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Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Mercury in corn syrup?? Should we worry?

I received this in my inbox today from Ittybits. I'm wondering if this is just hype or should I really worry?

I've thought about giving Ava corn syrup for constipation. Luckily, I don't believe I ever did it. I thought I had, but didn't. Is the media going overboard? Meaning- would it take a large amount of corn syrup with mercury to actually do harm? I know other things have mercury in them, but they are legal to consume and aren't supposed to cause any risk. What do you think? Am I not being cautious enough? Or should I boycott anything with corn syrup in it?

February 3, 2009

Alert: Mercury in Corn Syrup

Today we'll be short and sweet (but with no corn syrup sweetener, of course!) Last Wednesday, the Washington Post published an article about a very recent study stating that nearly 50% of commercial high-fructose corn syrup samples contained Mercury. Mercury is toxic in all forms, and as a parent, this is a big concern because corn syrup seems to be in just about everything (just look at the ingredients in your bread or apple sauce - you may be surprised.) It has been central to the controversial debate linking childhood vaccines to autism, but who knew it was in our food, too? If you have a Whole Foods nearby, you are in luck, because they have committed to selling foods without this ingredient. If you don't, you may find yourselves reading labels a bit more closely than you have in the past. Thanks to one of our subscribers for alerting us to this information. You know who you are!
Link to the Washington Post Article.

Leanne Sig.

2 Whaddaya have to say about this post?:

Megan said...

Ugh. I guess I'm not surprised by that. Corn syrup is so bad. And it's so addictive! I try to avoid it anyway, but this gives me one more reason.

And, on a similar note, why in the world does deodorant HAVE to contain aluminum? There's no way that is good for us.

Gretta said...

Are they talking about both hight fructose corn syrup and regular corn syrup. I know they are similar but HFCS is way more sweeter than regular corn syrup. So where is the mercury after they turn the corn syrup into High fructose corn syrup or before so both would have it. I know other countries have banned HFCS but not regular corn syrup. I try not to buy much with HFCS but maybe I should start looking at cutting back on the regular corn syrup too.