Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Another reason to avoid HFCS...

As those of you who read my blog regularly know we try to avoid HFCS in our lives, as much as possible. Total avoidance is next to impossible, assuming you want to eat food outside your home. But we are careful avoiding all sodas (except those rare ones made with cane sugar) and almost all processed and commercially produced foods (have you ever read the ingredient list for a loaf of bread at a supermarket "bakery?")

It sneaks in everywhere from ketchup to salad dressings, from tater tots to English muffins, from yogurt to "fruit" drinks, from cereals to, well to almost everything!

Choosing not to buy it at a grocery store and you have effectively reduced your selection by 90 or 95 percent. Really, if you have not tried to avoid it yet, try, for one week, and see what happens. Also eliminate transfats and artificial sweeteners and you are down to 3 to 5 percent of the store, mainly made up of fresh items.

There are so many reasons we try to avoid it, and we do not need anymore, but in case you do...

A study finds that half the tested samples of HFCS contained... (drum roll please) Mercury!

Something for parents to think about as they worry about mercury levels in fish (or vaccines) as they hand their child a soda...

2 comments:

DineInDiva said...

Can't wait to see the corn refiner's new ads:
"You know what they say about HFCS? It has more mercury than the fillings in your kids teeth that were needed due to the amount of HFCS in every packaged food on the shelves." They'll find some way to spin doctor this.

Good grief. There really needs to be a pushback on this garbage.

Anonymous said...

I saw a link to this a few days ago and found the original study by IATP. The levels of mercury they found were in the parts per trillion, well below the EPA's acceptable limit for mercury in drinking water or the FDA's for mercury in seafood. Which is not to say that HFCS is good for you, but it tends to make me think that IATP was scaremongering more than trying to do good science.