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Interesting, in light of the discussion on speech delays, autism spectrum disorders, et al.

A friend posted this to our natural foods buying club earlier.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-01-27-corn-syrup_N.htm?csp=34

Maybe thimerosal is just the tip of the iceburg. My thoughts here are that mercury in vaccines is not a new phenomenon, but HFCS hidden in everything we eat is... and I am not even going to ask about HFCS in dairy. Dairy?? :ack2:

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HFCS is scary stuff even without the mercury!

 

I am trying to keep our consumption of it to a minimum. (I should eliminate it entirely, I know. I'm doing the best I can--but the boy sure loves his ketchup!)

 

The stupid thing is, for me, is that here in Canada, I have no idea where it is in our food! Stuff just lists "glucose, and fructose" --it doesn't say where it is from--HFCS or sugar beets, or cane sugar? Heck, it could even be apples!

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Really, Alana? How weird. I was actually under the impression that Canada is a little more fastidious about not sliding HFCS into things than the US. I know friends have commented that they prefer Canadian Coke because it has cane sugar... has that changed?

 

Indeed, Perry. I wasn't supporting that thimerosal is an absolute link, just that it is a direction that has been looked into and embraced as a sole culprit by many people... and now look, mercury is in "nutritionally the same as sugar" high-fructose corn syrup.

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HFCS is scary stuff even without the mercury!

 

I am trying to keep our consumption of it to a minimum. (I should eliminate it entirely, I know. I'm doing the best I can--but the boy sure loves his ketchup!)

 

......

 

Alana,

 

Ketchup w/o HFCS is everywhere here. I sometimes even buy organic ketchup at Walmart (I think Heinz) for pennies more than regular. That was one of the easy switches for me.

 

I don't know about in Canada, though. :001_smile:

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We have 4 children allergic to corn, wheat, and soy. I have tried to designate our home as a Corn Syrup Free Zone, but the stuff keeps sneaking in. The adult children show up for birthdays and barbeques with ketchup and soda pop :glare: Don't get me started on the immunization issues. We have had several of the children suffer severe reactions that the pediatricians wouldn't report. I know that the statistics are not accurate and that the studies are worthless.

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We have heard and read over the years a thousand reasons to avoid HFCS - diabetes, immune problems, and on and on. I don't know about the labeling laws in Canada but I buy (much more expensive) organic ketchup (Heinz) and it is made with sugar not HFCS. It is extremely frustrating trying to find it in things and you can't even assume about brands - I was buying cereal and one flavor was made with sugar and the other with HFCS. It is almost impossible to find bread without it. Here in the US the corn syrup people were actually running commercials on TV telling everyone how normal and healthy it is.

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The stupid thing is, for me, is that here in Canada, I have no idea where it is in our food! Stuff just lists "glucose, and fructose" --it doesn't say where it is from--HFCS or sugar beets, or cane sugar? Heck, it could even be apples!

 

From the Agriculture Canada website:

 

"Glucose/fructose is a generic term for high fructose corn syrup or HFCS."

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We have heard and read over the years a thousand reasons to avoid HFCS - diabetes, immune problems, and on and on. I don't know about the labeling laws in Canada but I buy (much more expensive) organic ketchup (Heinz) and it is made with sugar not HFCS. It is extremely frustrating trying to find it in things and you can't even assume about brands - I was buying cereal and one flavor was made with sugar and the other with HFCS. It is almost impossible to find bread without it. Here in the US the corn syrup people were actually running commercials on TV telling everyone how normal and healthy it is.

 

Those commercials make me laugh out loud, between the poorly written dialogue, the painful faces the actors make, and the anvil of a message that's dropped on the viewers' heads!

 

The forces behind it might want to consider that those commercials are doing more to turn people off to HFCS than just leaving the subject alone would have.

