Wednesday, August 12, 2009

I was blindsided by High Frutrose Corn Syrup

Earlier this year I read a number of articles about the danger of High Frutrose Corn Syrup(HFCS). Obesity aside the nonprofit Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) tested products containing HFCS and discovered that 17 out of 55 had measurable amounts of mercury in them. Dr Lars Friberg, Former Chief Adviser to the World Health Organization said " there is no safe level of mercury, and no one has actually shown that there is a safe level. I would say mercury is a very toxic substance." The speculation is that since mercury is used in the production of caustic soda an ingredient used to make HFCS leaving mercury in the HFCS. The Corn Refiners Association claims that this is an out dated way to make HFCS, but there is no regulation on where the HFCS comes from. So where as that might be an outdated method of HFCS production here in the US, if the HFCS is purchased from abroad who is to say what method they are using to manufacture the HFCS.
SO even though I was scared to death of the HFCS, I figured I make most of my own items and my kids do not eat a lot of candies and we only drink all natural juice so I thought we were safe. Boy was I wrong. I was making one of my kids favorite meals, honey mustard chicken. When something caught my eye on the mustard bottle: High Frutrose Corn Syrup. In Mustard!!!! So I went through my refrigerator and pantry. I was shocked some of the items I found HFCS in were:
Salad Dressing
marinades
YOGURT ( this was the most shocking to me)
oatmeal bars
cereal bars

There were many flaws in the tests, they only did one test of each product , they can not determine 100% that the mercury levels came from HFCS ( yet it is the only ingredient all of the products had in common), and they did not differentiate what type of mercury was present. I know so many people that have chosen to avoid vaccinating their children because of the trace amounts of mercury in the vaccines, yet there is measurable amounts of mercury in the food we are feeding our kids, foods geared towards kids. I am hearing so much about BPA why am I not hearing about this from the FDA or EPA? I am not telling you to avoid these products I am however telling you to look at your food labels. I was shocked and had no idea I had been feeding this to my children. If you would like to see the list of the 17 products that contained mercury you can do so here: http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090127/mercury-in-high-fructose-corn-syrup are any of these products in your pantry?

1 comment:

  1. Hi,
    My google alert for HFCS picked up your post.
    Thank you for advising us that all HFCS may not be domestic. I checked. There is a company in
    China that lists America as one of the countries
    it sell its products. I'm checking into it further. Yet another reason to kick the HFCS
    habit. To your health.

    ReplyDelete