Lead in Wine

Today was day one of the OAND (Ontario Association of Naturopathic Doctors) annual association conference. Fantastic line-up of keynote speakers with a conference theme of Environmental Medicine. Last night David Suzuki officially opened the convention, which I unfortunately could not attend..... however....

Most people have heard of the mercury in fish debate and the mercury in dental amalgams story. But did you know mercury is also found in high concentrations in high fructose corn syrup? If you go to the iatp website you can see a whole list of common 'grocery store' purchases that have HFCS as a first or second ingredient that have a crazy high amount of mercury - Quaker Oatmeal to Go, Jack Daniels BBQ Sauce, Hershey's Chocolate Sauce, Pop- Tarts, among others!

Another little tidbit that stunned a lot of people in the room was the amount of lead in wine! For 432 wines tested in the bottle, the lead in domestic wines ranged from 1-521 parts per billion, with an average of 41. The level in imported wines ranged from 4-673 parts per billion with an average of 94. To put this in perspective the limit for lead in drinking water is 50 parts per billion.

I'll be back tomorrow with so more interesting tidbits....