How many of you are vegetarians?

There's a great deal of deception in the labeling of food products found at your local grocery store and even at many health food stores. A disturbing trend I've noticed is that many vegetarian products and grocery items billed as "healthy" or "natural" are using chemical additive taste enhancers found in an ingredient listed right on the label.
The taste enhancer is MSG -- monosodium glutamate -- a chemical that has been associated with reproductive disorders, migraine headaches, permanent damage to the endocrine system leading to obesity and other serious disorders. MSG is a chemical compound that simply does not belong in the body in the concentrations provided by these foods. It is used by food manufacturers as a taste enhancer -- something to cover up the bland tastes of these foods and make them more appealing to consumers. But food manufacturers don't want to list MSG on the labels, especially when they know that consumers will avoid purchasing products that list MSG.

So what do they do instead? They hide the ingredient in another ingredient called "yeast extract", then they put yeast extract in the product and list "yeast extract" right on the label. So this is the scam: all sorts of natural health products and vegetarian products are using chemical taste enhancers in the form of yeast extract but failing to disclose to consumers that they actually contain MSG. And if you look around at the natural health products in health food stores and grocery stores, you'll find that yeast extract is a rather prominent ingredient. It's used in soups, in vegetarian mixes, in some tofu mixes, and even so-called natural frozen foods.

In a recent study from Britain, children with a higher intelligence quotient at age 10 were found to be more likely to become vegetarians later in life. In fact, people with an IQ of 110 were two-and-a-half times more likely to avoid eating meat.
Catherine Gale from the University of Southampton led the research team that studied more than 8,000 men and women. The team discovered that vegetarians were more likely to be women, belong to a higher social class, and have higher educational degrees. Gale added "If you are bright, you are more likely to understand health information, and more likely to act on it."