Mercury: One More Reason To Avoid High-Fructose Corn Syrup
Do you need another reason to avoid high-fructose corn syrup? How about this one?
Study Finds High-Fructose Corn Syrup Contains Mercury
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.
And what does the Corn Refiners Association have to say?
“This study appears to be based on outdated information of dubious significance,” said Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association, in a statement. “Our industry has used mercury-free versions of the two re-agents mentioned in the study, hydrochloric acid and caustic soda, for several years. These mercury-free re-agents perform important functions, including adjusting pH balances.”
For some reason, “hydrochloric acid and caustic soda” aren’t making me feel any better about consuming high-fructose corn syrup.
A Little Commentary
As I’ve discussed before, from a caloric perspective, high-fructose corn syrup is really no worse than other sweeteners. But the industrial processing does create some pretty nasty compounds like reactive carbonyls and now traces of mercury.
Of course, your best bet is to avoid sugar for the most part anyway, then you won’t have to worry about whether it’s sugar or HFCS or agave nectar.
Edit:
Well, I got caught not doing my homework on this one. Thanks to foobarbaz for posting this link to Sandy Szwarc’s Junkfood Science that pretty much discredits this entire study. Of course, that doesn’t make HFCS okay, but perhaps it’s not laden with enough mercury to cause any issues.
About Scott
Scott Kustes loves to cook and loves to eat. He started Real Food University to help you get maximum enjoyment out of the meals that you eat. To find out more about how he has rebelled against the fast food culture and counting calories or carbs, join the Real Food Revolution.
12 Reader Comments
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So, were all the tested products several years old? Oh wait, no they weren’t! (Article says they were purchased in fall 2008). Let’s just smack away the data like a bothersome fly instead of taking the opportunity to make a safer product.
The article says the FDA had similar information in 2005??!!
Umm, well, the study wasn’t peer-reviewed. That’s not helping me a whole lot, but I avoid HFCS anyway.
Thanks Scott – I wouldn’t have seen this otherwise.
I don’t want to defend HFCS but that mercury study really seems to be dubious:
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2009/01/latest-scare-du-jour-mercury-in-hfcs.html
Darn it Scott! I am getting more and more depressed about High Fructose Corn Syrup. You see, I eat well 80-90% of the time…but when I see a Sci-Fi flick in the movie theaters, I must have Red Vines! I’m also a fan of Skittles, and Starburst.
Movies just won’t be the same without a fresh box of Red Vines! Well maybe I will just limit the amount to less than a full box (I am usually 1/2 way done by the time the previews are over).
The good thing is that when watching DVD’s with my girlfriend we tend to snack on fruit.
Good info as always!
Rusty
foobarbaz, thanks for that link. Looks like I made an error in publishing this one without tracking down the study, something I never do. Haste kills me on this one.
Rusty, I gave up Reese’s Pieces when I realized they had trans fats in them. They may not anymore, but I haven’t had them in a LONG time.
Cheers
Scott
Scott, this is very depressing news, considering how toxic mercury is. I will watch out!
Yavor
Well I will give them this much. Someone is never going to develop freak mercury superpowers by NOT eating mercury. Wait.. whut?
The SoG
I agree that the risk of mercury is overblown, particularly in the context of a nutrient dense diet, and that there’s already more than ample reason to avoid HFCS. Still, the fact that they are using old equipment previously used to manufacture chlorine does sit well with me. That’s how the HFCS is getting mercury in it. YUCK.
As for Sandy Szwarc her analysis seems to be good on this one, but I’m less than impressed with her analysis on many other issues. I have a love/hate relationship with her writing. She’s a health professional so of course she has a strong influence from germ theory and the “obvious” need to sterilize everything.
She also has a link on her blog to Steven “JunkScience” Milloy, infamous defender of the tobacco industry and unbeliever in evolutionary theory. Urgh. This raises huge red flags for me, as does anyone’s use of the term “junk science”. It’s a phrase that too often stops all rational conversation in its tracks. “Junk science” brooks no give and take. It’s a trump card too many people play when they don’t want to have to bother thinking a little bit harder. What is worse, it’s a type of argument from authority and intimidation. If you can accuse someone of junk science without actually showing that it’s bad science, it makes you appear to have won the argument. When people use that word I realize there’s a strong possibility that what *they* are presenting may indeed be the *real* junk science.
For instance, I’ve discussed her bogus “analysis” of raw milk here: http://www.fa-rm.org/blog/2009/01/real-junkfoodscience.html
I would post some comments on her blog but it doesn’t appear as if there’s any mechanism for that.
[...] HFCS foods may contain mercury and Modern Forager tells all. Really, sometimes picking on HFCS is just too easy. [...]
It is hard when the soundest science doesn’t agree with ideologies, but that doesn’t make the science bad. It means maybe we all need to look more skeptically at what we’re being sold.
Good grief, Monica. As a medical professional and nutrition researcher, I read her post on milk and found the science far more credible than your ad hominum attacks and name calling.
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2009/01/raw-milk-debate-helping-parents-wade.html
[...] 1. Not only does HFCS come with a healthy dose of insulin spikes but it also comes with a healthy dose of mercury! Yum. Modern Forager has the goods on it. 2. Heading to a Super Bowl party? Watch out for [...]
Um, skeptic? She’s apparently bought into the idea that being fat is just being fat and has nothing to do with bad health, never ever ever. I’m as much about fat acceptance as any “good” feminist in the sense that I don’t get what all the vitriol against fat people is about (do we also routinely insult people with measles or broken legs and try to exclude them from society?), but you know what? I’m a hundred pounds heavier than I was in my early twenties. I’m now 35. A certain amount of weight gain should have been expected, but not this much, and type 2 diabetes runs very strongly in my mom’s family, so anybody who pooh-poohs the idea that obesity has nothing to do with bad health, NOT EVEN AS A SYMPTOM OF IT, has a heck of a lot of explaining to do.
She also goes in for the “everybody knows” fallacy, which is immediate disqualification from being an “expert” in anything as far as I’m concerned.
Dana, not sure how you and Monica have gone from mercury to raw milk and now to your weight gain. But if you read Szwarc regularly, you will know that she has discussed weight gain as a symptom of insulin resistance. But a symptom is not a cause or reason to blame people. Here’s her latest on diabetes that seems closest to what you are looking for: http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2009/01/government-health-officials-decide-its.html
As a medical professional, weight gain occurs years before type 2 diabetes presents itself, but a 100 pound weight gain may have other causes you might want to look into, such as PCOS (weight gain is a SYMPTOM of this hormonal condition) in women.