Politics in our Food

October 23, 2012

Dear Citizen for Health,
Halloween is approaching, and with it the challenge to maintain a healthy diet for our children. It's a time of year when nearly every family relaxes its restrictions on sweets, just a little, to enable kids to enjoy trick-or-treating. In order to do so in a measured, informed fashion, parents need to know what goes into the things their children consume.

This Halloween season, do your part to prevent the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) from "tricking" you about the "treats" that contain their processed additive, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Be vigilant - until we convince the FDA that product labels should be more forthcoming and note the concentration of HFCS therein, it takes some detective work to identify the threats lurking behind the package. For some advice on how to keep Halloween healthy - relatively - check out this post from FoodIdentityTheft.org blogger, Linda Bonvie.

Don't Let "Big Corn" Do What They Want At The Expense Of Consumers
We have been serving as the consumer watchdog responsible for telling fact from fiction as the CRA persists in its attempts to mislead the public about their artificial goop, HFCS.

What you can do:
We're gathering signatures through our project Food Identify Theft for a petition to US Food and Beverage companies urging them to reject the CRA's denial of consumer reality and say "NO" to HFCS. It will be delivered to the CEOs of the nation's largest food and beverage makers, grocery retailers and chain restaurants, as well as to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Please sign the petition here.

Linda Bonvie, blogger for Food Identity Theft and long-time CFH ally, has started her own petition to food and beverage manufacturers - please take a moment to sign that here.

Lastly, even though the FDA has "accepted" (note they did not use the term "approved") the CRA's claim that fructose concentrations in the HFCS found in foods within a range of 42-55% are "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS), the FDA specifically refused to recognize the safety of products containing more than 55% fructose. Data show that HFCS concentrations in many products, such as soft drinks, can be much higher - as much as 65% - and one company markets an HFCS additive that is 90% fructose according to the Chicago Tribune.

Regardless of the specific negative health impacts of HFCS in general, such concentrations of fructose are NOT generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by the FDA and are, therefore, even more troubling than HFCS55. That's why we've submitted a petition to the FDA advocating for labels clearly stating the concentration of fructose in any food item containing HFCS. We're also asking the FDA to take action against food sellers who use unapproved formulas of HFCS.

Please take a few moments to post comments directly to the FDA in support of our petition. You can do so here. (Please mention that you are a health-conscious food consumer. Let them know that you care about what you eat and that you require accurate information to make good decisions about your diet. If you have any professional connections to the food industry - science, administration, legal, labor, ANY - let the agency know. The FDA offers tips on commenting here).

Our goal: 100,000 signatures/comments from these three petitions. We can do it - with your help.
Take advantage of our new resources for spreading the word - click on any of the links below and share far and wide! Please also forward this alert to all those you know who want to control what they put into their bodies, and forgive us for any duplication or cross-posting of information you've already received as we continue to send alerts on this in coming weeks. We are working to cast as broad a net as possible to secure our signature/comment goal.

As always, thank you for your participation.
The Citizens for Health Team