This is rather disturbing. The practice of feeding bees HFCS and not honey also reminds me of what is done to cows. Instead of feeding them grass they feed them nonsense!

There has been a lot of talk recently about "Bee Colony Collapse Disorder," where whole bee hives mysteriously die off, and it's causing farmers panic. One theory is that it's caused by a virus, but another theory focuses on what those bees are eating. You guessed it, it's no longer honey. Commercial beekeepers sell all the honey, and feed the bees High Fructose Corn Syrup(HFCS). (I have not seen any reason for the nouvelle bee cuisine, but I suppose it's to save money – same as why humans are fed the stuff as well.) I remember reading this a few months ago and thinking, that cannot be good for bees.

Posted via email from Jason’s posterous

But…but…it’s good for you in moderation of course.

If the specter of obesity and diabetes wasn’t enough to turn you off high- fructose corn syrup (HFCS), try this: New research suggests that the sweetener could be tainted with mercury, putting millions of children at risk for developmental problems.

In 2004, Renee Dufault, an environmental health researcher at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), stumbled upon an obscure Environmental Protection Agency report on chemical plants’ mercury emissions. Some chemical companies, she learned, make lye by pumping salt through large vats of mercury. Since lye is a key ingredient in making HFCS (it’s used to separate corn starch from the kernel), Dufault wondered if mercury might be getting into the ubiquitous sweetener that makes up 1 out of every 10 calories Americans eat.

Those silly corporatized agri-farmers!

This should make the Corn Refiners Association happy.

Because there is no definitively safe level of mercury exposure, some of these findings raise a degree of concern. But both studies have significant limitations and neither demonstrates that eating foods with high-fructose corn syrup exposes consumers to more mercury than other foods. There are, however, more compelling health reasons for Americans to reduce high-fructose corn syrup consumption, along with other sugars. Consuming too much of any caloric sweetener can contribute to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other health problems

I wonder what commercials can the CFA do about Mercury?

That Corn Refiners Association is really silly.

Quick! What is wrong with nuclear power??! How about DDT??! Or vinyl off-gassing??! Well, your inability to respond quickly, succinctly and in a rapid-fire sound bite has just destroyed your credibility and rendered you ignorant and labeled you as a lefty-liberal whiner. Sorry, you lose!

This is the intended message of a new crop of pro-HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup) advertisements paid for by the Corn Refiners Association and created to shame the public into quiet subservience and passive consumption of the countless high-fructose corn syrup-laden products that dominate the supermarket. The two commercials are basically the same in theme and concept and consist of aggressively obnoxious people being admonished in their uninformed condemnation of high-fructose corn syrup, by individuals that seem a lot more appealing and conversant.

I look forward to reading more articles like this.

Facts: High-fructose corn syrup is a sweetener produced by processing cornstarch to yield glucose, and then processing the glucose to produce a high percentage of fructose. It is primarily used as a preservative and sweetener in a multitude of food products. You should avoid it because of the following:

1. High-fructose corn syrup has been linked directly to obesity, diabetes and metabolic dysfunction.
2. High-fructose corn syrup elevates triglycerides levels, which can lead to heart disease.
3. High-fructose corn syrup is simply empty calories with no nutritional value whatsoever.
4. The environmental footprint of high-fructose corn syrup is exceedingly large.
5. High-fructose corn syrup is the hellion child of the corn lobby’s satanic forces.

Technorati : corn refiners association, high fructose corn syrup

I’m like half asleep surfing through rss feeds when I happened to come across this post on The Consumerist.

The Corn Refiners Association is sick and tired of people expressing uncertainty about the dubious heath benefits of high fructose corn syrup, so they’re running some commercials featuring aggressively annoying people getting schooled on the “facts” about our most omnipresent sweetener.

Silly corn refiners! I shall again cite an article from 2004 as to why I think you all are evil! Make as many ads as you like but thou can’t control the internets!!! People will know what you do!

It would appear that consumers are starting to realize the negative aspects of high fructose corn syrup and now want real sugar.

Consumers – at the grocery store and restaurants – are increasingly demanding sodas and other products sweetened with sugar, not corn syrup.

The trend is so strong that the Corn Refiners Assn. has launched a major marketing campaign and Internet site, www.sweetsurprise.com, to defend the sweetener. They are battling signs like the one saying, “Get Real! . . . No High Fructose Corn Syrup” that faced the parking lot at the Jamba Juice shop in Seal Beach on Thursday.

From what I’ve read in this article it appears that people need to cut down on both high fructose corn syrup and sugar.

This is from an article written in 2004.

The USDA suggests most of us limit our intake of added sugar — that’s everything from the high fructose corn syrup hidden in your breakfast cereal to the sugar cube you drop into your after-dinner espresso — to about 10 to 12 teaspoons a day. But we’re not doing so well. In 2000, we ate an average of 31 teaspoons a day, which was more than 15 percent of our caloric intake. And much of that was in sweetened drinks.

So once again it’s up to the people to battle back against special interests in the form of the Corn Refiners Association. I just can’t help but wonder who do they have doing their PR on this sweetsurpise.com effort. If I knew I’d cite them here as well.

Technorati : high fructose corn syrup