Mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup

I was shocked to learn that
high fructose corn syrup contains mercury

Folks in the low-carb community have demonized high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) for as far back as I can remember.

I used to think that was a bit nutty and off-the-wall, especially when someone freaked out about the minute amounts found in salad dressing sprays.

Arguments surrounding HFCS always center around blood-sugar issues and hyperinsulinemia.

The problem with those arguments?

Not everyone who is overweight experiences a dramatic rise in blood glucose levels when they eat sugar.

My husband is a good example of that.

His insulin response is still normal, so his blood glucose never rises into the danger zone.

However, the nutty stuff came to a sudden halt for me when I learned that some brands of HFCS contain heavy traces of mercury.

Mercury is a Heavy Metal Toxin

A few years ago, I applied for a Feature Writer position in the Autism and Asperger's Syndrome section at Suite 101. With no articles published in that section at the time, part of the application process required me to write 10 articles on the topic.

My experience with autism centers around the work I've done with autistic adults over the years. I also know parents of autistic kids. But I'd never looked into the research behind what causes Autism, nor the reasons why many parents of autistic children feel the mercury in vaccines is to blame.

This was a whole new area of exploration for me.

Despite the current lynching of the head researcher of the journal article that originally linked the MMR vaccine to autism, what I found in my research was mind-blowing.

Not only did it point towards detoxing difficulties in autistic kids, same as me, but it also solidly placed the blame at the feet of mercury.

It turns out that mercury is a pretty nasty heavy metal toxin because it destroys body enzymes that enable the digestion of wheat and dairy.

Mercury literally shuts down the body's ability to detox other toxins, as well as mercury itself.

You pretty much end up becoming a toxic soup walking around.

At least, until enough mercury or other toxins build up in the body to the point where the body throws itself over the edge, resulting in one or more autoimmune problems, diseases, and syndromes.

It's all muddy water, though, because people spend so much time chasing after magical cures for autoimmune issues, diseases, and syndromes with hardly no one looking at what the bottom block is that's holding all of these health problems up.

Huge Mercury Cover Up

We have drug companies scrambling to invent diseases and then sell us drugs that relieve the symptoms.

We have doctors trained in medical school to diagnose our ailments (sometimes) and then prescribe us meds that relieve the symptoms.

Yet, if you look at a child stacking up a pile of blocks, and then remove the bottom block, or bottom layer of blocks, what happens?

The autoimmune issues, diseases, and syndromes being held up by whatever those bottom blocks are come crashing down. This makes the cause of all of these problems much more important.

And yet:

There is a huge smear campaign trying to take the focus off the bottom block (mercury) and keep people focused on treating the symptoms of the resulting health issues and complaints.

There isn't any money to be made if the pile of blocks comes crashing down.

Remove the catalyst to disease from your environment, and a lot of businesses would have to find another way to make money.

There's no debate that mercury is nasty stuff.

The medical community clearly admits it. They even admit that it's extremely dangerous to the brain of a developing fetus.

• what mom does
• what mom eats
• what mom breathes
• how toxic mom's body is before pregnancy

All these things pass through to the baby and affects the child being formed. And yet many people, especially those in journalism, go out their way to convince their readers that none of this matters.

The guy who wrote the scientific journalism article linking the MMR vaccine to autism forged the data; therefore, it puts to rest the whole idea that vaccines cause autism.

That's what current influencers say.

Thiomersal was removed from vaccines in 2001, and because autism has continued to rise, vaccines do not cause autism.

Maybe, but maybe not.

That is the problem you run into when you need to please your sponsors and advertisers.

Rather than stepping back and looking at the whole picture, like where else could these autistic kids and/or moms be getting mercury from, journalists zero in on the fact that vaccines themselves don't cause autism.

Of course they don't.

Never did.

But it's still a matter of blocks.

It's a matter of detoxing defects.

A matter of detox overload.

A matter of mercury and other toxins and pollution overly soaking our society.

Truth About Mercury in HFCS

It is no surprise to low-carb dieters that high-fructose corn syrup should be avoided.

In fact, it's common knowledge within the low-carb community that refined sugar in all of its forms makes you fat.

But I think the reason has nothing to do with the sugar-fructose combo that's often held up as the demon.

The corn manufacturers and high-fructose corn syrup manufacturers are right. There's very little difference between the percentages of fructose in HFCS and refined table sugar.

However, the problem goes far deeper than blood glucose issues.

Metabolic problems from eating even tiny amounts of high-fructose corn syrup probably come from mercury.

That's because for years Chlor-alkali plants used a mercury-cell processing method to make the hydrochloric acid and caustic soda they sell to high-fructose corn syrup manufacturers.

But:

"That's an outdated more-expensive method than what's used today," the corn association claims.

However, when Dr. David Wallinga, director of the Food and Health program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy put that claim to the test, it came up short.

Taking common, brand-name foods off the supermarket shelves and testing them, many products that listed high-fructose corn syrup as the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd ingredient tested positive for mercury residues.

Supposedly, only about 10 percent of the manufacturers in the U.S. still use the mercury-cell method to produce the ingredients needed for high-fructose corn syrup.

That's what we're told.

But in a video on Mercury In High Fructose Corn Syrup, Dr. David Wallinga estimates that at least 1/3 of manufacturers overseas still use this method.

In a world economy, this is like playing Russian Roulette with ourselves. We don't know which products with high-fructose corn syrup are contaminated, and which products are not.

Why Mercury Matters

If you eat enough food products with mercury-contaminated high-fructose corn syrup, in combination with other places mercury resides in the environment today like:

• flu shots
• hepatitis shots
• smoke from forest fires
• acid rain and snow
• and meds like Prednisone

You could end up a serious health mess like me.

While I don't know for sure that mercury is behind my health problems, I've decided to concede to all of the low carbers who've preached at me over the years that high-fructose corn syrup is downright deadly to my health, and rid my life of as much of the stuff as I possibly can.