When I first read reports of mercury in corn syrup, I was first shocked, then concerned, then skeptical. Janet (qualifications unknown) at Ethicurean described the source of the mercury (in fact, she was picked up by Huffington Post):

How did the heavy metal get in there? In making HFCS — that “natural” sweetener, as the Corn Refiners Associaton [sic] 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.

First of all, I’m no particular fan of corn syrup; it tastes nasty and I avoid it. However, I also avoid added sugar or rice syrup or any other sweetener because I eat enough calories without them. Various types of foodie have been railing against HFCS for a long time, but I haven’t actually be able to figure out why. Instead of saying “HFCS is bad” we should be saying “processed food is bad”. Any special link between obesity and HFCS was broken in December with a comprehensive review in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (see press release in Newswise). The other argument against HFCS is that we are growing too much corn, but this is a sidestep at best. If people really cared about the amount of acres taken up by corn, they’d be saying “eat less meat” instead of “eat less corn syrup” (see the ISU Extension fact sheet about corn syrup for the uses of corn – ironically, you can’t get both ethanol and HFSC from a given bushel). Seriously, if you don’t like the stuff, then don’t eat it – but it’s helping no one to spread falsehoods and exaggerations.

Ok, back to mercury. While I’ll be the last person to say that the FDA is doing the best job in keeping us all safe, or that food processing conglomerates aren’t out to get a profit no matter what, American capitalism does have some protective effects. I’d wager that the Corn Refiners Association knew about the possible contamination source long ago and has done their best to remove or reduce it (which is exactly right, according to the CRA press release) simply to avoid future boycotts and lawsuits. Some commenters on Janet’s post were also skeptical, along with Marion Nestle on her Food Politics blog.

Marion points out that the study used no controls, and I heartily agree. The researchers should have obtained multiple brands of approximately equivalent foods (vanilla flavored yogurt for example), tested for mercury, and looked for any statistically significant differences between those that contain and those that do not contain HFCS. Without this comparison, the result that “nearly one in three” of the products contained detectable amounts of mercury is meaningless. Some amount of mercury is in everything we eat, processed or not, perhaps the result of decades of coal burning. Of course, there’s many more details to consider… Read More…