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I'm trying to limit my intake of MSG, not because I'm particularly sensitive to it in the short-term, but for long-term health reasons. The more we learn about it the more it seems that consistent high intake of free glutamic acid can cause some serious neurological and other problems.
The problem is that protein powders typically contain a lot of free glutamic acid. As I understand it, anything with "hydrolyzed" or "isolate" describing it is out. Is "micellar casein" still okay? It must have some glutamic acid in it (Optimum Nutrition lists ~5g of "glutamine and precursors" per serving), but as I understand it micellar casein isn't individual hydrolyzed amino acids so it's not actually free glutamic acid?
Are there any other good protein powder sources I could find with low amounts of free MSG, or is that a bit like finding gluten-free wheat?
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This is the first time I've ever heard this (msg in whey).
But I think you are worrying overmuch. MSG isn't even supposed to be 'that' bad for you after all.
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glutamine is found throughout your body and is found in all protein. the isolate wheys are more refined leading to less lactose intolerance and more protein percentage but are pricier. the msg you are worried about is monosodium glutamate which is used as a food additive. if the protein does not include it in the ingredients list then there is limited amount of free msg, just what is found in common protein (miniscule), there is no protein company i know that adds msg for flavoring.
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On September 26 2011 06:08 stork4ever wrote:
glutamine is found throughout your body and is found in all protein. the isolate wheys are more refined leading to less lactose intolerance and more protein percentage but are pricier. the msg you are worried about is monosodium glutamate which is used as a food additive. if the protein does not include it in the ingredients list then there is limited amount of free msg, just what is found in common protein (miniscule), there is no protein company i know that adds msg for flavoring.
MSG is just the sodium salt of glutamic acid, which is also an amino acid. When dissolved in water the ions dissociate and you get free glutamic acid, which is what can cause problems. Thus, any hydrolyzed protein (like pretty much every whey protein powder I can find) will have a lot of free glutamate in it, which I'm trying to avoid. Your body obviously doesn't distinguish between commercially made MSG used as a flavor additive or the amino acid itself.
If you look at the amino acid profile for most proteins, you'll notice that the highest constituent is typically "glutamine and precursors." Glutamic acid is a glutamine precursor, and they list it this way because people associate glutamine with muscle building and glutamic acid/MSG with deleterious health effects. It seems pretty likely that this amount is probably mostly glutamic acid with a small amount of actual glutamine.
It's unclear whether they actually add MSG for flavoring or not, as MSG is considered "natural" by the FDA/USDA, so any food or protein powder that contains "natural flavoring," can (and frequently does) contain added MSG, but even if they aren't adding it there is a lot in there relative to the other AA's. In the protein powder case I'm just wondering if there are certain brands or types of protein with less glutamic acid than others, everything I've found has more glutamic acid than any other AA. 
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Also wanted to add that while MSG is generally considered safe, I'm trying to avoid it for excitotoxicity reasons. From Wikipedia:
"Because glutamate is absorbed very quickly in the gastrointestinal tract (unlike glutamic acid-containing proteins in foods), glutamate could spike blood plasma levels of glutamate. Glutamic acid is in a class of chemicals known as excitotoxins, high levels of which have been shown in animal studies to cause damage to areas of the brain unprotected by the blood-brain barrier and that a variety of chronic diseases can arise out of this neurotoxicity."
So it really would make a difference whether the protein is in peptide form or hydrolyzed amino acids. I can't really tell which "micellar casein" is.
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Generally speaking, I tend to try to advise people to get their protein from real foods.
Sure protein powder is convenient but we don't know long term effects of isolates et al yet. As you said there may be potential concerns. I'd have to research it more to see if there's any actual real evidence though or just hearsay.
All in all, I mean if you're not allergic to dairy I'd go with milk (obviously has whey, casein, etc.). Milk consistently performs up there with any post workout drink so I mean unless you really hate the taste or something you can just drink choco whole milk or something.
