January 24, 2009 – Mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup

From the “Never Eat Anything Your Grandmother Would Not Recognize as Food” department comes a revelation that depending on the manufacturing process used, high fructose corn syrup contains mercury. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is one of the most common ingredients in processed foods. Young children, especially, are urged not to ingest mercury. It’s kind of freaky that parents may be unwittingly be adding to their child’s mercury intake by feeding them Quaker Oatmeal to Go or Hershey’s chocolate syrup.

In a nutshell, the production of hfcs involves using caustic lye which can be produced by a manufacturing process that uses mercury cells. Many countries have outlawed this process, but the United States has not.

Here’s a list of the top 15 offending foods from the report:

Just because a food isn’t on the list doesn’t mean it is safe – the study just took samples of 55 supermarket foods.  The group that released the study urges an immediate ban on this practice that leads to unwitting mercury ingestion. You can read the press release for further information and more details and suggestions.

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #104″

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