Tags
Aspartame, auxigro and grapes, auxigro and msg, Bursitis, Chemicals in Food, Dr. Sheel Tangri, Msg, Msg in Wine, Treating Old Injuries
A Toast to Good Health! (Can you see the sun through the stem of this glass?!)
Anyone who has hopped from doctor to doctor in search of a diagnosis and cure will agree that one needs to find out what triggered the symptoms. The best treatment whacks at the root of the illness instead of throwing darts at possible reasons, masking the symptoms with temporary solutions and hoping to reclaim your wellness. If your body is retaining fluid, would you rather take a pill to flush your system or try to figure out what’s making you retain that fluid?
Paying attention to diet and the chemicals we put into our bodies might help pinpoint possible triggers. Sometimes those triggers are obvious.
Check That Hot Sauce Label for MSG
For over thirty years, I’ve dodged MSG (monosodium glutamate) which almost immediately makes my fingers and feet swell. Sometimes if I unknowingly ingest a double dose, my heart starts beating faster, I break out in a sweat and feel weak. If I consume an overload of MSG, my symptoms are similar to being drugged, and I cannot think well. Once several days passed before I emerged from the fog of an accidental MSG “overdose.”
Figuring out my sensitivity to aspartame took longer, although losing one’s vision and then getting it back will get anyone’s attention! Several of these MSG and Aspartame stories are here: G for GALLO, GARZA, GARROBO, GAFAS AND – GASP – GLUTAMOTO MONOSODICO.
Beware! MSG and Aspartame
This past week during the Ecuador Expat Journey tour, I told this red-wine story to a new friend:
“…About four years ago after experiencing MSG sensitivity two different times after drinking red wine, I conducted a random online search: “RED WINE, MSG.” …I was not expecting to find links to stories that linked red wine and MSG with a product called AuxiGro, but they were there staring me in the face! Yes, AuxiGro contains “Glutamic acid” and was used on many food crops in the USA and throughout the world! The product not only helped crops mature at the same time, but it also enhanced the sweetness of grapes! I was stunned…”
From 1999, an article titled “Auxein Corp. Receives California OK For Grape ‘Metabolic Primer’ That Boosts Sugar Content“ states: “In trials at six different California vineyards, two applications of AuxiGro, one at full bloom and one when ripening begins, increased the sugar content of the grapes by an average of 14 percent. AuxiGro treated grapes also reached harvestable sugar levels sooner than untreated grapes. “
Many other articles tell the history and even share field-test data!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxigro
AnnualReports/2006/AuxigroOnion
Colorful, Healthy and Delicious – But what’s the history of this produce?
When I returned home this week after the tour, I looked for current information about AuxiGro and found more information.
“Do you know where your seeds come from?”)-(a very interesting read at Dave’s Garden forum)
I Dig My Garden posted in 2009,”The sordid story of Auxigro, MSG and the EPA”
The Health Ranger reports: MSG Now Used to Spray Crops.
There was more at getwellhealth.com/auxigro-msg-sprayed-on-food-mcs-multiple-chemical-sensitivity-and-more/
I contacted http://www.truthinlabeling.org via their web email prompt and stated, “I would like to write about this (AuxiGro) on my blog, but I need current info! It would be lovely to know that AuxiGro no longer taints the food chain, and if so, that would make a lovely story as well!”
Adrienne Samuels answered my reply almost immediately:
“Some years ago, AuxiGro registration was not renewed by the EPA, because — I was led to believe — there was no application for renewal. That may have changed. At about the same time, AuxiGro began to be distributed widely in Europe and elsewhere, for use on many commodities including wine grapes. The company (or one of the companies) that have distribution rights is InterChem. Likely if you have reactions to AuxiGro treated wine, you won’t be able to drink much Spanish wine produced after 2004 or so or much French wine produced after 2008 or so. My dates are not exact.
It’s easy to call the EPA registration people, contact the specialist who handles AuxiGro, and ask questions. You could probably find the name and contact (maybe e-mail) of the right person to call on the Internet.” …
In a follow-up email, Adrienne pointed me to this TedTalk link. I hope that all of you will take the time to watch it.
In 2011, an inflamed shoulder brought my painting to a screeching and very painful stop! I refrained from painting for one month after being treated by conventional medicine and physical therapy to heal the bursitis in my painting shoulder.
