Even before this news came out, you may have already cut the HFCS from your family’s diet. But manufacturers are sneaky. There is the corn sweetener in things you wouldn’t even suspect: ketchup, yogurt, salad dressing. Actually, condiments are the biggest culprits when it comes to the mercury/high fructose corn syrup link.

So what did this brilliant researcher receive for her tireless work? Surely, a commendation, right? Nope. Renee Dufault is currently suffering through early retirement in Hawaii.

She was kind enough to discuss her research with me and the implications of mercury in high fructose corn syrup.

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Colony Collapse Disorder has killed off more than one-third of the bees in the United States.

Beekeepers know that when there isn’t nectar readily available to their hives, as in the winter months, some turn to supplements. Traditionally it was (guess what) honey. But that’s what you want to harvest, so many turn to cheaper substitutions. Cane or beet sugar, mixed with water, was seen as acceptable as long as you removed the part of the comb containing the sugar once bees started producing again. It was important to keep the bees fed so they’d keep brooding and ready to produce honey.

Except it hasn’t only been the occasional sugar-water substitution. We’ve substituted the substitute. People have also turned to high fructose corn syrup.

And once again, it seems our need for convenience and affordability has cost us: a new study shows that a contaminant from heat-exposed HFCS may be killing off the bees.

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What do BPA and pregnant women have to do with each other?

A job if you’re willing!!! It pays well BUT here’s the kicker: you must be willing to consume a toxic substance.

Seem a little strange? Just when you think we’re getting somewhere with the BPA issue, we’ve been slapped by a tactic discussed by major corporations in the packaging industry…

According to internal notes that were leaked out by the Washington Post, companies like Coca Cola and Del Monte are seeking out “young pregnant women” to tout the benefits of Bisphenol A or BPA. A meeting took place on May 28th with canned food and beverage industry representatives to combat legislative efforts to restrict the use of BPA.

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A recent New York Times article noted that sugar is making a comeback in American diets as an alternative to High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).

The increased interest in sugar as an alternative to HFCS is attributed partly to HFCS backlash as well as increased PR campaigns and changes in consumer taste.  The change in sugar preference is highlighted by industry figures that note that as recently as 2003 American consumption of sugar was approximately equal to HFCS, but by 2007 the figures had changed and consumers guzzled 44 pounds of sugar compared to only 40 pounds of HFCS

In response to consumer demand, food making giants Pepsi and Pizza Hut have recently rolled out “natural” pizzas and sodas made with “old fashioned” sugar instead of HFCS.  Agro-industrial monolith ConAgra also announced that it would begin production of an HFCS-free line of frozen meals, and Kraft foods declared that it would remove HFCS from its line of salad dressings.  These are just a few examples of large food conglomerates creating new products in response to the recent angst against HFCS.

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10 kids ingested windshield wiper fluid at a daycare in Little Rock, AR. The kids, aged 2-7, each had about one ounce of the fluid.  One child had a high blood level of methanol, which can cause blindness.

Mmm.  Delicious florescent drinks. This is what happens when electric blue kids’ beverages look just like poisons.

But no, really: how did this happen?

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Tummy aches, fever and diarrhea plagued his son but Harris was skeptical that it could be linked to the salmonella poisoning. The family could not deny something was seriously wrong though after little Isaiah began to fill his little diapers with bloody stools. They saved the diapers so that tests could be run. The culprit they believe was tainted peanut butter crackers.

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Is it the cause of obesity in America?  Is it really the same as table sugar?  Is it an evil, liquidy villain complete with horns and a tail?  Regardless of how you answer those three questions, from a sustainability perspective alone, we should stop consuming so much HFCS.  Here’s why, and how you can cut down.

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Mercury was found in over a third of processed food products tested, the source of the mercury is contaminated high fructose corn syrup.

One of the researchers, Renee Dufalt, led inquiry into the possibility that HFCS contained mercury while working with the FDA in 2005.

The FDA did nothing to inform consumers about the mercury in the last four years.

Two other very common food additives are also manufactured with mercury cell technology; citric acid and sodium benzoate. These additives have not yet been tested.

After the jump don’t miss the list of names to contact including who is making the tainted HFCS, who was head of the EPA at the time, where you can take action, and what you can do.

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With the recent scare of mercury in high fructose corn syrup many parents are worrying about the foods they have been feeding their children. Sweet snacks and treats are large concerns as they often contain a large amount of the potentially dangerous substance. Many parents are now looking for alternative foods they can feel comfortable giving their children. Companies that do not use high fructose corn syrup in their foods, such as Newman’s Own Organics, are becoming even more popular due to this new health risk.

However, parents can go an extra step and choose to make their own treats rather than buy prepackaged foods. Not only is this healthier and often less risky, it also cuts out the negative effects of packaging and transportation. One favorite healthy treat in my house is Black Bean Brownies.

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A separate study detected mercury in nearly one third of fifty-five popular brand name foods and beverages where HFCS is the first or second highest labeled ingredient.

According to David Wallinga, M.D., from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy,

“Mercury is toxic in all its forms.  Given how much high fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered.”

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PepsiCo has filed a lawsuit in federal court against Clayton Distributing Company in Georgia for violating trademark laws, committing fraud and engaging in deceptive, unfair trade practices by selling sugar cane sweetened, Mexican Pepsi in the United States.

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I’ve seen so many advertisements for HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) both in print and on the television. According to the ads, HFCS is no worse for you than sugar. Heh.

Being the Mother of a child with MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity) I see first hand how “good” for you High Fructose Corn Syrup is. My child reacts within minutes of ingesting any product containing HFCS. We can’t cook with corn syrup at home because it is made with HFCS. (Click here for my homemade corn syrup free marshmallow recipe.)

