Just Say “No” to MSG!

Lately, I’ve been on sort of “green” kick and it has spread to what I eat. While I’ve never been one to munch on unhealthy things ; chips or drink tons of soda, I’ve been considering how I can make my diet healthier overall. The other day one of my friends told me I should cut out salt of my diet, and I easily responded I didn’t salt my food.

Then she asked if I used Sazon or Adobo in my food, to which I replied “of course, I do,” I mean what good Puerto Rican cook doesn’t, right? That’s when her tsktsking began – I went home and checked the labels and found that my adobo was obscenely high in sodium and that my sazon was not only high in salt but also contained a lot of MSG.

I did make an attempt to not use those products and my dinner turned out badly, the food was bland and missing it usual sabrosura.

I, then bought the new reduced sodium Adobo, and the “natural” Sazon to my dismay however, both products are very high in MSG. Now while some argue that MSG is not harmful, i.e., Wikipedia, it does note here as well that MSG has an addictive type of quality (read: crack) that has induced obesity in lab rats.

I also found this which doesn’t seem like a very credible read but if you want to be petrified, then feel free to check it out: http://www.msgtruth.org/

Not cool, man!

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 (Photo: minusbaby)

So what’s a girl to do, when diabetes, lupus, high blood pressure and even autism have reared their ugly head in her gene pool? Well, I decided that unless Goya and all the other ethnic seasoning companies do something serious about lowering the levels of sodium and other “ingredients/chemicals” in our food, I’m going to go the DIY route.

And, I welcome you to join me! So in that light, I’m adding some DIY seasoning recipes with no preservatives (and better for your wallet too).

Homemade Sazon

Latino garlic-pepper-vinegar marinade

Puerto Rican adobo powder

Puerto Rican green sofrito

I’m sure that if you google these condiments you will find an array of ethnically customized versions of all the above.

So get in the kitchen, have fun and stay healthy!

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