This is food?
Jan. 27th, 2009 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumThe corn syrup industry has been stung by recent backlash against it's product.
There are a lot of interesting features to high-fructose corn syrup. The ability to set the sugar chains to various lengths makes it possible to adjust the viscosity without having to raise, or decrease, the actual amount of sugar.
But that very ability to modify its structure is at the heart of the debate about the effect it has on those who eat it, esp. those who eat it in great quantity. Maia's research/studies (it came up in some of her classes at CalPolySLO) convinced her to avoid it, and she convinced me (I do know that it has a different taste in Coke. Unless it's from Mexico, where sugar is still cheaper, I don't drink it). I don't know that I feel better since coming to avoid it, wherever possible, but it's not made great changes in my life.
Since the use of corn for syrup takes farmland out of productive use for food crops (the varieties are different, not just the end use. This is also one of the problems with growing corn for fuel, but that's a completely different topic) I have a small sense of comfort in doing a small bit to reduce demand for the stuff (though it would mean more if I sent a note to Coke, etc., telling them I wasn't buying their product because of the corn syrup).
Turns out there's a more pressing reason to avoid the stuff.
It makes tuna look good for you.
... with 45% of the HFCS samples containing mercury in this small study, it
would be prudent and perhaps essential for public health that additional research be
conducted by the FDA or some other public health agency to determine if products
containing HFCS also contain mercury. In 2004, several member states of the European
Union reported finding mercury concentrations in beverages, cereals and bakery ware,
and sweeteners [14] – all of which may contain HFCS.
... With the reported average daily consumption of 49.8 g HFCS per person, however, and our finding of mercury in the range of 0.00 to 0.570 μg mercury/g HFCS, we can estimate that the potential average daily total mercury exposure from HFCS could range from zero to 28.4 μg mercury.
There are a lot of interesting features to high-fructose corn syrup. The ability to set the sugar chains to various lengths makes it possible to adjust the viscosity without having to raise, or decrease, the actual amount of sugar.
But that very ability to modify its structure is at the heart of the debate about the effect it has on those who eat it, esp. those who eat it in great quantity. Maia's research/studies (it came up in some of her classes at CalPolySLO) convinced her to avoid it, and she convinced me (I do know that it has a different taste in Coke. Unless it's from Mexico, where sugar is still cheaper, I don't drink it). I don't know that I feel better since coming to avoid it, wherever possible, but it's not made great changes in my life.
Since the use of corn for syrup takes farmland out of productive use for food crops (the varieties are different, not just the end use. This is also one of the problems with growing corn for fuel, but that's a completely different topic) I have a small sense of comfort in doing a small bit to reduce demand for the stuff (though it would mean more if I sent a note to Coke, etc., telling them I wasn't buying their product because of the corn syrup).
Turns out there's a more pressing reason to avoid the stuff.
It makes tuna look good for you.
... with 45% of the HFCS samples containing mercury in this small study, it
would be prudent and perhaps essential for public health that additional research be
conducted by the FDA or some other public health agency to determine if products
containing HFCS also contain mercury. In 2004, several member states of the European
Union reported finding mercury concentrations in beverages, cereals and bakery ware,
and sweeteners [14] – all of which may contain HFCS.
... With the reported average daily consumption of 49.8 g HFCS per person, however, and our finding of mercury in the range of 0.00 to 0.570 μg mercury/g HFCS, we can estimate that the potential average daily total mercury exposure from HFCS could range from zero to 28.4 μg mercury.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-29 02:05 am (UTC)That said, the rates of incidence are such that it seems likely there is some uptick in the rates of autism. Root cause is uknowable (there's also been an uptick in asthma, diabetes, various types of mental disorder, etc. Most of which aren't real increases in the incidence, but rather in reporting/awareness).
But Occam's razor is not the thing to use. Because that will cause us to dismiss the possibility of outside cause. If mercury is the culprit (in the form of ingestion during gestation) then it behooves us to reduce, where we can, the amount of mercury floating about to be ingested.
Which is, in any case, a consummation devoutly to be wished.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-29 02:18 am (UTC)That said, the rates of incidence are such that it seems likely there is some uptick in the rates of autism. Root cause is uknowable (there's also been an uptick in asthma, diabetes, various types of mental disorder, etc. Most of which aren't real increases in the incidence, but rather in reporting/awareness).
It may seem likely, but absent that study, how can we know?
But Occam's razor is not the thing to use. Because that will cause us to dismiss the possibility of outside cause.
...we don't know if there's an actual effect, or what it correlates to, and it is difficult or impossible to derive it -- but we should presume it's there when less-convoluted explanations might suffice?
If mercury is the culprit (in the form of ingestion during gestation) then it behooves us to reduce, where we can, the amount of mercury floating about to be ingested.
It seems like there are plenty of other good reasons, which have been verified scientifically...
no subject
Date: 2009-01-29 05:03 am (UTC)It seems like there are plenty of other good reasons, which have been verified scientifically...
Then we know, and so the study is unneeded.
Or maybe we don't.
All things being equal, if mercury is a known harm (it is) and we can prevent it (we can) then the worst that happens is things get no worse.
The best that happens is things we haven't tested for (e.g. say the tetragenic effects of thalidomide) are prevented.
More to the point mercury causes real problems, which is why we say eating fish high in the concentration food chain is bad. Having daily staples in which a weeks worth of high concentration equivalents is a daily problem, is straight-up a bad idea.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-29 05:13 am (UTC)Hang on a minute, there.
We know that mercury has harmful effects. We *don't* know that mercury's harmful effects have a blessed thing to do with autism and AS.
Given that we can't do a study of relative autism rates over time and don't know the specific causes (I admit to preferring the "neurological variation" argument), tell me how Ockham's Razor isn't justified here. We don't know if there's been an increase, we do know there's been an increase in reporting and communication, and an increase in attention on the subject by professional psych-types and people who have (or suspect they have) the condition.
So the mercury explanation, in light of these and other flaws (such as the fact that AS and mercury poisoning produce very different results...), seems unnecessary to describe and understand the situation. If we had some basis for invoking that explanation, or direct evidence that pointed to it, that'd be one thing. We don't. It should go.
Whether or not mercury is dangerous is not at issue here.