MSG: Good or Bad?

What you hear about it are extreme, but is it true.

The Pyramid of Luxuries

The Bespoke - $1,000 Grocery Gift Card

The Ultra High End - HoneyBaked eGift Card

The Superpremium - Flying VFR

The Premium Core - Ducky Tran Sweatshirt

The Accessible Core - MSG: Good or Bad?

The Affordable Luxury - What Are You Thankful For?

The Everyday Luxury - Thank you!

The Bespoke

Click on the banner to enter The Bespoke Photo Contest. Click here for the Official Contest Rules.

• Prize: $1,000 Grocery Gift Card [ARV $1,000]

• Odds: For every 130 Ducky Tran premium member by the time of judging, I will give out one (1) Grocery gift card

• Contest Period: October 30, 2024 at 10 AM CST to December 3, 2024 at 10 PM CST

The Ultra High End

Previous Contest Winner

The winner of Issue 51 Ultra High End Contest is HONG from ARLINGTON, TEXAS! Here’s her submission for “something worth more than I paid”:

Congratulations to HONG, you will have to find space in your castle for all the Kasa smart plugs you've won, let's take a look at some of the other worthwhile submissions:

You guys have expensive-looking things, especially the castle. Maybe I need you guys to help me find deals for Ducky Tran deals.

This Week’s Contest

Click on the banner to enter The Ultra High End Photo Contest. Click here for the Official Contest Rules.

• Prize: $100 Honeybaked.com eGift Card [ARV $100]

• Odds: For every 70 Ducky Tran premium members that submit a valid entry, I will give out one (1) eGift Card

• Contest Period: November 13, 2024 at 10 AM CST to November 19, 2024 at 10 PM CST

Have you heard of Honey Baked Ham Company? I remember seeing lines around the building around Thanksgiving of people that catered holiday dinners from them. They now ship their holiday foods to your door and all you need to do it warm it up on the day of. For those that don't know what you'll be cooking or buying for your next holiday dinner, here's an option. With a $100 to Honeybaked.com, you can feed 4-6 people, get ready to not have to cook for the next holiday dinner.

The Superpremium

This week’s Superpremium topic is flying VFR. VFR stands for visual flight rules, or flying while looking out the window. From my experience from both civilian and military flying, my favorite feeling was in a smaller glass-top propeller-airplane flying over scattered clouds to see the sunrise above the grey clouds below. It brings a sense of awe and show how small we are. While still flying fast, this awesome moment stops time and make you want it to last forever.

I noticed this experience normally happened when flying early in the morning near the coast. As you see the reflection of darkness below you and peer onto the vast white pillowy clouds, the view is so breathtaking you realize the wonders of the world that cannot be found without getting out to nature and explore.

I encourage everyone to experience VFR flying in a small aircraft. Unlike the windows from a large passenger plane, while still amazing, it does not allow you to feel the fresh breeze and amazing views that can only be seen while flying at lower attitudes. This is one of the few experiences I plan to continuing throughout my life and I don't think will ever get dull.

The Premium Core

I am preparing you guys for the cold weather.

Deal #1: This week you can grab a Ducky Tran sweatshirt on shop.duckytran.com for $10 OFF by using the discount code “SWEATY”. That's $15 for a new sweatshirt with free shipping! It comes in many colors but I prefer the black and white version. I can confirm they are comfortable.

The Accessible Core

MSG: Good or Bad?

I grew up hearing about how bad MSG was to eat and saw signs everywhere about how restaurants didn’t use MSG in their foods. Then again, I thought it was funny because I kept hearing about it, yet my mom at home was going “Salt Bae sprinkle-trick” with the MSG in the foods we were eating.

The funny thing was every time I asked someone that said MSG was bad what it did, they didn’t really say much except it was bad for my bones. I didn’t know what that meant, but I assumed it was a bone-deteriorating disease-causing ingredient. However, because it was so common in my household to have MSG, I never shied away from MSG.

Later in life, I learned that MSG are in nearly every delicious food we eat. Literally pizza is all just MSG ingredients, tomatoes, cheese, mushroom, and sausage all have MSG in it naturally or added.

I feel for the Italians, their bones must be as hollow as birds. (sarcasm)

The crazy thing is even the FDA says it is safe to eat, so what is the problem? I researched.

1. “The Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” a phenomenon in U.S. history that showed up in the 1960s to 1980s. People would report of getting headaches and ailments after eating at a Chinese restaurant using MSG in their foods.

2. Many research that gave empty-stomach subjects large amounts of MSG in single serving found horrible side-effects to the MSG.

Here’s the problem with those facts:

1. I just told you nearly all Italian foods have natural or added MSG in it, but the Italians are okay but not the Chinese? Also, most Chinese restaurants aren’t actually dined at by Chinese patrons but non-Chinese patrons; however, most of the patrons are okay but a few. This disease is very selective, or few people are sensitive to MSG.

2. As for the research, if you feed any ingredient in high dosage to anyone, it would have a negative effect. These research studies have been proven to be poorly designed and discredited due to biased sponsors and methodologies.

For those still curious:

1. Added MSG and natural MSG is actually chemically identical unlike how some nutrients have to be altered to be added versus natural, so the effects of added and natural MSG are identical and only vary in quantity.

2. Everything is high dosage is bad, so the FDA does tell you how much is too much MSG.

3. It was been proven through research like most compounds, there is a small population that is sensitive to MSG; however, it’s probably not you, because otherwise a pizza would put you in the hospital.

4. Lastly, MSG is another ingredient to make your foods taste better, so if it doesn’t taste better don’t add it. However, if it does, use it sparingly.

There is still more research that is being done on MSG as it’s such a subject of debate, but I can tell you most Italians and Chinese are known to live to triple digits, so good luck telling them that MSG is bad.

The Affordable Luxury

Issue 51 Community Poll Results

Here’s results from last week’s poll:

1. About 75% said yes if something is socially acceptable, it is moral most of the time. I believe in most cases the moral thing is considered socially acceptable and rarely socially acceptable things are moral, or become moral.

2. About 75% said that you do not believe added MSG is harmful, which is higher than expected.

3. About 75% said that you do not use added MSG in your cooking, I think this is the reality of less cooking being passed down rather than self-taught.

This Week’s Community Poll

Here are this week’s poll questions:

The Everyday Luxury

The software I use to write these newsletters have updated recently and so I have learned a few things that really moved me.

There are many of you that are active with Ducky Tran on a weekly basis that I am very grateful for. But for those that read or interact with the newsletters without submitting into any of the contests, I want to let you know that I am now aware thanks to the new update.

I appreciate you for shadowing the newsletter, maybe to see the progress and growth of Ducky Tran. I hope to provide contests and content that you find interesting and enjoyable. I do encourage you to submit into the contests so you can have an opportunity to win; however, I know that you are there supporting in the background and appreciate it very much.

Thank you!

(The referral program is only viewable on the email version of the newsletter.)

Visit shop.duckytran.com with the weekly password: honey