MSG (Monosodium Glutamate)

Tomatoes are evil. That's actually the name of a website that gave me a chuckle when I discovered it years ago. If I eat too many tomatoes or too often I experience excruciating pain from the very core of my bones. Because so many autoimmune patients are sensitive to nightshades, I always wondered if my reactions were because it was a nightshade. Hmmm...but I don't react to peppers or potatoes so it didn't quite ring true.

A friend of mine recently told me she has trouble with MSG. I remember thinking, Doesn't everyone? Since the 1970s the health industry has been warning consumers of its toxicity. Monosodium glutamate was created by a Japanese chemist to be used as a flavor enhancer. It is one of those pervasive additives that is found in nearly every processed food, but most often used in Chinese restaurant foods. Years ago one could buy a shake container of MCS called "Accent" to use like salt or pepper on your meats. Do they still sell Accent?

The reactions people get from eating MSG-laced food range from headaches, asthma, facial burning, nausea, heart palpitations, chest pain, drowsiness, and weakness. My friend's personal reactions include restless leg syndrome (or what I like to call a sleepless night in hell), jello brain, dizziness, depression, exhaustion, crying episodes, headaches, and electrical shocks. These are symptoms common to chemical poisoning.

This is called Chinese Restaurant Syndrome due to the association of symptoms after eating Chinese food. Conventional medicine information found online makes it sound psychosomatic and a few articles blame these negative reactions on anti-Asian racism! Wow. The incompetence and ignorance of the medical industry never cease to shock me. The FDA has deemed MSG as GRAS or generally recognized as safe. Of course. I wonder which chemical company is paying the FDA to sweep it all under the rug. Probably whoever produced Accent.

Then there are the ingredients with hidden MSG such as gelatin, whey protein, seasonings, corn syrup, yeast foods, soy proteins, natural flavors, vinegar, rice syrup, enzymes, citric acid, carrageenan, broth, and guar gum to name just a few. The full list may be found HERE.

What I did not know is glutamic acid is naturally found in whole, non-processed foods and could produce the same symptoms if those foods are eaten in quantity or if the person is sensitive. The foods highest in natural glutamate are: cheese, soy sauce, walnuts, TOMATOES, meats, milk and milk products, peas, broccoli, mushrooms, and bone broth.

'

Wow. I have been repulsed by cheese, soy, and walnuts all my life so I have rarely eaten these things. Does my body know something I don't? It usually does. I ate tomatoes not because I loved them, but because they were supposed to be good for a body. When I finally connected the pain to tomatoes, I stopped immediately.

And then there is bone broth...well, if you've read my posts on the war with bone broth when I was doing everything possible to suck it up and drink it down, you already know how I feel about it. It seems the longer one simmers the bone broth, the more glutamate it produces. Who would have known?

For anyone who accidentally overdoses on MSG, my friend's quick remedy is to mix 1/2 to one teaspoon of cream of tartar in 8 ounces of water and drink it down. It's supposed to work, but I read you can clean metals with cream of tartar so I would be hesitant.

My suggestion for anyone with MCS...stay far away from MSG. If you are eating clean, wholesome, non-processed foods or following the Paleo diet, this will be easy. If you have food or chemical sensitivities, avoid naturally high-glutamate foods in quantity and be aware of your reactions.


**Yeah, someone gave me some tomato plants for my garden. I sure love the smell. I've been giving the beautiful fruits away to neighbors.

The Master Gardener

September is here and summer is over. The gardens are starting to die back except for the sunflowers, asters and tomatoes which are currently blooming and ripening.

 

 

Lemon Queen Sunflowers are eight feet tall!

 

I have four different colors of asters.
The bees LOVE them.

 

 

First step of fall clean-up is to open all the gates, remove the chicken wire and let Peter, The Master Gardener, do his thing.

Yesterday he re-discovered the sun garden. Although the daisies, poppies and most of the nasturtiums have died, he joyously hopped around re-familiarizing himself with the layout and sampling the delicious variety. It was so fun watching him creating trails in and out by snipping off the vines and stems that were in his way. As a precaution, I placed wire mesh around the sunflowers and tomatoes. Not that he would eat the tomatoes, but if the vines block his planned path, he will cut them with his teeth and haul them aside. What a happy boy he was! His first bit of business (pun intended), he ate the rogue clover. Good boy! Then he started on the dandelions! Awesome! 

