Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Who Needs Lead Paint When We Have High Fructose Corn Syrup?

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is used in just about every food product you can imagine. It's in your jelly, your soda; it's even in the bread you buy. Most pancake syrup is nothing but corn syrup. Take a look around your kitchen cupboards. Read the ingredients. Make a list of how many things you have in your kitchen that don't have HFCS (and don't be "relieved" if you find things that have Aspartame instead; that's a whole different evil).

Now ask yourself, would you feed your children Mercury? No? Guess again. This was in the Washington Post today:

Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.

HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods such as breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average.

"Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high-fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply," said the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Dr. David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies.


Read the entire article here:
Study Finds High-Fructose Corn Syrup Contains Mercury

It's one thing if we decide to kill ourselves by choice; it's quite another when we get unsolicited assistance.

2 comments:

Aubrey said...

And this is why I cook all my families meals from scratch. It is easier than figuring out if what you want to buy is tainted or not.

Blaine Staat said...

Your family is blessed because of that, make no mistake.