Teeny Bits Of Mercury Found In High Fructose Corn Syrup Foods
Did Jeremy Piven eat 200 lbs of ketchup a day? According to a new study, which found trace amounts of mercury in a number of high-fructose-corn-syrup laden foods like Coke, Nutri-Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars and ketchup, maybe so.
The study tested 55 different foods and found mercury in about a third, and said the mercury came from the soda used to make the HFCS.
The amount found was in the range of 30 to 350 parts per trillion, the equivalent of 30 to 350 drops of water in 20 Olympic swimming pools. "You would have to eat more than 100 pounds of ketchup each day to even come close to reaching the EPA's safe exposure level," Con-Agra told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Still, this is the first time mercury has been found in these foods, many of which are popular among children. Clearly, more research is warranted, but if it gets Piven off Broadway, I'm all for it.
For first time, trace amount of mercury found in corn syrup [Star Tribune] (Photo: christopherharte)
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Ouch man, where'd the Piven hatred come from? Sure he usually just plays Jeremy Piven in his parts, but c'mon!
What is wrong with Jeremy Piven?
Jeremy Piven AKA ARI GOLD is hilarious!! Why the hate?!
@Corporate_guy: He claimed that he couldn't perform a show due to eating "large amounts of mercury over 6 months from his fish-only diet". I can't make this up, I believe if you search for his name on Valleywag or Jezebel they have the whole story in addition to his interview on Good Morning America where the host debunks the "too much mercury" scam he was trying to pass.
Jeremy Piven had dropped out of his broadway show because of being exposed to 3-5 times the normal mercury levels.
Though apparently that wouldn't have done anything and he would have needed to have been exposed to 3k -5k the normal levels.
There was a big hoopla over it and everyone thinks/thought he was faking it to get out of broadway.
actually met him once. the ketchup thing is possible - he came up to the printing station where i was working and asked for a coke [coca cola] and didn't understand why i couldn't make the printer fix him a soda.
i strongly suspect he was chemically altered at the time in a way that would later involve LOTS of munchies, like fries with 200lb. of ketchup
but he WAS good in PCU.
***Conspiracy theory time!!!***
"You would have to eat more than 100 pounds of ketchup each day to even come close to reaching the EPA's safe exposure level!"
Either the EPA standards are too low, or Conagra is too smart to sneak more mercury to kill American brain cells. I imagine people would catch on and break hell if the quote read: "You would have to eat more than 1 pound of ketchup each year to even come close to reaching the EPA's safe exposure level!" I wonder if Conagra would downplay the danger factor if it was lead or anthrax instead of mercury.
***Disclaimer: DO NOT SUE ME FOR LIBEL--this is only a completely-fabricated conspiracy theory without ANY proof whatsoever. I can't stress that enough. I reiterate: it's all figments of my imagination and covered under First Amendment rights guaranteed under US law (now that Bush is out of office).
the real questions is why there is even a remote possibility mercury would be in this stuff. i mean..just why?
You know what they say about HIgh Fructose Corn Syrup.... What that it's made from corn? NO YOU DUMB BASTAGE, ENJOY THE MERCURY!
Sounds like the real issue is that you watch Broadway. He is good in entourage and in movies. And considering no one else watches Broadway shows, the reference is very obscure.
Oh god! I hope they catch the bastard who dug up poor Freddie and did this to him!
Piven is sick because he ate 'bad fish'?
I didn't know he dated Paris Hilton!
ZING!
...the mercury came from the soda used to make the HFCS.
Sounds like a good reason to stick to "whole foods" generally: manufacturing processes provide additional opportunities for contamination.
If they're not going to use regular sugar, which they aren't unless the government stops meddling in things, I don't see why they can't at least stick to regular corn syrup.
Actually, I wonder how this will affect the diets of pregnant women who already have to limit intake of certain fish due to mercury levels.
@batsy: It's much more likely the herbs he was taking. Ayurvedic herbs have been found to have dangerously high levels of heavy metals recently and it wouldn't be surprising if that were true for other unregulated herbal supplements.
WOW so tho HFCS commercials might be a LIE? Imagine that.
Last time I checked cane sugar didn't have mercury.
Well at least we know if we only get it from HFCS laden products it would take 100 lbs a day to get close to the safe exposure level. Keep one thing in mind though, mercury, like many if not all heavy metals in the human body, accumulates, and NEVER leaves.
So now you have a new way of accumulating mercury in your body, isn't that neat! Guess we can stop avoiding dark Tuna since HFCS is in virtually every food known to man nowadays. And since some scientists assert "Even at low exposure levels, mercury can cause subtle but permanent harm to the human neurological system." then I say NO mercury is the only acceptable level.