 

 

I left him last night lounging near the center of the garden and found him the next morning still in the garden! I don't think he went to bed!

Midnight Snacking

After forty straight days and nights of rain, the garden is drenched. Floating. So many of my tomatoes needed just one more month of sun and they would have been perfect. Instead, they are mushy, splitting and rotting right on the vine.

At three o'clock this morning, I awoke with a start. Rats. For some odd reason, I panicked at the thought of rats out in the garden in the middle of the night snacking on my soggy tomatoes. I even got a flashlight and peered out the window. Didn't see anything but rain. Rats scare me. Allowing them to snack is an invitation to move into my house. Come on in where it's nice and warm. I'll have more treats OR you can eat my walls. Shiver. Rats can burn down a house by gnawing on the electrical wiring. Shiver.

I know with fruit trees it's important to keep the windfalls off the ground to keep the rats away, but for some reason I spaced on the tomatoes. I kept thinking I could wait until the weather got colder and less wet to do fall garden clean up. I was up at 3:30am ready to work as soon as I could see into the yard.

One full wheelbarrow

 

Thousands of wasted tomatoes. Literally, thousands. I cleaned out both tomato beds and hauled four wheelbarrows full of vines and fruit.

Looks like more dirt than tomato, but everything was so muddy.

 

Plus two more buckets of rotten or still-green tomatoes. Some I had to search in the herbs and bushes as they had fallen and rolled. Others I had to dig in the very wet dirt to find them.

When the tomato plants were cleaned out and gone, I started on the squash vines. My last little zucchini had nibble marks. I don't know if rats like zucchini. Then the rain got so heavy I had to quit.

This is the part where I wondered why I grew tomatoes...so much work. I think in my area it would be better to grow things in a green house.

Happy Flowers!

Gardening season is winding down. The weather is still nice, partly sunny and crisp, holding on to the very last days of summertime. Plants are starting to die back. The Roma tomatoes are finally ripening:

As well as the pumpkins and squash, in time for Halloween:

The rainy season is supposed to begin this Friday and the clouds are starting to move in. Once it starts it'll continue until next July! Still, my gigantic sunflowers brighten up the yard even without sun. Each one seems to have a personality of its own. I want to name them! With sunflowers all around, I don't think I'll miss the sun so much. I want to share their happy faces, especially for Evelyn who is fighting viruses.

Samantha (front) and Selena

Antoinette

Nancy

Evelyn

Virginia

 

Beatrice Maude, Bonnie Matilda, Brunhilda May
Bertha Mildred and Bonita Myrtle

 

 

Lisa and Janine

 

Persephone

 

Rebecca (front) and Rachel

 

Cassandra

 

 

What is this plant? It's an herb. I know it is because I stole the cutting from the herb garden of the local naturopathic school. Unfortunately, I didn't write the name down. Anyone know? I might have paid more attention had I known how beautiful it would look when it blooms!

Wanted: Machete

I sold my machete in the garage sale I had a couple years ago. I often wish I hadn't. Now that the pests are under control and my pet snake is eating the slugs, my garden is going crazy which makes me wonder why I ever thought I had enough room for a garden let alone a garden grown with rabbit manure! BUT I'm NOT complaining. I'm in awe!

The pumpkin vines are up to ten feet long, crawling across the herbs under, over and through the fencing.

 

 

This vine above has meandered all over the place and now has sprouted from the fencing to hang across the path to greet the tomato branches reaching toward it. Very friendly plants!

 

 

 

These vines are heading across the path and starting to crawl up the camellia bush on the right! It makes it a little difficult to get to the front yard.

 

My first baby pumpkin. It's already the size of a soccer ball.

 

The zucchini-that-were-supposed-to-be-cucumbers are getting really big.

 

I'm not sure if I planted the wrong seeds (probably) or if there were wrong seeds in the package (doubtfully, although this I prefer to believe!). This is the first one I've picked:

 

Sunflowers are actually big enough so the slugs don't gnaw them to stumps and the four foot tall lettuce plants next to them are bolting and seeding. I want to save the seeds for next year so this is fine.

 

Sunflowers in the front are not so tall and are being crowded by the pumpkins and the humongous borage plants. Borage is bee drugs. You can't see them in this picture, but there are no less than ten bees buzzing around the blue borage flowers. I love the sound of the gentle buzz-hum when touring the garden. It's very relaxing, like everything is right with the world.