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On September 26 2011 06:28 Ingenol wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2011 06:08 stork4ever wrote:
glutamine is found throughout your body and is found in all protein. the isolate wheys are more refined leading to less lactose intolerance and more protein percentage but are pricier. the msg you are worried about is monosodium glutamate which is used as a food additive. if the protein does not include it in the ingredients list then there is limited amount of free msg, just what is found in common protein (miniscule), there is no protein company i know that adds msg for flavoring.
MSG is just the sodium salt of glutamic acid, which is also an amino acid. When dissolved in water the ions dissociate and you get free glutamic acid, which is what can cause problems. Thus, any hydrolyzed protein (like pretty much every whey protein powder I can find) will have a lot of free glutamate in it, which I'm trying to avoid. Your body obviously doesn't distinguish between commercially made MSG used as a flavor additive or the amino acid itself. If you look at the amino acid profile for most proteins, you'll notice that the highest constituent is typically "glutamine and precursors." Glutamic acid is a glutamine precursor, and they list it this way because people associate glutamine with muscle building and glutamic acid/MSG with deleterious health effects. It seems pretty likely that this amount is probably mostly glutamic acid with a small amount of actual glutamine. It's unclear whether they actually add MSG for flavoring or not, as MSG is considered "natural" by the FDA/USDA, so any food or protein powder that contains "natural flavoring," can (and frequently does) contain added MSG, but even if they aren't adding it there is a lot in there relative to the other AA's. In the protein powder case I'm just wondering if there are certain brands or types of protein with less glutamic acid than others, everything I've found has more glutamic acid than any other AA.
i guess you are trying to say that supplement providers could be using msg as that source of glutamine and not label it as such? you can always do the hard maths and check the sodium content per serving to the gluatmates; iirc, theres about a gram of glutamic in an egg, gold standard whey has about 4g of glutamic to 0.09g of sodium. sodium is 13% of msg weight by molecular forumla so i doubt they're using msg.
i think you only really need to worry about the toxicity if you're downing protein shakes and you're not really working your muscles.
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On September 26 2011 07:54 a176 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2011 06:28 Ingenol wrote:On September 26 2011 06:08 stork4ever wrote:
glutamine is found throughout your body and is found in all protein. the isolate wheys are more refined leading to less lactose intolerance and more protein percentage but are pricier. the msg you are worried about is monosodium glutamate which is used as a food additive. if the protein does not include it in the ingredients list then there is limited amount of free msg, just what is found in common protein (miniscule), there is no protein company i know that adds msg for flavoring.
MSG is just the sodium salt of glutamic acid, which is also an amino acid. When dissolved in water the ions dissociate and you get free glutamic acid, which is what can cause problems. Thus, any hydrolyzed protein (like pretty much every whey protein powder I can find) will have a lot of free glutamate in it, which I'm trying to avoid. Your body obviously doesn't distinguish between commercially made MSG used as a flavor additive or the amino acid itself. If you look at the amino acid profile for most proteins, you'll notice that the highest constituent is typically "glutamine and precursors." Glutamic acid is a glutamine precursor, and they list it this way because people associate glutamine with muscle building and glutamic acid/MSG with deleterious health effects. It seems pretty likely that this amount is probably mostly glutamic acid with a small amount of actual glutamine. It's unclear whether they actually add MSG for flavoring or not, as MSG is considered "natural" by the FDA/USDA, so any food or protein powder that contains "natural flavoring," can (and frequently does) contain added MSG, but even if they aren't adding it there is a lot in there relative to the other AA's. In the protein powder case I'm just wondering if there are certain brands or types of protein with less glutamic acid than others, everything I've found has more glutamic acid than any other AA. i guess you are trying to say that supplement providers could be using msg as that source of glutamine and not label it as such? you can always do the hard maths and check the sodium content per serving to the gluatmates; iirc, theres about a gram of glutamic in an egg, gold standard whey has about 4g of glutamic to 0.09g of sodium. sodium is 13% of msg weight by molecular forumla so i doubt they're using msg. i think you only really need to worry about the toxicity if you're downing protein shakes and you're not really working your muscles.
