European researchers are worried about antimony, a toxic chemical element, appearing at possibly unsafe levels in various juice brands:

Writing in the Journal of Environmental Monitoring, scientists at the University of Copenhagen studied antimony levels in 42 juice drinks and found antimony concentrations above EU limits for drinking water in eight of them.

This discovery is of concern to the soft drinks industry because antimony is a suspected carcinogen that resembles arsenic on a chemical level. read more…

What you need to know:

Antimony is a toxic chemical element. In small doses, it can cause headaches, dizziness, and depression. Larger doses can lead to violent and frequent vomiting, and death in a few days.

So how does antimony get into juice drinks? The answer may lie in the containers, not the liquid itself.  Antimony leaches from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles into liquids stored within.

And why, dear lord, one asks, is a toxin used in food bottles?

Turns out that antimony is used as a catalyst in the production of plastic bottles. Despite it’s role solely as a facilitator of a chemical reaction, there’s always a minuscule bit of antimony that is left over in the resulting bottle.

There are strict standards as to how much antimony is allowed in water to be considered safe. In the US it’s 6 part per billion (ppb). In the EU – 5 ppb. But this is a definition for water in general. There are no standards specifically for bottled juices.

The British Soft Drinks Association (BSDA) responded to the study claiming that the 44 ppb found in several bottles does not mean they’re unsafe, as

“there is no read across between the levels of antimony permitted in drinking water and those that might be acceptable in a fruit juice or a juice drink. It is not uncommon that different product types should have different regulatory requirements.”

What to do at the supermarket:

Another reason to fret about buying and consuming plastic bottled drinks? Not really.

We wouldn’t put antimony at the top of our list of worries. There are plenty of other good reasons to switch to tap water, including weight lost, money saved, and planet greened.

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Do you want to start using more organic food in your diet?

A great place to start is fresh fruits and vegetables.

You don’t need to switch overnight from conventional to all organic. If you are switching to organic to reduce pesticide exposure, take a look at the “Shoppers Guide to Pesticides”, listing the produce containing the highest traces of pesticide residue. Not all veggies are created alike, and not all are sprayed in equal quantities.

The list is annually updated by the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting youngsters from toxins.

What you need to know:

Pesticides are toxic in high dosages, but the question is what happens with repeated exposures in tiny amounts. Evidence has been around for years that pesticide may be the cause of skin and eye irritations, various nervous system diseases, cancer, and hormonal imbalances. The argument is over the acceptable dosages.

Some plants are more resistant to predators than others, that’s why there’s a huge variation in pesticide use between onions and strawberries. Other factors include surface area for pesticide to linger on (lettuce leaves have much more than a kiwi), distance from the ground (roots and strawberries vs peas), and thickness of skin (watermelon vs peach).

What to do at the supermarket:

Don’t automatically give up on organic produce just because it sounds expensive. Ease in to organic produce using the list above. In addition you may find good prices on fruit and vegetables in season, when supply is very high.

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Fish are healthy for you right?

High in omega-3, plenty of protein, not to mention absolutely delicious when prepared right.

Unfortunately, not all is rosy in the octopus’s garden in the sea.

Due to industrial contamination of lakes, rivers, and oceans, the world fish population has been contaminated by mercury, a lethal poison especially dangerous to young children and pregnant women.

A European coalition of consumer groups is now pressing for mercury warning on labels of fish products:

A coalition of different environmental organizations, the Zero Mercury Working Group, claims that there are risks associated with eating fish due to its mercury content, and consumers need to be made aware of these through fish and seafood product labeling.

The group maintains that the proposed European Union regulation for labeling foodstuffs, currently being considered in the European parliament, should include advice for vulnerable groups about the mercury content of fish and seafood.

read more…

What you need to know:

For the past 15 years, pregnant women and young children have been advised by the US government to limit consumption of certain types of fish that have been shown to contain high quantities of mercury. These are usually large predator fish such as tuna and swordfish who accumulate the poison in their bodies over a time span of years before they are caught.

It will be interesting to see the outcome of the European food labeling discussions, and what elements our FDA and USDA would be interested in adopting.

Don’t hold your breath though. Just a few months ago the FDA urged the government to amend its advisory that women and children should limit how much fish they eat. The reason – the benefits of seafood outweigh the health risks and that most people should eat more fish, even if it contains mercury. Was there any lobbying on behalf of the fishing industry behind this decision? Naaaah…

What to do at the supermarket:

The bigger the fish, the more mercury it has deposited in its flesh. So stay away from shark meat, swordfish, king mackerel, and albacore tuna. Small fry, such as sardines and anchovies, are an excellent source of protein and omega-3, without the bonus toxins. This is because they live for a short period of time before being harvested, so their body does not have time to accumulate mercury.

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Just when the Corn Refiners Association thought things were getting better for high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), it appears that mercury has found its way into the leading non-diet sweetener. From the Washington Post:

Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.

On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average.

“Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high-fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply,” said the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s Dr. David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies.

Read the article…

photo: Hunt's Tomato Ketchup Products

Product brands with the highest levels of mercury (most to least) include: Quaker Oatmeal to Go, Jack Daniel’s Barbecue Sauce (Heinz), Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup, Kraft Original Barbecue Sauce, Nutri-Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars, Manwich Bold Sloppy Joe, Market Pantry Grape Jelly,  Smucker’s Strawberry Jelly,  Pop-Tarts Frosted Blueberry,  Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup, Wish-Bone Western Sweet & Smooth Dressing, Coca-Cola Classic, Yoplait Strawberry Yogurt, Minute Maid Berry Punch, Yoo-hoo Chocolate Drink, Nesquik Chocolate Milk, and Kemps Fat Free Chocolate Milk.

What you need to know:

HFCS is used extensively in soft drinks, ready-meals, and other processed foods because it is much cheaper than table sugar. Most nutrition and diet experts see no difference nutritionally speaking, between sugar and HFCS, although all are woried by the vast amount of HFCS used in foods, and contributing to America’s obesity epidemic.

Mercury is a dangerous poison that can be especially harmful to neural development of fetuses, infants, and young children. Many large fish species have been contaminated with mercury due to industrial spillage into lakes and oceans, and there are medical advisories that encourage pregnant women and parents to limit consumption of certain types of tuna and salmon as a safet precaution.

Mercury found its way into HFCS as a result of the industrial processing of corn kernels into a sugary syrup. the amount found, though, is a thousand fold less than in fish.

So by our book, the true health risks of consuming sugary foods is still obesity related disease, not mercury. However, this is great PR for the anti-HFCS camps, who will surely use thee news to spread more fear among consumers.

What to do at the supermarket:

Avoid sweetened food in general. Take a look at different product ingredient list, and you’ll be surprised how many contain HFCS, sugar, syrups, and other needless calorie adding sweeteners.

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