 

 

 

The tomatoes are loaded with fruit, but still green. Their branches are spanning the walkways and creating a jungle. Where's my machete?

 

 

 

 

I sold my weedwacker in last week's garage sale so I'm ripping out what is left of the grass paths. Not much left to do! Hooray! Of course, my new dirt paths are very tempting to the neighborhood cats so I need to get some beauty bark mulch on it fast!

 

I'm using the grass clumps to make Peter a "Dr. Seuss" landscape with hills and valleys in the cool of shade so he can lay between the grassy mounds and nibble grass in ultimate rabbit relaxation.

 

I am putting it in an area that gets shade all day long and nothing else grows there. 

I was going to cover this area with beauty bark, but I think Peter likes the grass clumps better than beauty bark.



Bunnicula the Devil Bunny
(It's so dark in that corner of the yard my flash went off making Peter's eyes glow.)

 

And finally, after digging nearly my whole front yard up, I finally found a garden treasure to add to my collection:

Hooray!

Casualties of War

Of course, my perception of gardening changes throughout the season. One day it could be a seen as a miracle, and the next a complete failure. There are days when I wonder why I went through all the trouble, time, and money. When the bugs, diseases, bacteria, and pests seem to be winning and I forget to notice the beauty. I feel like an organic gardening fraud and question what made me think I knew what I was doing. Especially if I focus too much on what is going wrong instead of what is going right:

Something ate more broccoli than I did!

Few of the sunflowers have survived. I've planted them three times (!) and you can see in this photo something has started eating again. See evidence of my arsenal of gardening weaponry? The red stuff is cayenne pepper, the shiny stuff is Epsom salts, and the white pellets are Sluggo. What you can't see is the Neem oil, BT and the onion-garlic sprays. But nothing seems to keep the plants from being eaten. I also used baking soda spray helped keep the broccoli from dying from a fungus and the milk spray strengthened the tomatoes so they could fight off diseases caused by all the dampness.

Cucumbers are surviving, but their lower leaves are all eaten away. Still, they are hanging on and growing.

This bean plant looks good, but check out the one in front of it. Eaten down to the stalk.

Even with all the Sluggo surrounding the lettuce, every time I check I find little slugs on it. The lettuce has grown big and full, but evidence that bugs have been crawling on it doesn't make me want to have a salad. Blah! I feed it to Peter, but even Peter won't eat it. Slug slime doesn't appeal to him either.

I grow lots of basil every year and usually it's very successful. See them in the planter? No? They all died. This year was the first year I used full-spectrum fluorescent lighting on the indoor start. Coincidence? I think not! I'm on the third planting of basil, now directly into the pot outside. Third time is a charm...maybe?

The Kabocha squash is doing fine, although something is nibbling the outer leaves. This is the only plant that survived out of twelve other indoor-started squash plants. I'm on the third and last planting of the others. Some are growing. I have about four zucchini, two acorn, and five pumpkin plants. No signs of delicata or butternut. Darn. My favorites.

And then there is human stupidity. This is my favorite plant this year. The reason it's my favorite is because I've rarely seen it in full bloom because Peter eats it down to nothing every year. So I moved it and protected it. Wouldn't you know I decided to weed wack the grass nearby. I had just changed out the plastic cutters and misjudged how long I left them.  Half the plant was wacked away before I knew it. You can see it all chopped down on the right side of the plant. I'm sure my neighbor wondered why I was screaming! Damn!

The weather just changed so we'll finally get some summer sun instead of constant rain. This might helps, especially to discourage the slugs.  I hope because nothing else is working!

I keep trying to remind myself this is part of the fun, but most of the time it feels more like frustration. I guess if I didn't want the challenge I could do what everyone else does and use chemicals. NO WAY! To me that's not real gardening. 

I try to focus on the beauty and let the cards fall where they may.

NEW GARDENING ASSISTANT!! Peter's in exile and besides, he eats more than he works. I've been wondering why my cucumbers are growing big and their leaves aren't being eaten away as much. There is a snake living in the broccoli garden!!! She's not very big, but I'm sure with a steady diet of slugs and other yummies, she'll get big and fat fast.

Inspecting the cucumbers.

Guarding the pumpkins.

The last resident snake was this cute little baby garter snake. I named her Lillian. Before mowing the grass I'd walk around to make sure she was safe. This went on for at least a month. Then one day she got in the way and I didn't see her until it was too late. I cried for an hour.