Good, another reason to stay away from HFCS. I can't stand it anyway.
If you read the article the corn manufacturers PR group provided the excuse that they don't do that anymore. Then the article goes on to explain that there are still plants using the same process that puts mercury into the HFCS.
The problem isn't the one product that might have low levels of mercury in it. It is that HFCS is so pervasive in food that don't even seem like they need a sweetener so people are consuming massive amounts of that crap. If it is just in your ketchup maybe not a real big deal. But if it is in your ketchup and everything else you eat you could easily be reaching concerning levels.
@Daniel Lamin: Coal burning contains lots of mercury. It comes down in rain, gets in plants, and mercury is also in "farm run-off". --Meaning mercury is in everything. Piven got mercury from sushi, actually from the fish used in it. Big fish has a lot of mercury in it.
@Lucky225:
I like the new Corn Syrup commercials I see on TV. They say things like "it's made from corn. It's nutritionally the same as sugar." The biggest kick I get out of it is when they say 'It's fine in moderation."
Trouble I see with that is it seems like EVERYTHING has HFCS in it so a lot of people are not eating it in moderation. Maybe they threw that in there because they knew about the mercury. o_O
I highly recommend checking out the documentary King Corn.
In that film they state that having one drink per day with HFCS doubles your likelihood to develop type 2 diabetes.
...But the commercial says it is ok, so I believe them.
So this is why the "corny" High Fructose Corn Syrup ads say "fine in moderation!"
@InfiniTrent: Exactly, its a legal disclaimer to limit their liability just like the disclaimers on a pack of cigarettes.
Other things people take or have taken in moderation that were not healthy in large amounts.
Arsenic, DDT, flouride, uranium, water, etc.
Cue creepy HFCS lady:
It's made out of corn, it's safe in small amounts.
So, does this mean mercury is now a food group?
Also, I think they have that reversed.
"came from the soda used to make the high fructose corn syrup." I believe they mean "came from the HFCS used to make the soda".
you do know that DOUBLING your chances might just mean going from 1 in a million to 2 in a million?
@Saboth: Nope. Sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) is used in the making of HFCS. It's also an industrial byproduct of a lot of things, including the manufacture of chlorine gas; it would be easy for some mercury to creep in during this process.
@chiieddy:
That's what made me think Piven wasn't faking the mercury poisoning. IANAD, but from the few pregnant women I've known, they are supposed to limit their fish intake to never. Everyone else is supposed to eat no more than 2 servings of fish a week.
Piven eats sushi every frackin day for lunch. I'm not surprised if he got sick.
@SayAhh: Don't forget the barium that the Russian government is putting in airplane chemtrails to suppress the army of zombies they created after the second world war...
@B: Yeah, water intake through the lungs can cause death.
Also, check out the lady that drank however many gallons of water without making a pee-pee for a radio show to win a wii for her kids and died.
I guess you could die if somebody opened up a fire hose on your face at full-bore...
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! Ketchup is heaven, I can't live without ketchup :(
Buy Ketchup with no HFCS in it. We do and it's only slightly more expensive. And it is delicious heaven.
Its contradictory logic. Corn syrup can never be in moderation because it is made from concentrate. A human being could never eat enough corn to ingest the amount of sugar that is extracted to make sweeteners. I wont even go into the genetic modifications of corn and what that does to people.
My favorite part of these stories is always how the EPA has "acceptable levels" of highly toxic metals and poisons which have been linked to a plethora of debilitating and fatal diseases.
Usually these "acceptable levels" aren't even created until people start complaining that they are finding poison in their food and water.
This story is no real surprise considering the Federal government finds "acceptable" levels of poison to put into almost every single food and medicine product on the market. Don't get me started on the shit they pump into and otherwise carelessly poison our water with.
I have to admit though this is the first time I have heard of these toxins in these types of foods. It's a Brave New World America!
@B:
As I mentioned in a previous post, there is no such thing as "small amounts" of corn syrup. It's made from taking crap loads of corn and turning it into a starch. Then they high-pressure cook the starch in acid to create the syrup. I have heard that nowadays enzymes are used to catalyze the process.
You really REALLY don't want to be eating this stuff. you most certainly should never let a growing child ingest ANY of it.
@LibertyReign:
So I'm sure you have a 100% HFCS free diet then, as genetically-modified cancer-causing as it is?
Why the Jeremy Piven hate?.. he was good in P.C.U. and.. well... P.C.U. was good.. stop2haet