Spring Break
Corn Syrup is killing you, also there's mercury in it
Ryan Nowell
Issue date: 2/4/09 Section: Opinion
Did any of you catch those public service announcements that aired recently -- the ones with people reassuring their ignorant friends that high-fructose corn syrup doesn't have any artificial ingredients, is fine in moderation and is, indeed, made from corn?
Well, two new studies by Environmental Health and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy found that the process in which we make this 100 percent all-natural, made-from-vitamins-and-dreams wonder tonic is leaving trace amounts of mercury in our food.
Nearly a third of the 55 brand-name items tested came up positive, and these aren't your low-end cereals in a bag or Kroger "Moreo kookie" knock-offs, either. According to ABC News, Hershey's, Quaker, Hunt's, Smuckers, Yoplait, Kraft and Nutri-Grain were among the products bought off of shelves in August 2008 that were shown to have traces.
And while we're not talking a lot -- in the range of parts per trillion -- we are talking, firstly, about corn syrup, one of the most ubiquitous ingredients in American commercial foods and secondly, mercury, one the most dangerous elemental neurotoxins in existence.
While a hunk of tuna is still going to have far more mercury in it than any of the products tested, that's a risk most fish connoisseurs are aware they're taking. But the guy with the ho-ho and coke, not so much.
Though the FDA stated in July of last year that corn syrup can be considered a "natural" ingredient, HFCS (as the kids are calling it) is made by taking already highly-processed, caustic soda-treated cornstarch and dumping it into a tank of (organic) hydrochloric acid, making regular corn syrup. Then, through a process of (holistic) enzyme conversion, involving (whole grain) sodium carbonate and (free range) magnesium sulfate, along with a couple trips through a fractionation column (butter-churn), you eventual convert the corn's mildly sweet dextrose into insanely sweet fructose.
So basically, HFCS is "made from corn" in about the same way you and I are made from sperm: while it was one of our initial ingredients, a bit of time and a series of chemical processes later, and the phrasing becomes a bit misleading.
Well, two new studies by Environmental Health and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy found that the process in which we make this 100 percent all-natural, made-from-vitamins-and-dreams wonder tonic is leaving trace amounts of mercury in our food.
Nearly a third of the 55 brand-name items tested came up positive, and these aren't your low-end cereals in a bag or Kroger "Moreo kookie" knock-offs, either. According to ABC News, Hershey's, Quaker, Hunt's, Smuckers, Yoplait, Kraft and Nutri-Grain were among the products bought off of shelves in August 2008 that were shown to have traces.
And while we're not talking a lot -- in the range of parts per trillion -- we are talking, firstly, about corn syrup, one of the most ubiquitous ingredients in American commercial foods and secondly, mercury, one the most dangerous elemental neurotoxins in existence.
While a hunk of tuna is still going to have far more mercury in it than any of the products tested, that's a risk most fish connoisseurs are aware they're taking. But the guy with the ho-ho and coke, not so much.
Though the FDA stated in July of last year that corn syrup can be considered a "natural" ingredient, HFCS (as the kids are calling it) is made by taking already highly-processed, caustic soda-treated cornstarch and dumping it into a tank of (organic) hydrochloric acid, making regular corn syrup. Then, through a process of (holistic) enzyme conversion, involving (whole grain) sodium carbonate and (free range) magnesium sulfate, along with a couple trips through a fractionation column (butter-churn), you eventual convert the corn's mildly sweet dextrose into insanely sweet fructose.
So basically, HFCS is "made from corn" in about the same way you and I are made from sperm: while it was one of our initial ingredients, a bit of time and a series of chemical processes later, and the phrasing becomes a bit misleading.
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 3
anonymous
posted 2/04/09 @ 2:06 PM MST
Ryan, come on. I love to smoke crack, which we all know comes from all-natural coca leaves, grown high in the misty Andes and harvested by delightful mustachioed men and hauled into town on alpacas, wearing incongruous cowbells. (Continued…)
laura
posted 2/04/09 @ 2:17 PM MST
Corn syrup does have natural ingredients; things like caustic soda are used to break down the indigestible starch into digestible sugars and are not in the final product. (Continued…)
Wake up
posted 2/05/09 @ 9:44 AM MST
The reason corn syrup leaves traces of mercury in our food and our bodies is the SAME reason ALL other foods do so as well....
Wake up...the problem isn't corn syrup or farmed fish, or any of the other, current scape-goats. (Continued…)
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