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It could explain a lot. Many people with children with austism spectrum or even severe adhd have found a big change in behaviour when they switch to a dairy free diet. I have been debating it but haven't taken the plunge. I know my son is sensitive to many foods and I am still pinpointing it, but one connection I found with milk is if he has it he is guaranteed to pee the bed that night. SO I limit it for that reason, but I am watching for signs o behaviour change with dairy too, and if there is hfcs in it as well as mercury, it would explain those reactions much more than just plain dairy. I think it time I rethink what we are eating and going with GFCF, raw diet to avoid all the additives, extra sugars etc. I though hfcs was bad enough but contaminated with mercury really makes you wonder. WIth 2 kids with severe behaviour issues, a baby that has had a severe reaction to immunizations(autistic like symptoms our ped said) and who I worry about developing the same issues as the older 2, it really makes you wonder what the heck is going on.

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Companies don't care one iota about anything except the mighty dollar. They compromise our food supply with ZERO guilt as long as they are happy with their bottom line.

 

And the government (USDA, FDA and the likes) is twice as bad. As long as their pockets are lined, THEY look the other way. It's just ridiculous!

 

This is all the more reason why I have always felt it is my responsibility to research and learn things for myself. Trust NO ONE when it comes to health and medical issues without at least doing some research.

 

That's my 2 cents for the week.

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It's like cancer.

 

During the 60's everyone was looking for a cause of cancer, and for a cure for cancer. It wasn't until they started to realize that cancer was a generic term for many illnesses that they started to have some real success in treating it.

 

After watching the stats on autism for quite a while, I'm convinced that it's the same way.

 

I know 3 autistic people (2 children and 1 adult) and quite a few children on the autism spectrum. You start to see trends in the population, but not a real common marker. There is clearly a hereditary component in probability but it's not the whole story. One of the children got autism as a result of a vaccine--his doctor certified this and reported it as such. There have got to be more than one cause.

 

What I think is really crucial is trying to understand the full reasons for the INCREASE in autism during the last 10-15 years. Is it all just reporting? Is there a practice or ingestion that made this happen? That's the low hanging fruit, IMO.

 

It's like breast cancer. There are a lot of types, and there are a lot of cases that are not caused by anything in particular. But if you look at the stats, it seems pretty clear that the biggest contributor to the INCREASE in breast cancer during the last generation or two was the use of hormone treatments, particularly during menopause.

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When I was young, I used to roll around little balls of mercury in my hands. Guess what? I'm not autistic. :)

 

That's great that you didn't experience any side effects from your mercury exposure. I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here. Are you arguing that mercury isn't a hazardous substance?

 

I just don't understand how HFCS has been used as a food ingredient for years and they are just now testing it for mercury levels. :confused::confused::confused: What are they going to find next?

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Actually, I'm not arguing anything. Why would you imply that? I was simply making a statement of what I did as a child and how handling mercury did nothing to me. You can make the argument, if you're inclined to do such, that just about everything in this world can cause problems of some sort. I won't get into a debate with you because I recently left a forum because that seem to be the mainstay and I'm not interested in that. I'm also not saying that mercury can't cause problems. Again, I was making a personal statement.

 

That's great that you didn't experience any side effects from your mercury exposure. I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here. Are you arguing that mercury isn't a hazardous substance?

 

I just don't understand how HFCS has been used as a food ingredient for years and they are just now testing it for mercury levels. :confused::confused::confused: What are they going to find next?

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I just watched the movie King Corn the other night, and while I have to say that because I'm already pretty cynical about this stuff, I wasn't particularly shocked by any of it, I did learn a few new things I hadn't known before, like...

 

- Cattle fed corn not only fatten up really quickly, if they were not slaughtered they would be dead in weeks, as their bodies can only process the corn for a short period before it kills them.

 

- This also means that if you by any non-"grass-fed" labeled beef, you're really eating corn - it metabolizes right into the tissues, that's why they gain the weight so fast.

 

- Why should we be so surprised that an overabundance of corn/corn syrup in our foods kills us too - diabetes is simply our bodies not metabolizing all that sugar, most of it from corn.

 

- The corn grown today is engineered for yield only. So there's a ton of it (what do we do with it all? Feed it to cattle and put corn syrup in everything), but it has almost no nutritional value, it's all starch.

 

(The last bit would be different for hertiage corn types, and probably also to a lesser extent for the corn varieties grown specifically to be eaten on the cob).

