Yummy, Yummy Mercury

I must admit to a bit of schadenfreude when I read about the research finding of traces of mercury in corn syrup. So that's what that ridiculous Sweet Surprise campaign was trying to do, get some good publicity for corn syrup before the mercury hit the fan. Then I started getting worried about my friend's tiny little kids who eat normal kids stuff that is laced with corn syrup, and friend who drink soda, and all the people out there without corn allergies who eat normal people food and have never thought about all the nastiness that goes into the corn refining process in general. Oh my, 3 seconds of schadenfreude gone, replaced with a bunch of worry.

From what I've read, the study was done in 2005. The information should have at least alerted the FDA to do further testing, but they sat on the information. The Corn Refiners Association take on the whole thing is that the data is outdated, the study is poor, the technology has moved on, and gosh isn't corn syrup yummy and good for you. Really, read the press release for yourself.

Yes, I'm a bit jaded, but that is because this wonderful industry is killing me. Nothing personal I'm sure. I don't know how much there is to worry about in terms of the mercury, but considering the FDA's track record for alerting us to problems early, I'm a little less trusting than I could be. If we worry about kids getting mercury from tuna fish, it would stand to reason that we would want to investigate the amount of mercury their small bodies are getting from HFCS. In general, HFCS is not such a great thing, so if this gets people to start thinking about sweetening their food in other ways or swiching to less refined products, it may be a very good thing.

For those of you without a corn allergy, who would like a little less High Fructose Corn Syrup in your life, here is an interesting site, Stop High Fructose Corn Syrup. This link takes you to a list of common foods that are HFCS-free (but not necessarily corn free): http://www.stophfcs.com/list.html