Update on the HFCS mercury follies
http://www.hfcsfacts.com/Mercury-Study-Outdated.html
The HFCS lobbying group the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) puts out their response.
"This study appears to be based on outdated information of dubious significance. Our industry has used mercury-free versions of the two re-agents mentioned in the study, hydrochloric acid and caustic soda, for several years."
Minor point - the word is "reagent". It does not need any dashes.
Major point - That's good, you should be completely switched over to mercury-free versions. As far as "outdated information": the press release seems to be responding only to the Environmental Health study, not the IATP study. Yes, the experiments performed in the EH study were done in 2005. However, the IATP study, which tested 55 commercial food products, was done in the fall of 2008. So, as recently as 3 months ago, significant concentrations of mercury were found in commercially available foods containing HFCS - and it was found in a third of them. That does not sound 'outdated' to me. I won't even touch "of dubious significance". That is an insult to all our intelligences here.
“High fructose corn syrup contains no artificial or synthetic ingredients or color additives and meets FDA’s requirements for the use of the term ‘natural.”
I really hope that this scandal highlights for more people exactly how unnatural HFCS is. Yes, the final product is all molecules of carbon-containing compounds that all came from the corn itself (probably. mostly). But the process used to produce HFCS is about as far from a definition of 'natural' as can be imagined. It may meet the FDA's requirements for the use of the term natural for the purposes of advertising (by-note, 'natural' means nothing these days in regulatory advertising, if you can't already tell). It does not meet MY definition of something I would ever want to eat.
The HFCS lobbying group the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) puts out their response.
"This study appears to be based on outdated information of dubious significance. Our industry has used mercury-free versions of the two re-agents mentioned in the study, hydrochloric acid and caustic soda, for several years."
Minor point - the word is "reagent". It does not need any dashes.
Major point - That's good, you should be completely switched over to mercury-free versions. As far as "outdated information": the press release seems to be responding only to the Environmental Health study, not the IATP study. Yes, the experiments performed in the EH study were done in 2005. However, the IATP study, which tested 55 commercial food products, was done in the fall of 2008. So, as recently as 3 months ago, significant concentrations of mercury were found in commercially available foods containing HFCS - and it was found in a third of them. That does not sound 'outdated' to me. I won't even touch "of dubious significance". That is an insult to all our intelligences here.
“High fructose corn syrup contains no artificial or synthetic ingredients or color additives and meets FDA’s requirements for the use of the term ‘natural.”
I really hope that this scandal highlights for more people exactly how unnatural HFCS is. Yes, the final product is all molecules of carbon-containing compounds that all came from the corn itself (probably. mostly). But the process used to produce HFCS is about as far from a definition of 'natural' as can be imagined. It may meet the FDA's requirements for the use of the term natural for the purposes of advertising (by-note, 'natural' means nothing these days in regulatory advertising, if you can't already tell). It does not meet MY definition of something I would ever want to eat.