Jan 27 2009
Mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup
image from Wikimedia Commons
I will preface this post by making it very clear that I do not in any way think that my son’s Asperger’s has anything to do with mercury. So let’s be clear that I do not generally jump up and down about mercury exposure. But today I read a blog post by High Quality Mothering about an article from yesterday’s Washington Post online about two studies that found mercury in high fructose corn syrup, which is the sweetener of choice in (disturbingly) many foods.
I had heard something about traces of mercury in HFCS a while back but could never find significant information to back it up. Here’s what creeps me out: it’s not that there has been mercury found in a rather high number of foods containing HFCS; it’s when you take what could be a tiny amount and consider just how much HFCS gets consumed on a daily basis…that’s an awful lot of badness in food! Isn’t the corn syrup bad enough? I know that trace amounts of mercury have been said to be innocuous - it occurs in nature after all. Still, if I’ve been told I have to clear a room for 15 minutes if a tiny bit of this stuff gets into the air in my house, I certainly don’t want to eat it!
I knew there was a good reason we started removing high fructose corn syrup from our diet. This just makes me feel better about it.
What do you think: is the food industry poisoning us, or is this an over-reaction?
People from my parents’ generation often played with Mercury, if some spilled in their home. Mercury is unusual in that it balls up like tiny metal spheres under standard temperature and pressure, which is kind of amusing to see.
There seem to have been no ill side effects to their exposure. In many cases, the regulations for treatment of hazardous waste cover the worst-case scenario in order to avoid lawsuits addressed to the EPA, and for good reason.
Trace amounts of Mercury are probably OK, same as they are in certain fish, although it is a pretty disturbing find.
For what it’s worth, radioactivity exists naturally in some metals, and that will kill you with prolonged exposure.
Interesting post. I stopped over to read your blog after your kind comments. If you haven’t already ck out “The Crazy Makers” That made me really start to think….
One thing to note about Mercury - the highest levels in the environment resulting from human industry are from coal-fired combustion:
“Natural sources such as volcanoes are responsible for approximately half of atmospheric mercury emissions. The human-generated half can be divided into the following estimated percentages:
* 65% from stationary combustion, of which coal-fired power plants are the largest aggregate source (40% of U.S. mercury emissions in 1999).[11] This includes power plants fueled with gas where the mercury has not been removed. Emissions from coal combustion are between one and two orders of magnitude higher than emissions from oil combustion, depending on the country.”
source: Global anthropogenic mercury emission inventory for 2000 /wikipedia