Is mercury lurking in high-fructose corn syrup?

I would have loved to call this post an "Action Alert" urging you to write the "powers that be" at the Columbia Tribune newspaper in Columbia, MO, asking them to reinstate the long-running and widely read weekly Food Sleuth column written by a friend and colleague Melinda Hemmelgarn, MS, RD. Each Food Sleuth column is always packed with vital information that helps consumers connect the dots between how our food and other products are grown and/or processed, our personal health, and the economic and environmental health of our communities, our nation, indeed our planet. I have highlighted her columns several times as "must reads" since beginning this blog.

I know newspapers all over the country are cutting staff and content, and admittedly I have been unsuccessful at convincing my own local paper The Ann Arbor News to carry her column. However, I expect and look forward to future (and bigger) opportunities to come for Melinda's important voice as she is a shining example of the Quaker saying "Let your life speak".

In the meantime, I urge you to read Melinda's last column "Is mercury lurking in high-fructose corn syrup?" (plus read her hundreds of archived articles - search using hemmelgarn). It is yet one more reason why I am glad I have been vigilant for the past decade and more at label reading and refusing to purchase anything with high-fructose corn syrup in it. As I make my own crackers (see my previous post), I'll smile every time I roll out the dough, thinking about the many benefits of not consuming HFCS plus the many ways I am choosing to use my time nurturing my health.

In many ways, each weekly Food Sleuth column and all the posts on my blogs are "action alerts", giving information and examples of how each of us can take action to promote positive change every time we choose what we are eating. "Farm to fork" is certainly someone's tag-line already, but it represents a way of envisioning how every step of that process impacts our personal, local, and global health.

As I salute and wish the best for my friend, professional colleague, and fellow (sister) traveler, I'll close with one of my favorite quotations.

Every journey has a secret destination of which
the traveler is unaware.

~~Martin Buber

Truly, the future is unknown, but the best "actions", whatever they may be, are still to come. :-)

Diana Dyer, MS, RD