High Fructose Corn Syrup...The New Big Tobacco?

If you watch prime time television you may have caught one of these precious light hearted commercials:





Aww, it's not so bad, right? I mean, those HFCS naysayers are just uninformed, right? And their ignorance is so extreme that they can't even think of one piece of information to defend their position when put on the spot.

Some people may not even be aware that they eat HFCS on a daily basis because not every food it is hiding in is sweet. For instance, ketchup, spaghetti sauces, even bread can contain the chemical directly linked to obesity and diabetes. Yet, so many Americans don't bother to read their food labels. They assume that if it is sold on a grocery store shelf it can't be toxic. The FDA wouldn't allow that, right? After all, my food is labeled "natural." Amazingly, the FDA has actually approved HFCS as a natural sweetener. So your natural bread may be sweetened with the very thing you seek to avoid.

So in moderation HFCS is okay, right? I mean, it's the same as sugar according to the commercials.

Think again.

Apparantly the FDA has known that there has been mercury found in HFCS since 2005. Have they taken steps to stop it? Of course not. Forget the fact that mercury in any amount is considered toxic. Why would they readily admit that we have been consuming poison right off the grocery shelves? It's alarming to say the least.

And what about our children? With the dramatic rise in childhood obesity, juvenile diabetes, autism, ADHD and other diseases why aren't we as parents doing more to bring attention to our children's health? Instead of accepting that it is out of our hands we need to start looking at what is going into our children from birth on. Anything from pain medication during labor to the stressful affects circumcision has on a newborn brain to what we place in their lunches and what is in every single vaccine that the doctor might recommend. What we consider progress may have a price, and I think our children pay the price when we assume the ones we trust won't ever be false. It's time we advocate for our children because as long as big money talks nobody else is going to.