically, hydrolyzed just means that it was broken down. Here is an excerpt from the book:
"Earlier I mentioned a substance called hydrolyzed vegetable protein, also referred to as vegetable protein or plant protein. This powerful excitotoxin mixture is often portrayed as a perfectly safe and 'natural' substance. [...] Actually, this mixture is made from 'junk' vegetables that are unfit for sale. They are especially selected so as to have naturally high contents of glutamate. The extraction process of hydrolysis involves boiling these vegetables in a vat of acid. This is followed by a process of neutralization with caustic soda. The resulting product is a brown sludge that collects on the top. This is scraped off and allowed to dry. The end product is a brown powder that is high in three known excitotoxins -- glutamate, aspartate, and cystoic acid. It is then added by the food industry to everything from canned tuna to baby food."
Now maybe this is a little bit of a conspiracy theory-ish, but if companies were just using vegetables, why wouldn't they just list those on the label?
Next are Corn syrup solids. This is basically dehydrated corn syrup, so processed sugar.
Then there is Sugar. Okay, more sugar. Sugar really messes with your system, probably even more than you know. It prevents you from recognizing when our you are full by messing with your hormones. It causes tumor cells to activate. It's HIGHLY addictive.
Beef Fat is next. Yum!
Those were the first 5 ingredients. Salt, sugar, and fat. This combination of foods is significant because we are biologically programmed to eat as much of it as possible. Because it is actually very rare in nature. Food companies know this, so they use this trio because they know that you literally can't stop eating it. You can't even tell when you are full! Your pleasure and reward centers are activated in your brain, and you crave it. Nice, huh?
When we go through the rest of the ingredients, we see MSG (more neurotoxic salt), dextrose (sugar), and Oh My Goodness! A real (sort of) ingredient! Onion and garlic powder. And water. Next is caramel color. (Food colorings are KNOWN to cause behavior problems in children! Which means that it is changing their brain chemistry, right? (I have NO idea why my font keeps changing, by the way). Followed by so called Natural Flavorings, which yes can also be MSG, or any other addictive substance that at one point may have come from a natural source. (Watch this video from 60 minutes: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7389748n). They do also try to make the product taste good, it's just not with whole foods. Then flavor enhancers...why would we need to enhance these flavors anyway? Oh yeah, it's another way to add MSG!
Next we go into the partially hydrogenated oils. Trans fats. These are horrible for you! Somehow, when you look at the nutrition labels on products, they can get away with saying that there is 0 trans fat in something, even when there is! It's listed right there in the ingredients.
And the last ingredient, artificial color. Great. And that's it, folks! This product is just salt, sugar, and fat. With a splash of artificial color, and oh yeah some onion powder and garlic powder.
So what is it? Wyler's Bouillion cubes. I will say that this book was published some time ago, so I don't know that this is exactly right, but I do know that it seems to be on par with other ingredient lists I have read for similar products.
It truly is sobering and scary to come face to face with what we are eating and what it is doing to us. I try to keep in mind that these companies did not set out to poison us! But that is kind of what is happening. And it's totally and completely legal. When the FDA tests ingredients, they do so mostly on their own and not as a combination. And certainly not in the levels that people eating the "typical American Diet" are ingesting. So people, READ THE LABELS ON YOUR FOOD! Cook whole foods from scratch whenever possible. It will really and truly make a difference in your life and in your children's lives. But don't be mistaken, you will have withdrawals if you try to cut this stuff out all at once! These foods affect the same parts of our brain as heroine!
If you are trying to cut down on this stuff, know that it is definitely possible. It's hard, and it involves a huge commitment and a lifestyle change, but you will feel SO MUCH BETTER if you can do it. Even just a little.
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