Not wanting to re-injure my shoulder, I slowly weaned back to painting one month later when I was free from pain. Preparing for a museum exhibition, I was pleased to move forward with new work. I painted for only one hour, and the shoulder felt great!
On the second day, I painted for one more hour, and my shoulder began to sting. I was concerned about my painting future!
I visited Doctor Sheel Tangri in Samara Costa Rica and hoped that he could fix my injured shoulder; more importantly I wanted to know why this mystery pain had appeared out of ‘nowhere.’
He realigned a tendon (?) from an old injury on my shoulder, found some old scar tissue near my wrist, gave my body a quick adjustment, and said that all should be fine. He showed me how to knead the old scar tissue to keep it from causing problems later.
“When can I resume painting?” I asked.
He shrugged, “Whenever you’d like. You’re cured unless you re-injure yourself again.”
The Mola Series – Paintings ready for exhibition!
I remain amazed, and many of you have witnessed the vast amount of painting I have done in the past three years. My shoulder remains strong and well!
Listen to KA Sundance’s interview with Doc Tangri:
Doc Tangri is a brilliant healer, and if you’re having trouble finding wellness, consider contacting him. Dr. Sheel Tangri – Kinesiologist/testimonials – I am blessed to know him.
Applying magic to the fibers of the carpet!
(Thanks again, Doc!) Z
Zeebra Designs & Destinations 
Serenity fulfilled by your post!
wonderful! stay well and serene! z
Thank you talented woman!
Thank you, no more red wine for me! Cheers with good water!
Wow, amiga. if it helps restore your health, then it’s an easy step, isn’t it?
Thanks so much for your comment!
z
Great post…hoping you good health and untainted clean and organic food!
Thank you, and I am sure that your loved ones will bask in the beauty and obvious love in all of your culinary creations! z
I remember you telling me about losing your sight. That scared the heck out of me! Your research and information on this very important topic is so important. Thanks for spreading the word. Now that I have fast internet it’s absolutely thrilling to click on your videos and watch them without a hitch. Thanks, Lisa!
ha! it’s midnight, and my connection is just getting fast enough to see the entire video.. it’s been stopping about one third of the way through!
but of course you understand!
i hope that ron’s getting stronger with each day!
z
Beware of all chemical food, eating the real stuff is both healthier and absolutely better. I have never heard about auxigro, maybe not allowed in Norway, or Europe? Anyway: shocking.
i had never heard of it either, though i now live so removed from interaction with others in the farming industry.
i always picture your country as one that is attentive to healthy alternatives…. hopefully all of your crops are msg free!
Oh my goodness what will we find next in our food!
If it isn’t Monsanto. .. It’s some other chemical company trying to kill us. You’d think the politicians would want to keep their voters alive. .. Sad.
Thanks for sharing this vital information! It’s very much appreciated.
thanks for sharing all this info Lisa, stay well amoga
i had a double dose of msg yesterday at lunch, and my body reminded me of it via tingling and swollen feet. that always makes me think of norah jones’ lyrics, ‘my feet don’t look like they’re my own…’
i am very curious to hear more about your doc in portoviejo.. i could use an adjustment – i tripped at the bus station in quito and took an unexpected fall – didn’t get hurt at all but it was a sudden jolt to my system….
the next week i had a very strong vertigo moment which was really weird, and then i remembered the fall and wondered if the two might be connected.
so what’s birthday boy doing this week? 🙂
Thanks for the important information. And, of course, the photos.
thank YOU emilie.. you surely pay close attention to your diet?
Thanks for the information … although as a wine drinker I am dismayed! I love the carpet painting photo. What kind of paint are you using? Does it allow the fibre to retain its softness? Thanks!
hola barbara. thanks for your feedback!
hopefully most of the good red wines/wineries do not use auxigro or similar products. since i’m sensitive to msg, my body tells me almost instantly when i’ve had food or drink w/msg.. i never dreamed that there was any association between red wine and msg until that moment. with other foods, like chips, hot sauces, chinese fried rice- i have learned to avoid most or in restaurants to ask if they use ajinomoto..yes, the msg is usually lurking there, and most assume that msg is harmless..
the ‘magic carpet’ that i was painting was drawn and painted on concrete.. it truly fools people, even in person! this past week someone asked me if i had put down the tiles myself! i smiled and prompted them to touch the tiles!