 

Scary stuff! And now it has mercury in it... yeesh!

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When I was young, I used to roll around little balls of mercury in my hands. Guess what? I'm not autistic. :)

We did, too. I also grew up in the 70s, when there was lead paint in our houses and exhaust from leaded gasoline landing on every outdoor surface I touched. I was vaccinated with a much higher concentration of thimerosal, I would bet. And, no, I do not have any signs of lead or mercury poisoning.

 

I'm pretty sure that this is not the same level of heavy metal exposure as detectable mercury (or lead, or arsenic) in a substance that is used in nearly every packaged food product in a country that eats from packages at the rate of Americans.

 

As the abundance of cheap processed food has increased, our overall health has dramatically decreased, particularly in the areas of chronic disease. Autism spectrum disorders, even accounting for non-diagnosis of kids of our generation, who we just thought were a little eccentric, are on the rise, as are other neurological disorders, such as ADD/ADHD and bipolar disorder in children. Some of this started about the time that large, cold-water fish became all the rage. Now we know that these fish are more prone to contain heavy metals than the mild, small, white fish that our parents and grand-parents ate. Now it also appears that mercury, in the vehicle of HFCS (which is disgusting enough in itself), has been injected into just about every facet of the American diet. Dairy?!?! What business does HFCS have in DAIRY??

 

(Yes, I am aware that there are whole societies who essentially subsist on large, cold-water, oily fish. Perhaps they have some genetic ability to filter out heavy metals, just as some ethnic groups have the ability to process lactose as adults. Perhaps there is something else in their diet that mitigates the ingestion of heavy metals and prevents them from being absorbed. Perhaps they, too, are having the same issues, but they have a lower birth rate and less scientific observation. )

 

I realize that there is a much more complex phenomenon at work here, but I find the correlation intriguing, and can't wait to see if anyone makes a scientific case for causation.

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I'm pretty sure that this is not the same level of heavy metal exposure as detectable mercury (or lead, or arsenic) in a substance that is used in nearly every packaged food product in a country that eats from packages at the rate of Americans.

 

As the abundance of cheap processed food has increased, our overall health has dramatically decreased, particularly in the areas of chronic disease. Autism spectrum disorders, even accounting for non-diagnosis of kids of our generation, who we just thought were a little eccentric, are on the rise, as are other neurological disorders, such as ADD/ADHD and bipolar disorder in children. Some of this started about the time that large, cold-water fish became all the rage. Now we know that these fish are more prone to contain heavy metals than the mild, small, white fish that our parents and grand-parents ate. Now it also appears that mercury, in the vehicle of HFCS (which is disgusting enough in itself), has been injected into just about every facet of the American diet. Dairy?!?! What business does HFCS have in DAIRY??

 

 

I realize that there is a much more complex phenomenon at work here, but I find the correlation intriguing, and can't wait to see if anyone makes a scientific case for causation.

 

 

For one thing, it seems likely to me that the level of mercury concentration in cold water fish is higher now than in pre-industrial earth. So that might account for the traditional societies' being able to handle their diet better.

 

Also, in general, one of the reasons why the 'mercury in vaccines' hypothesis was develop is that early stages of mercury poisoning have many of the same symptoms as autism. Also, it was pretty common for anecdotal evidence to be raised about children suddenly developing autism symptoms for the first time immediately after a vaccine. (I have a friend whose son has autism who believes that that is a coincidence and that it's just because autism onset is often at an age when vaccines are also scheduled.)

 

So what has CHANGED that might correlate with the increasing diagnosis of autism? Is it reporting? (I don't think that that's the whole story, but it certainly could be part of it.) What has changed that seems most relevant to me is that there are far more vaccines and far more combination vaccines in the schedule than there was when we were growing up, so we are shocking the kids' immune systems with more diseases and more mercury than before. In addition, there are more dietary and environmental sources of mercury if it is now in HFCS as well as more prevalent in fish. I played with broken thermometer mercury as a child as well, but let's face it, those thermometers did not break every day, while most American kids probably do ingest HFCS every day.