Sort of--I'm not really worried they're adding MSG at all. I'm worried there's a lot of free glutamate in the whey isolate, especially if it's hydrolyzed. It would be as a result of the processing so it wouldn't exist as MSG per se so I don't think you could calculate it.
I assume that most of what they list as "glutamine and precursors" is probably free glutamate, because if it was mostly glutamine, they'd list it as such and brag that their protein has 5g of glutamine per serving or whatever. The alternative is it could be glutamic acid in peptide form, which apparently doesn't have the potential risks of free glutamate. It's hard to find reliable data on which it is and it probably varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, if not batch to batch.
I agree with Eshlow that real sources are better but I'm doing this leptin reset and it calls for 50g of protein for breakfast, so protein powder is a lot more convenient and a lot less expensive than 8 eggs or beef every morning. I don't really do dairy, but I might look into it again. I'll probably just take this micellar casein protein and not worry about it too much!
Thanks for all the help!
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50g of protein is nothing even if you take that a couple hundred times even with MSG...
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On September 26 2011 08:13 Ingenol wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2011 07:54 a176 wrote:On September 26 2011 06:28 Ingenol wrote:On September 26 2011 06:08 stork4ever wrote:
glutamine is found throughout your body and is found in all protein. the isolate wheys are more refined leading to less lactose intolerance and more protein percentage but are pricier. the msg you are worried about is monosodium glutamate which is used as a food additive. if the protein does not include it in the ingredients list then there is limited amount of free msg, just what is found in common protein (miniscule), there is no protein company i know that adds msg for flavoring.
MSG is just the sodium salt of glutamic acid, which is also an amino acid. When dissolved in water the ions dissociate and you get free glutamic acid, which is what can cause problems. Thus, any hydrolyzed protein (like pretty much every whey protein powder I can find) will have a lot of free glutamate in it, which I'm trying to avoid. Your body obviously doesn't distinguish between commercially made MSG used as a flavor additive or the amino acid itself. If you look at the amino acid profile for most proteins, you'll notice that the highest constituent is typically "glutamine and precursors." Glutamic acid is a glutamine precursor, and they list it this way because people associate glutamine with muscle building and glutamic acid/MSG with deleterious health effects. It seems pretty likely that this amount is probably mostly glutamic acid with a small amount of actual glutamine. It's unclear whether they actually add MSG for flavoring or not, as MSG is considered "natural" by the FDA/USDA, so any food or protein powder that contains "natural flavoring," can (and frequently does) contain added MSG, but even if they aren't adding it there is a lot in there relative to the other AA's. In the protein powder case I'm just wondering if there are certain brands or types of protein with less glutamic acid than others, everything I've found has more glutamic acid than any other AA. i guess you are trying to say that supplement providers could be using msg as that source of glutamine and not label it as such? you can always do the hard maths and check the sodium content per serving to the gluatmates; iirc, theres about a gram of glutamic in an egg, gold standard whey has about 4g of glutamic to 0.09g of sodium. sodium is 13% of msg weight by molecular forumla so i doubt they're using msg. i think you only really need to worry about the toxicity if you're downing protein shakes and you're not really working your muscles. Sort of--I'm not really worried they're adding MSG at all. I'm worried there's a lot of free glutamate in the whey isolate, especially if it's hydrolyzed. It would be as a result of the processing so it wouldn't exist as MSG per se so I don't think you could calculate it. I assume that most of what they list as "glutamine and precursors" is probably free glutamate, because if it was mostly glutamine, they'd list it as such and brag that their protein has 5g of glutamine per serving or whatever. The alternative is it could be glutamic acid in peptide form, which apparently doesn't have the potential risks of free glutamate. It's hard to find reliable data on which it is and it probably varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, if not batch to batch. I agree with Eshlow that real sources are better but I'm doing this leptin reset and it calls for 50g of protein for breakfast, so protein powder is a lot more convenient and a lot less expensive than 8 eggs or beef every morning. I don't really do dairy, but I might look into it again. I'll probably just take this micellar casein protein and not worry about it too much! Thanks for all the help!
