High Fructose Corn Syrup

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(Image borrowed from: http://www.leftoverqueen.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/hfcs_no.jpg

From the Washington Post (Wednesday, January 28, 2009):

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,” the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s Dr. David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies, said in a prepared statement.

In the first study, published in current issue of Environmental Health, researchers found detectable levels of mercury in nine of 20 samples of commercial HFCS.

And in the second study, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), a non-profit watchdog group, found that nearly one in three of 55 brand-name foods contained mercury. The chemical was found most commonly in HFCS-containing dairy products, dressings and condiments.

But an organization representing the refiners is disputing the results published in Environmental Health.

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My thoughts on the last line of this article:

Of course the refiners dispute the studies. They pump millions (perhaps billions) of dollars into deceiving the public about HFCS. Check out: www.sweetsurprise.com. A very clever group of marketing, truth twisting people put together a site that makes corn syrup look like a natural and healthy choice. The photographs and text are compelling to the uninformed audience. The website I mentioned was plugged in a recent commercial [Take a look: youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEbRxTOyGf0]

that made people concerned about HFCS look like uneducated idiots. Again, very clever marketing.

Being uniforned or misinformed about HFCS is easy because information about the dangers are not readily available for the mainstream. What’s more, as a fairly recent (mid 19th century) invention, it is hard to know the long term effects. However, some nutritionists have noted the increase in childhood and adult obesity and diabetes grow at an almost even pace with the expansion of products latent with HFCS across the globe.

All I know is that I avoid the stuff like the plague. In my mind, it’s poison. While relatively cheap now, we will pay for it later if we continue to feed products with corn syrup to our children in such alarming quantities. For a revealing look at corn syrup as a bi-product of the corn industry see the movie King Corn (http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/kingcorn/) and read Michale Pollan’s Omnivores Dilemna. Also worth reading: http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html

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