 

I'll bet that there is a tipping point that we are passing now. I'll bet that there are some kids who are sensitive to mercury, and some who have a genetic predisposition to autism that mercury contributes to, and some that would get autism anyway, and some that had it that are our age and that ended up with some other mental diagnosis because this diagnosis used to be considered indicative of bad mothering and therefore be avoided somewhat. I further bet that the rampant use of pesticides in food is another contributing factor. And I have heard enough about the correlation between autism and bowel/constipation problems to find that interesting as well.

 

I just hope that it doesn't take a fluke, as it did in the causation of breast cancer by hormone replacement therapy, to reverse this trend. Autism is SO hard on the kids themselves, their families, and their friends. We can't afford not to fix this.

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I agree, Carol. There certainly is earlier evaluation and screening for neurologic disorders, they are picking up on much more subtle cues now than they ever were before, and our society is more generally accepting of such diagnoses than in previous generations, when the odd relatives were hidden away from public view. Still, with the statistics they're putting out, we should be running into adults on the spectrum all the time, and I just don't see it. Given that early intervention is a relatively new thing, I don't think that would be a factor, as it will be with the new generation.

 

Clearly, there has to be some predisposition or tendency that is realized through a catalyst.

 

I also wonder if anyone has found a correlation between estrogen-linked cancers and other problems (such as early development, increase in endometriosos and PCOS and resultant infertility, etc.) and the rise of hormonal birth control, as well as injecting cattle with hormones. I know they have found detectable levels of synthetic hormones in municipal water supplies. Ditto antibiotics, and the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria. (Though there is the whole issue of over-prescribing there, too)

 

It is interesting to me that our "food security" (including access to "clean" water) is doing little for our "health security". It would seem counter-intuitive.

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I agree, Carol. There certainly is earlier evaluation and screening for neurologic disorders, they are picking up on much more subtle cues now than they ever were before, and our society is more generally accepting of such diagnoses than in previous generations, when the odd relatives were hidden away from public view. Still, with the statistics they're putting out, we should be running into adults on the spectrum all the time, and I just don't see it. Given that early intervention is a relatively new thing, I don't think that would be a factor, as it will be with the new generation.

 

Well, if I'm understanding your thinking correctly (and I may not be, I'm reading fast tonight!), the reason we wouldn't see as many adults on the spectrum is that HFCS wasn't introduced until the 70s, and it wasn't introduced into our food supply on the level that it is now. And certainly people did not eat as much prepackaged and fast food as small children do these. Maybe one of the keys is the amounts ingested by pregnant women, babies, and children. I mean, if we're talking about HFCS hidden in dairy, what does that mean for infant formulas? Toddler snack foods? I just did a quick check and found HFCS in Gerber Graduates products immediately. How many of our moms were toting around Gerber Graduates in the 70s and 80s? [ETA: OK, right, how many of us were even that young in the 70s and 80s :lol:)

 

- This also means that if you by any non-"grass-fed" labeled beef, you're really eating corn - it metabolizes right into the tissues, that's why they gain the weight so fast.

 

By the by, guess what you're eating in the form of farm-raised fish as well?

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/03/000331094233.htm

 

"By creating soybean and corn feeds for farm-raised fish, a Purdue University researcher has opened up new markets for the grain crops and has found a way to keep fish on the menu. Feed mills are starting to churn out fish food based on his research."

 

That was in 2000. Imagine how prevalent it is now? Eight years later...

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080708092228.htm

 

"Farm-raised tilapia, one of the most highly consumed fish in America, has very low levels of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids and, perhaps worse, very high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, according to new research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine....Chilton said tilapia is easily farmed using inexpensive corn-based feeds, which contain short chain omega-6s that the fish very efficiently convert to AA and place in their tissues. This ability to feed the fish inexpensive foods, together with their capacity to grow under almost any condition, keeps the market price for the fish so low that it is rapidly becoming a staple in low-income diets."

 

I am, as my three-year-old would say, "really expressed off" about this. I finally managed to talk myself past the hormone treatment thing and bought tilapia again, and then I found this out the other day. Gah!!!

