Beef Stew

There's not much better than coming home to dinner making the whole house smell good.  That's one of the many reasons I love my slow cooker.  Tonight we had beef stew.  I'll confess I didn't season it myself, I used a seasoning packet. After I put it together I read the ingredients on the seasoning packet...it had MSG!!!!  I wish I had read it sooner because I would have thrown it away.  Unfortunately it was after I had already mixed in the beef and all the veggies.  This is evidence as to why I want to try to get rid of those type of seasoning packets and processed stuff.  I am also going to be way more careful and read the ingredients in things like that.  I have heard that some soup broths also have MSG or Monosodium Glutamate.  YUCK! 
The stew was good, but knowing that it had MSG made me not love it.  I did a little research on MSG and while there are no conclusive studies on its effects, it is something I'd like to avoid if possible.  In doing the research I realized that MSG is associated with other ingredients such as hydrolyzed vegetable protein (that actually sounds kind of healthy), autolyzed yeast, hydrolyzed yeast, and a few others.  They are forms of glutamic acid and salts.  There were concerns that MSG was associated with migraines, ADHD, food allergies. and asthma.  Again, most researchers haven't proven that it is harmful, but why mess with it. 
I want to eat food without all these weird additives. Gotta read those food labels, including the ingredients!!!