Felice Jacka, a leading researcher of nutritional psychiatry, has found links between ultra-processed foods and the health of our brains. She explains that our gut microbiome affects various aspects of health, including metabolism, blood glucose, body weight, gene expression, serotonin levels, stress response, mitochondrial function, and immune system. Jacka's research has shown that a western junk food diet can impair cognitive functions and shrink the hippocampus, a brain region important for mental health, learning, and memory. The industrialized food system, which produces ultra-processed foods, is the leading cause of illness, early death, and biodiversity loss globally, costing around $20tn per year. Jacka suggests that reducing consumption of ultra-processed foods is crucial, but acknowledges that many people don't have the option due to their affordability and the lack of healthy choices available. She has also found a connection between ultra-processed foods, poor diet quality in mothers and children, and neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD. Jacka acknowledges that the term "ultra-processed food" may have some fuzzy borders and misclassifications, but warns against industry tactics to confuse people and muddy the waters, similar to what the tobacco industry did with smoking and lung cancer.
Wow, I'm so glad overly processed and under-nutritious foods have a cheerleader.
MSG is fantastic and can bring an already good dish to a new level, or you could add a whole lot of it into a bad dish and possibly elevate it to palatable.
It does make everything taste great and it's highly addictive, which is a big reason why people overeat today. Has anyone ever studied when MSG became prevalent and the obesity problem in America? Also, people may be allergic to the source product of MSG:
They are especially numerous in the hypothalamus, hippocampus and amygdala, where they control autonomic and metabolic activities (Zhu and Gouaux, 2017[22]). Results from both animal and human studies have demonstrated that administration of even the lowest dose of MSG has toxic effects.