Edited by melissel
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Well, if I'm understanding your thinking correctly (and I may not be, I'm reading fast tonight!), the reason we wouldn't see as many adults on the spectrum is that HFCS wasn't introduced until the 70s, and it wasn't introduced into our food supply on the level that it is now. And certainly people did not eat as much prepackaged and fast food as small children do these. Maybe one of the keys is the amounts ingested by pregnant women, babies, and children. I mean, if we're talking about HFCS hidden in dairy, what does that mean for infant formulas? Toddler snack foods? I just did a quick check and found HFCS in Gerber Graduates products immediately. How many of our moms were toting around Gerber Graduates in the 70s and 80s? [ETA: OK, right, how many of us were even that young in the 70s and 80s :lol:)

 

By the by, guess what you're eating in the form of farm-raised fish as well?

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/03/000331094233.htm

 

"By creating soybean and corn feeds for farm-raised fish, a Purdue University researcher has opened up new markets for the grain crops and has found a way to keep fish on the menu. Feed mills are starting to churn out fish food based on his research."

 

That was in 2000. Imagine how prevalent it is now? Eight years later...

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080708092228.htm

 

"Farm-raised tilapia, one of the most highly consumed fish in America, has very low levels of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids and, perhaps worse, very high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, according to new research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine....Chilton said tilapia is easily farmed using inexpensive corn-based feeds, which contain short chain omega-6s that the fish very efficiently convert to AA and place in their tissues. This ability to feed the fish inexpensive foods, together with their capacity to grow under almost any condition, keeps the market price for the fish so low that it is rapidly becoming a staple in low-income diets."

 

I am, as my three-year-old would say, "really expressed off" about this. I finally managed to talk myself past the hormone treatment thing and bought tilapia again, and then I found this out the other day. Gah!!!

 

Yes, that is where my pondering was leading.

 

I was born in the 70s. 1971, to be exact. At that time (speaking of HFCS in baby formula, thanks for the reminder joannqn) my mother was instructed by the pediatrician that nursing was not good for children (breast milk was too fatty and some other reasons) and I should, instead, be fed a formula of non-fat powdered milk and Karo syrup. Can you imagine?? Between that and the lead, it's amazing our entire generation is not just a gelatinous, babbling mass.

 

And, yes, farm-raised fish... brrrrrr. I take exception to feeding animals things they don't actually eat. Like, gee, is it any wonder about the mad-cow problem? I mean, cows don't naturally eat OTHER COWS! But, of course, if you're not going to let them out on the pasture, where they get protein from the bugs and stuff in the grasses they're eating, you have to add it in from some source, right? That's disgusting.

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Me too!!

 

How does mercury get into corn syrup anyway???:confused:

 

I saw one researcher's comment to the effect that it's got something to do with the processing of HFCS.

 

I'm of the opinion that if we had any idea what's really involved in the processing of food, most of us would probably never eat again (at least not anything store bought!).

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I would wonder too, even if it's not technically a vaccine that triggers autism, if the bit of mercury in it would add up with all the other places (like the corn syrup). Aren't heavy metals like mercury the things that stay in your system forever? So, technically, any of these sources could claim to not be the cause of autism, and technically they would be correct ... but if you add them all together...

 

I do think there are more causes for autism than just mercury, but I also think vaccines are related ... I was trying to slow/delay my kids' schedules, but not having a lot of success with it ... and then my daughter reacted badly to one of her shots. I put my foot down right then and there. She's not autistic, thank heavens, but the months we went through following that vaccine ... no way was I going to risk adding more trauma to her system. Not till she's a whole lot bigger.

 

Was it ever reported as such? I doubt it. I don't know. I'm not even entirely sure which vaccine it was; I'd have to get her records. One of those multiple things, anyway, that you get right around two?

 

I haven't looked closely at our HFCS consumption (never realized I needed to till recently) but it's something I'm going to consider.

 

Gosh, it is SO HARD to be a good parents these days. Everything we do turns out to have a dark side.

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HFCS is scary stuff even without the mercury!

 

I am trying to keep our consumption of it to a minimum. (I should eliminate it entirely, I know. I'm doing the best I can--but the boy sure loves his ketchup!)