The FDA says its safe, but then they also allow our foods to be painted with chemically derived colors and flavorings and are telling us that BPA is safe. We know better. No chemical is safe enough to be in my families food.

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This week from our friends at ZapRoot: The FDA needs to have their heads examined. We respond to the numerous Chinese comments. Explore the world through Google Earth’s Environment section.

This week’s show links:

Eco Child’s Play - CA Fails to Pass Chemical Ban in Baby Products
Eat Drink Better - FDA Allows Producers to Irradiate Spinach & Lettuce
BPA Opinions
Corn Syrup All Natural
Google Earth Environment

Studies involving rats show that when having access to junk food, pregnant rats ate roughly 40 percent more food and 56 percent more calories than rats who were fed just chow. Furthermore, once born, babies of the junk food rat mommas showed a preference for high fat and sugar foods and ate more than their chow fed peers.  Does this research translate to humans?

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I don’t drink it, my family doesn’t drink it, but millions do.

And if you believe the latest “Pemberton” ads, it’s got “No added preservatives. No artificial flavors. Never had it. Never will.”.

Watch the video here: Pemberton ad by Coca-Cola

What a load of malarkey!

Find out about Coca-Cola’s corporate abuses:

• KnowMore.org
• SourceWatch
• The Zero Coke Movement
• Killer Coke

Coke also owns Odwalla juices among its 450 brands, so buy a juicer or a find a local juice bar instead of giving Coke your money. Read up on greenwashing with the World Wildlife Fund (to the tune of $20 million).

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Editor’s Note: This post was provided by one of our paid sponsors, Earth Cinema Circle, the only DVD club dedicated to increasing social & environmental awareness through entertaining films. Written by Ariellie Ford.

Behind America’s 99-cent hamburgers and 72-ounce sodas is a key ingredient that silently fuels our fast-food nation — Corn. In KING CORN, we meet two college buddies, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, who move from the east coast to the heartland to really learn where their food comes from.  They relocate to northern Iowa, home of their great-grandfathers, with a mission.  They will plant an acre of corn, follow their harvest into the world, and attempt to understand what all of us are really made of — Corn. This entertaining and informative film is now available from Earth Cinema Circle.  The following is from an interview with Curt Ellis, co-producer of the film.

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However, I always feel a pang of  ’green guilt,’ as I dutifully return the plastic bottles for recycling.  I had to consider that the plastic was made from petroleum, the bottles had to be shipped and it was all for an unneccessary food item. I found a brand of bubbly in glass containers, but the travel costs of our simple treat still nagged me.

My sister solved my dilemma with the best Christmas present ever! I am loving our new Soda Club Fountain Jet! Our starter kit came with soda flavors to add, but we’ve been happy with our bubbles and a squeeze of lemon or lime.

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But in addition to its recognizable forms, where the corn is recognizable as corn, there are untold numbers of additional places where we don't recognize it, but where corn forms the substance of our diet. And most of that has been highly processed.

I've been reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan recently, and it has been a very enlightening read. One of the most shocking things to discover was just how much corn is suffused throughout the typical American diet.

Pollan enlisted a scientist at Berkeley to do a breakdown of the percentage of corn in a range of McDonald's foods. They found that more than half of the content of most of the items they studied (French fries were the only exception) was corn-based: "Soda (100 percent corn), milk shake (78 percent), salad dressing (65 percent), chicken nuggets (56 percent), cheeseburger (52 percent), and French fries (23 percent). What in the eyes of the omnivore looks like a meal of impressive variety turns out, when viewed through the eyes of the mass spectrometer, to be a meal of a far more specialized kind of eater." These numbers seem unreasonable, until you consider that the beef and the chicken were fed a diet consisting mostly of corn, that sweeteners (particularly high fructose corn syrup), oils, and other food additives are manufactured from corn by-products.

Turning around the American diet to reduce the amount of corn we consume is not going to be an easy task. And it's not even necessarily a problem with the amount of corn that we eat as it is a problem with the way that we eat so much of the corn that we eat. Eating isn't even the only way we consume corn now. We're also putting it into our gas tanks as ethanol. In many ways, corn is emblematic of the larger issue of the industrialized, over-processed way so much of our consumption has been herded. More than anything, we need to become more enlightened about the wider effects of our consumption choices.

Corn is an energy-intensive crop to grow. It takes hundreds of pounds per acre of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to produce the glut of corn that becomes feedstock for so much of the industrialized American diet. The politics and complexities of government farm subsidies are nearly overwhelming, and certainly far beyond the scope of what I can write about here, but they are certainly a sizable part of the equation as well.

Along with trying to eat more local food and more whole food (meaning unprocessed or less-processed food, not the grocery chain), reducing the amount of corn in your diet is something to consider. From an overall green perspective, reducing your corn footprint could be one of the best things you can do. I haven't seen any hard numbers for it yet, but the advantages could be numerous. Reducing the amount of corn in your diet will help to reduce both carbon emissions and chemical pollution with farm runoff. And many of the corn by-products in food are sources of empty calories, so reducing the corn in your diet can also be a healthier step.

Cutting high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) out of your diet is going to be particularly difficult, because that sweetener has made its way into all manner of products. I started looking for bread that was not made with HFCS, and found it was a lot harder to find than I imagined. Almost all bread has HFCS high up on the ingredients list. One local store brand had a decent loaf that did not contain HFCS, but it was only sporadically available. More recently, a couple of the stores we shop at have had decent, store-label organic bread that is HFCS-free (organic HFCS is a virtual oxymoron, so organic choices are a good way to limit HFCS). But it's still in more of the foods I eat than I would like.