If you don't do dairy, there better be a damn good reason for it.
An example of a damn good reason is that you're lactose intolerant.
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On October 07 2011 06:26 stevarius wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2011 08:13 Ingenol wrote:On September 26 2011 07:54 a176 wrote:On September 26 2011 06:28 Ingenol wrote:On September 26 2011 06:08 stork4ever wrote:
glutamine is found throughout your body and is found in all protein. the isolate wheys are more refined leading to less lactose intolerance and more protein percentage but are pricier. the msg you are worried about is monosodium glutamate which is used as a food additive. if the protein does not include it in the ingredients list then there is limited amount of free msg, just what is found in common protein (miniscule), there is no protein company i know that adds msg for flavoring.
MSG is just the sodium salt of glutamic acid, which is also an amino acid. When dissolved in water the ions dissociate and you get free glutamic acid, which is what can cause problems. Thus, any hydrolyzed protein (like pretty much every whey protein powder I can find) will have a lot of free glutamate in it, which I'm trying to avoid. Your body obviously doesn't distinguish between commercially made MSG used as a flavor additive or the amino acid itself. If you look at the amino acid profile for most proteins, you'll notice that the highest constituent is typically "glutamine and precursors." Glutamic acid is a glutamine precursor, and they list it this way because people associate glutamine with muscle building and glutamic acid/MSG with deleterious health effects. It seems pretty likely that this amount is probably mostly glutamic acid with a small amount of actual glutamine. It's unclear whether they actually add MSG for flavoring or not, as MSG is considered "natural" by the FDA/USDA, so any food or protein powder that contains "natural flavoring," can (and frequently does) contain added MSG, but even if they aren't adding it there is a lot in there relative to the other AA's. In the protein powder case I'm just wondering if there are certain brands or types of protein with less glutamic acid than others, everything I've found has more glutamic acid than any other AA. i guess you are trying to say that supplement providers could be using msg as that source of glutamine and not label it as such? you can always do the hard maths and check the sodium content per serving to the gluatmates; iirc, theres about a gram of glutamic in an egg, gold standard whey has about 4g of glutamic to 0.09g of sodium. sodium is 13% of msg weight by molecular forumla so i doubt they're using msg. i think you only really need to worry about the toxicity if you're downing protein shakes and you're not really working your muscles. Sort of--I'm not really worried they're adding MSG at all. I'm worried there's a lot of free glutamate in the whey isolate, especially if it's hydrolyzed. It would be as a result of the processing so it wouldn't exist as MSG per se so I don't think you could calculate it. I assume that most of what they list as "glutamine and precursors" is probably free glutamate, because if it was mostly glutamine, they'd list it as such and brag that their protein has 5g of glutamine per serving or whatever. The alternative is it could be glutamic acid in peptide form, which apparently doesn't have the potential risks of free glutamate. It's hard to find reliable data on which it is and it probably varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, if not batch to batch. I agree with Eshlow that real sources are better but I'm doing this leptin reset and it calls for 50g of protein for breakfast, so protein powder is a lot more convenient and a lot less expensive than 8 eggs or beef every morning. I don't really do dairy, but I might look into it again. I'll probably just take this micellar casein protein and not worry about it too much! Thanks for all the help! If you don't do dairy, there better be a damn good reason for it. An example of a damn good reason is that you're lactose intolerant.
Mostly I have no source of raw milk and grass-fed dairy products are still really hard to find. I do enjoy some full-fat Greek yogurt from time to time though! I don't think one is missing anything from a nutritional standpoint by not eating mainstream dairy.
If you have access to raw milk and don't take advantage of it though, that might be to your detriment. I hear that stuff is insane! Makes me wish I still lived in PA.
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I have access to raw milk, but i also have access to gold top jersey milk from my local store (waitrose) which is better.
There is nothing actually wrong with the pasteurisation process, you just need to find grass fed cows kept in good conditions
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EPT