 

The stupid thing is, for me, is that here in Canada, I have no idea where it is in our food! Stuff just lists "glucose, and fructose" --it doesn't say where it is from--HFCS or sugar beets, or cane sugar? Heck, it could even be apples!

 

You can buy heinz organic ketchup with no HFCS.

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I was trying to slow/delay my kids' schedules, but not having a lot of success with it ... and then my daughter reacted badly to one of her shots. I put my foot down right then and there. She's not autistic, thank heavens, but the months we went through following that vaccine ... no way was I going to risk adding more trauma to her system. Not till she's a whole lot bigger.
Same here. My sister does not do vaccines for all of her kids. I did my research and came to the opposite conclusion. My kids are getting them. Then DS reacted badly to his, so I reported it. The health department reported it. DS is allergic to yeast, so we determined that was it. I decided to give him one shot at a time and stretch them out. He reacted again. Then for the next set, he reacted again. We tried different things three different times. He has an anaphylictic reaction and ends up with pneumonia every time. We still don't know why, because it is every vaccine. I still have people encouraging me to keep trying. Do you know what the major complication is of most of the diseases that they vaccinate for... pneumonia. :001_huh:
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It's not only the vaccines that our children get that can be a problem. Some women, like myself, are given a vaccine during pregnancy and after the birth (and following miscarriage) called Rhogam. It is supposedly to protect future babies of mothers who have RH- blood and the father has RH+ blood. Rhogam has thimerosal. Because of my numerous miscarriages, by the time I was pregnant with Reece, I had had more than 10 shots of Rhogam in 5 years.

 

Additionally, with Reece even though I was trying to avoid vaccines (Austin hadn't been diagnosed then, but he had a terrible reaction to the MMR vaccine, and I watched a friend's son regress into autism after his MMR/Pox vaccine when Riley was almost a year old), I was given the MMR vaccine in the hospital because my titers had come back showing my immunity was gone for Rubella. Then I nursed Reece, effectively giving her her first dose of MMR in the first day of her life, even though she would get no vaccines of her own until she was almost one.

 

I know my stories aren't more than anecdotes. I do believe there is a genetic component to autism spectrum disorders. My grandfather and uncle both fit a classic Aspergers profile, so maybe they got it through my genes. Riley is much more like my husband and his sister in personality.

 

Sometimes I'm not even sure I'd like to know for myself what causes autism, because if it was truly something I did and I know it for sure (rather than just suspect it), I'm not sure I could forgive myself. But if it is something preventable, I would like for other people to be able to have that information.

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Additionally, with Reece even though I was trying to avoid vaccines I was given the MMR vaccine in the hospital because my titers had come back showing my immunity was gone for Rubella. Then I nursed Reece, effectively giving her her first dose of MMR in the first day of her life, even though she would get no vaccines of her own until she was almost one.

They said I needed an MMR vaccine at the hospital to. I told them I would look into getting it later, and I did look into it... :D

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They said I needed an MMR vaccine at the hospital to. I told them I would look into getting it later, and I did look into it... :D

 

I wish I had been that smart. I thought I had all my bases covered, refusing all the tests and shots that weren't required by law. But I'd never nursed a baby before (Austin and Riley were formula fed, something ELSE I was determined to change in chase it was the bottles or the formula that had affected Austin's behavior). I didn't understand yet that I had to watch every thing I took into my body.

 

It wasn't until after she had been diagnosed (then Austin was 8 months later), that I read about the MMR going into mother's milk. And also about the Rhogam shot containing mercury.

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I saw one researcher's comment to the effect that it's got something to do with the processing of HFCS.

 

I'm of the opinion that if we had any idea what's really involved in the processing of food, most of us would probably never eat again (at least not anything store bought!).

 

In the previously mentioned movie "King Corn", there is a scene where they make HFCS themselves (since none of the HFCS factories would allow them entrance). The process involved using several chemicals as solvents. Dh thinks that maybe there is some mercury-containing substance that also works as a solvent. (This after I asked him how the mercury even got into the stuff.)