We really have very little idea what we are ingesting, do we? Thanks, Lisa.
there is a bottled lemonade sold in ecuador that has few ingredients, and when i am in town, thirsty, and wanting something ‘more’ than water, i usually buy that brand of drink. (i sometimes forget there’s a guy that sells fresh coconut water a few blocks away!)
so the lemonade ingredient list reads, ‘agua, sugar, lemon juice..’ and i think it listed some kind of stabilizer. earlier this year i selected one of those drinks, had twisted the top and was drinking it as i waited to pay. (it’s crazy here sometimes, and waiting to pay is like a piglet trying to squeeze into a feeding station)
i scanned the ingredients to confirm it was what i remembered it to be, and there tacked into the list was ‘aspartame.’ i almost spit it across the room!
i had purchased one a month or so earlier in another part of the country, and that bottle was in a box of my art supplies.. when i went home, i checked..no aspartame, so it was a newly-added ingredient.
sigh.. we have to be aggressive and proactive!
My son discovered on his own that the aspartame in his soft drink was giving him headaches, so he stopped. It’s awful stuff.
I am looking forward to reading all the articles you so generously provided Lisa. I too believe in getting to the root of the problem instead of just putting a bandaid on with medication. I had no idea about the MSG in red wine but that explains why I feel better when I don’t drink it. I have always enjoyed a glass but a few months ago felt out of sorts whenever I drank it. I don’t think I will pick up a glass again. Thanks for the information. 🙂
most likely many of those wonderful red wines are msg free! i hope so… if using the msg additive on grapes is a common practice worldwide, we should all start writing the vineyards. i wonder how one would find out about that….
We are in an area that has several vineyards and I am going to see what I can find out. Thanks!
oh that would be fantastic! i hope that you find out enough to educate all of us via future post! z
Wow! Taking the time to inform us is surely appreciated. I have some ‘issues’ 😉 and will watch all the videos and check the sights this afternoon. Does your Dr. do house calls? Costa Rica? I think not! Poor poor pitiful me! Haha. That’s ok. I’ll check it all out anyway. Some info is better than none at all. Thank you, z.
i suspect if you found a group of like-minded people who were equally interested in having doc make a house call, that option might be available. round trip tickets from costa rica to usa international airports are fairly inexpensive, especially if you find a special. it might be well worth researching!
if you contact him, tell him i said hi!
Maybe I’m the one that needs to make a Costa Rica call.
🙂
if you do, you have to meet my friends hank and marie (where we did the mosaic work).. they are just down the coast from samara where doc works.
in fact, marie still works a bit w/travel/booking flights/hotels for people, and she her specialty is costa rica…
z
Traveling is not in the cards right now, but I’ll keep you’re friends in mind for certain if it ever happens. Thanks, amiga.
Z, great post. The amount of artificial and natural sweeteners that have been added to crops and food product has been a huge reason for the increasing level of diabetes in the US. I found it interesting that the bananas we sell in stores are too sweet for monkeys living in the wild. The purpose is to make us want more of the product, eating more each serving and then wanting to buy more. This is a contributor to the US being the most obese country in the world. On your shoulder injury, you determined the timetable to start painting again, which is the more natural way. Like, with sugar, we Americans are over medicated, which is another key reason we have the highest costing medical system (that and the sugar and obesity) in the world. Then, there is the industry of diet supplements, which is another ballgame.
Thanks for the educational examples. You made me think this morning. Take care, BTG
ha! i’m glad that i made you think!
it’s shocking how many additives are in foods, and when i scan the labels, i often place the items back on the shelves… it’s discouraging.
processed foods that once were msg or aspartame free sometimes have it later. yesterday i ordered the lunch special ‘to go’ and i was sorely disappointed when i tasted it later.. the amazing wedge of white perfectly-cooked fish was surely coated with a pre-mixed msg tainted seasoning.
i removed the skin and ate it anyway.. the soup looked a bit watery and did not have the classic yellow color of msg bouillion cubes, but later my feet started tinging and swelling, and i thought, ‘yep, you received a double dose…’
it’s very discouraging… i’m glad that i enjoy cooking, and it’s usually best just to eat at home!
great video, a new chiropractor, from the US, office in PV, does applied kinesiology. I was amazed how my arm just dropped no matter how hard I tried to keep it up. I made him do it six times, lol.
