One of my biggest pet peeves

One of my biggest?

Recipes.

Recipes for homemade food that contains pre-packaged ingredients! UGH.

I know back in the day it saved my mother a boatload of time in the kitchen. She worked full time and most nights, I was in there cooking up a storm for our family. It just made sense to but stuff already packaged. Seasonings and canned soups and rice mixes were a staple in our pantry.

Now… I’m gonna go in a different direction for a minute… stay with me.

I had headaches as a child. BAD headaches. I had testing done but no one ever figured out why I was having these headaches. I’ve worn glasses since I was 5 so that wasn’t the problem.

It wasn’t until about 2 years ago I figured out the problem.

MSG. Plain and simple.

It was the MSG in all the prepackaged foods! Heck I can remember my mother using Accent to season our food at one time! People…. that is PURE MSG!

About 2 years ago my husband suggested that the reason behind my headaches might be the MSG in our foods. We quit all MSG then and there….

…except for the one last pot of chicken and packaged yellow rice mix I made.

Oh man… I thought I was dying after that meal. I completely forgot about the MSG in yellow rice mix and made a big pot… I mean a HUGE pot of the stuff. I’m talking 2 packages here. Talk about MSG overload. I laid in bed that night feeling my chest tighten and my head pounding like it never had before. It took me almost 2 hours to fall asleep. I didn’t want to go to sleep because I had a feeling I wouldn’t wake up. (Of course I’m not dramatic or anything ya know.)

After that day, I donated all the food we had in the house that contained MSG. I wasn’t about to throw it out. Not everyone is as sensitive to it as me.

Did you know that most potato chip flavors have MSG?? And flavored crackers? And taco seasoning? And canned soup?

Don’t even get me started on soups. I ate soup a LOT as a kid. Chunky soups to be exact. WOW… talk about MSG overload.

Cooking meat for a long time in a slow cooker will also cause the meat to produce natural MSG.

Anyone want to buy a slow cooker??

So back to my original rant pet peeve…. I don’t like recipes with prepacked ingredients.

If you are gonna go to the trouble of making a meal from scratch, why mess it up with foods that are prepackaged? I can’t tell you the number of times that I have seen a recipe that looks so yummy only to find out it calls for 5 or 6 prepackaged ingredients. Boo!

I know, I know… I could just substitute a homemade item for the prepackaged one… I know this. I am just too lazy to figure it all out.

And nope… no more headaches. Yay.