Ahrcanum

Dammit anyways, I am always hungry.  I am a small human mammal that consumes easily 4000 calories per day and luckily I burn it off without gaining weight.  It is important to eat healthy, if for no other reason than to balance out any input of booze and cigarettes.

Sometimes we eat organic, sometimes we eat Big Mac’s from McDonald’s- assuming for the most part our food is safe.  WRONGO.  First peanut butter and now this! 

The FDA has known about cancer causing melamine in our foods for four years and never said a word.  The problem is that no level of mercury is considered safe for consumption especially for kids.  It seems melamine is some sort of a byproduct in the production of High Fructose Corn Syrup which is in a ton of our food products especially those marketed to kids.

How did the heavy metal get in there? “In making HFCS — that “natural” sweetener, as the Corn Refiners Association likes to call it — caustic soda is one ingredient used to separate corn starch from the corn kernel. Apparently most caustic soda for years has been produced in industrial chlorine (chlor-alkali) plants, where it can be contaminated with mercury that it passes on to the HFCS, and then to consumers.” From an Institute for Agriculture Trade Policy study released 01/23/09   http://www.iatp.org/iatp/press.cfm?refID=105025  

 The study,” detected mercury in nearly one-third of 55 popular brand name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first or second highest labeled ingredient—including products by Quaker, Hershey’s, Kraft and Smucker’s.”

Among the lists of foods in question  http://www.iatp.org/iatp/publications.cfm?accountID=421&refID=105040 and posted in part here http://summertomato.blogspot.com/2009/01/high-fructose-corn-syrup-contaminated.html  is

• Quaker Oatmeal to Go
• Coca-Cola Classic
• Yoplait Strawberry Yogurt
• Minute Maid Berry Punch
• Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup
• Smucker’s Strawberry Jelly
• NutriGrain Strawberry Cereal Bars
• Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup
• PopTarts Frosted Blueberry

Looks like our grocery list for feeding the kids.  The Corn Refiners Association (CRA) http://www.hfcsfacts.com/ completely refutes all this as mumbo jumbo http://www.hfcsfacts.com/HFCS-Mercury-Study-Outdated.html and says that “Our industry has used mercury-free versions of the two re-agents mentioned in the study, hydrochloric acid and caustic soda, for several years.”  Whew, that makes me feel a lot better!  I am so very pleased to know that I am drinking hydrochloric acid and caustic soda. 

To think, I’d almost forgot about using Pepsi and Coke to remove the rust off of chrome car bumpers when I was a kid.  [Am I old or what?]

First, Coke was laced was cocaine, then Sweet ‘n Low, Nutri-Sweet, then Splenda, etc.  Now Coke and Pepsi are identified by the study as containing Mercury. Soon to be available in some markets the pop will contain Truvia, the hail mary of sweeteners from the Stevia weed.   http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/07/09/stevia/  Further testing for safety for consumers to come.

To prove that mercury is safe for kids, a new study from Italy says that  a mercury-based preservative, thimerosal that once used in many vaccines http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm doesn’t hurt children, offering more reassurance to parents.  http://www.topix.com/us/cdc/2009/01/mercury-vaccine-ok-says-yet-another-study  Whew, I am feeling better and better now! 

What a relief!  Matter of fact, I am feeling so good that I am going to run out and get that mercury free flu shot while eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch,  and then start to think about what to eat for dinner.  I think I’ll wash it all down with a Coke, or maybe a Pepsi. 

http://www.campbellsoup.com/default.aspx  I’m going for Campbell’s Soup, which so far as I know is currently not under review or recalls and contains no peanut butter products being recalled Peanut Corporation of America’s growing list of food.  http://www.newsday.com/iphone/ny-lisalm0125,0,7690328.story

Mmm good.