Great information, thanks for sharing it.
MSG and I are mortal enemies, have been since early childhood. I experience the severe swelling you noted, but also can expect an almost instantaneous migraine headache which will put me to bed in a dark room, and often last a day or more. As you note, it is not always easy to root out all the products using MSG.
I have also sworn off all red wines for many decades now. One glass and I get the same migraine symptoms as the MSG. Someone once told me it was the histamines in the red wines; I don’t know for sure but as much as I enjoy a glass of wine, reds will never more cross my lips.
I totally agree about not treating the symptoms, but finding the source and addressing that. I recovered from rotator cuff damage, without the recommended, almost de rigeur surgery.
Great post, thanks for sharing.
i tried answering comments earlier, but the replies didn’t reach their destination!
a friend of mine also got instant headaches from beer and wine, though he found that certain brands of wine did not give him headaches.
hopefully not too many wineries use auxigro, though i am happy to have stumbled upon that connection, as it now makes me much more attentive to options.
i certainly don’t want the world to stp drinking red wine, but if those wineries are using msg, i hope that they find something else!
Z, I found this blog interesting from a medical standpoint. After > 40 years in the profession I learn something new everyday. The problem is sifting through the enormous amount of data on health that’s out there thanks to the internet. There is a lot of anecdotal information but from a purely scientific standpoint it needs to pass the test of “evidence based” to be valid.
hola doc! when you are in costa rica, you should meet doc tangri!
as for the red wine and msg – i hope that not many use the product to enhance and sweeten the grapes… i don’t want this post to make people to stop drinking red wine but i do want those who spray those crops to be conscientious about the consumer!
It is scary to think of all the random ingredients in foods today. I always check the labels but even that can be difficult with all the scientific terms. By the way, I love the shot of the sun peering through the wine glass. Spectacular! I do love my red wine though. 🙂
when i first moved to ecuador, msg (ajinomoto) was not often used in restaurant food.. i was delighted to find a country where i could eat in a restaurant and not have the msg reactions… slowly it crept into the food sources, and now there’s a squeeze-bag seasoning that many use daily on the meats and fish.. yikes… the difficult part for me is trying to explain that it’s a dangerous neurotoxin, and they should ponder what it might be doing to their health.
of course it’s in chips, mayonnaise, mustard, = it’s very hard to dodge it, and cooking at home is the best solution!
It always bothers me how much junk and garbage is put into our overly processed American foods. That is one thing I love about traveling to other parts of the world where more stuff is made from scratch. MSG is disgusting! That is too bad you’re finding it there.
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Thank you for this article, and for the TED video! I have become a bit lax in my vigilance where my diet is concerned. This is a good wake up call, Lisa!
Thanks so much for this incredible information. I will pass it on an do my research so my hands don’t instantly swell….
All very interesting — and so good that you’ve been able to track down some of the causative factors. I had to stop drinking red wine years ago. I was told that the natural tannins in red wine can cause headaches — sometimes even after years of drinking it. I hate it, because there’s nothing I like more than a good Cabernet!
You really are on target when you say cooking at home is the best defense. I rarely use processed foods any more. If I want sometning like pizza, I will purchase that, but from an independent pizza restaurant rather than a chain. It’s healthier, and even more important — it tastes better!
I love that photo of the sun in the wineglass stem. Your creativity knows no bounds!
And now I understand w/red wine – interesting discovery and glad that I had a chance to read your post Lisa. Happy to read that your shoulder and tendon have recovered to the point that you didn’t loose your ability to paint the most beautiful art that we’ve had the pleasure to see these past couple of years. Your work will show well at the museum, what a beautiful exhibit the viewers will get to see.
i had lunch in town and am now paying for consuming something tha thad msg.. i don’t feel well at all so am going to cut my internet session and go drink lots of water and go home.
msg should be outlawed…
z
This is terrible Z! I hope you are well, sorry it took so long to reply. Have a wonderful week!
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