 

As far as HFCS in dairy, I see it listed as an ingredient for a lot of flavored yogurts.

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and people look at me like I have two heads when I tell them I make most of our food from scratch and try to avoid processed foods. :tongue_smilie: I love being vindicated :D

Luckily for me, most of my friends are of the two-headed variety. But, yes, I enjoy the vindication as well.

 

In the previously mentioned movie "King Corn", there is a scene where they make HFCS themselves (since none of the HFCS factories would allow them entrance). The process involved using several chemicals as solvents. Dh thinks that maybe there is some mercury-containing substance that also works as a solvent. (This after I asked him how the mercury even got into the stuff.)

 

As far as HFCS in dairy, I see it listed as an ingredient for a lot of flavored yogurts.

 

Yes, the article mentions hydrochloric acid and caustic soda. Yum! (And, really, isn't hydrochloric acid caustic enough?)

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That's funny, we just watched King of Corn last week. Does everyone else have Netflix too? Gotta love the Watch Instantly movies. :lol:

 

If you want to avoid corn syrup, and have a Safeway near you, the Eating Right brand of products have a lot without it. (Don't ask me about other chemicals, I'm still getting educated about this stuff. But I believe at least some of their cereals have no BHT, yet another chemical to avoid. Don't quote me on that though.) Anyway, I've been trying to make more stuff from scratch, but they do have bread called "Special Recipe White Bread" with no corn syrup and 3 grams of fiber (more than normal white bread). Their "kids" products have Looney Tunes characters on them. We've also bought some cookies from that like that are made with sugar, not corn syrup, in the bakery section of Safeway. They are shaped like letters and come in vanilla or chocolate.

 

Does anyone else spend hours at the store reading food labels, deciding whether certain products are worth the chemicals or not? It drives me crazy sometimes!

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That's funny, we just watched King of Corn last week. Does everyone else have Netflix too? Gotta love the Watch Instantly movies. :lol:

 

If you want to avoid corn syrup, and have a Safeway near you, the Eating Right brand of products have a lot without it. (Don't ask me about other chemicals, I'm still getting educated about this stuff. But I believe at least some of their cereals have no BHT, yet another chemical to avoid. Don't quote me on that though.) Anyway, I've been trying to make more stuff from scratch, but they do have bread called "Special Recipe White Bread" with no corn syrup and 3 grams of fiber (more than normal white bread). Their "kids" products have Looney Tunes characters on them. We've also bought some cookies from that like that are made with sugar, not corn syrup, in the bakery section of Safeway. They are shaped like letters and come in vanilla or chocolate.

 

Does anyone else spend hours at the store reading food labels, deciding whether certain products are worth the chemicals or not? It drives me crazy sometimes!

 

Ok, A) IT'S INSTANT WATCH?!?! Why did nobody mention this? Well. I guess I know what I'm doing before Burn Notice tonight then, don't I?

 

2) it has been so long since I have been in a grocery store (other than running in for cat food a couple weeks ago) that I am completely out of my element when I go in (for instance, to buy cat food :D). So, no, I don't spend a great deal of time reading labels. I do look things up to see where they come from but, you know, when you're ordering organic dried beans, there aren't any ingredients. In label reading, though, I subscribe to Michael Pollan's rule in In Defense of Food: I don't buy things with more than seven ingredients (not counting water) and the ingredients have to be items I can identify as food themselves.

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Niffercoo, I'd never thought of Rhogam as being a contributing factor to my kids' mercury intake. I didn't even know it had thimerosol in it. And I had it with all three of my pregnancies, because of a threatened miscarriage in my first one and not being sure of my dh's blood type (I'm negative for sure).

 

Ack.

 

And I've been told (for what that's worth) that mercury was in 'silver' fillings too, not sure if it's still true though. Or if it even was true. But I've got fillings, and so does just about every adult I know.

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And I've been told (for what that's worth) that mercury was in 'silver' fillings too, not sure if it's still true though. Or if it even was true. But I've got fillings, and so does just about every adult I know.
It used to be, but isn't any more. So it depends on how recent you had your fillings done.
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