Mercury Poisoning Symptoms
Before you read this, put down that ketchup, soft drink, salad dressing, yogurt, cookie, or other processed food.
Ready?
Well, according to the journal Environmental Health, there was a surprisingly good chance that there was mercury in whatever processed food you were holding.
In a study it published recently, scientists tested products containing high-fructose corn syrup taken straight from supermarket shelves, and found that 31 percent of them contained traces of the toxic element.
Even worse, the FDA apparently did a similar test in 2005, and found mercury in 45 percent of the samples. And then did nothing about it.
As you're no doubt aware, we're talking about a sweetener that is now in nearly every processed food you can imagine. We're talking names like Quaker, Hunt's, Hershey's, Smucker's, Kraft, Nutri-Grain and Yoplait, just to start with.
And, just on the off-chance you're a diehard fan of HFCS, let's also dredge up another recent study that linked the sweetener to obesity. A University of Florida study found that rats on a HFCS diet developed a resistance to the hormone that regulates appetite, meaning that they didn't control their eating as much and quickly grew into fat little furballs.
True, there's a lot of wiggle room and much debate about how relevant the study is to human beings who don't chug high-fructose corn syrup (and only high-fructose corn syrup) all day, but the messages coming in are clear:
You can never go wrong by making your ketchup yourself.
By Michael Y. Park
