If glyphosate
had to be listed as an ingredient on nutrition labels, it would be
listed above vitamins D and B12 on Honey Nut Cheerios
Environmental
Working Group (EWG) tested 28 Cheerios and Quaker Oats products for
glyphosate contamination. All were contaminated
At 2,746 ppb
and 2,837 ppb, Quaker Oatmeal Squares brown sugar and honey nut flavors
contained nearly 18 times more glyphosate than the EWG’s safety
threshold of 160 ppb
Glyphosate
testing by The Detox Project has found glyphosate in human hair. Seven
of the 10 hair samples contained over 66 ppb; six also contained AMPA,
the main metabolite of glyphosate, at 330 ppb or higher
A French study
found people who consumed the most organic food were 25 percent less
likely to develop cancer, including Non-Hodgkin lymphoma — linked to
glyphosate — other lymphomas and postmenopausal breast cancer
Concerns over the health effects of
glyphosate — the active ingredient in Roundup and other weed killer
formulations — continue to rise as evidence of harm and widespread
exposure keeps accumulating.
In recent years, researchers have discovered it may affect your
body's ability to produce fully functioning proteins, inhibit the shikimate pathway (found in gut bacteria) and interfere with the function of cytochrome P450 enzymes (required for activation of vitamin D and the creation of nitric oxide and cholesterol sulfate).
Glyphosate also chelates important minerals; disrupts sulfate
synthesis and transport; interferes with the synthesis of aromatic amino
acids and methionine, resulting in folate and neurotransmitter
shortages; disrupts your microbiome by acting as an antibiotic; impairs
methylation pathways; and inhibits pituitary release of thyroid
stimulating hormone, which can lead to hypothyroidism.1,2
Roundup has also been linked to certain cancers.3 In March 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as a "probable carcinogen" (Class 2A),4 based on "limited evidence" showing the weed killer can cause Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and lung cancer in humans.
Since then, thousands of individuals have filed suit against Monsanto, blaming Roundup for their Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.5
The first case to go to jury trial resulted in a stunning guilty
verdict, and Monsanto was ordered to pay the plaintiff, Dewayne Johnson,
$289 million in damages.6
According to the ruling, Monsanto "acted with malice or oppression"
and was responsible for "negligent failure" by not warning consumers
about the carcinogenicity of its product. A judge recently upheld the
guilty verdict, but reduced the damages to $78 million.7,8,9 Bayer, which now owns Monsanto, is also facing several class action lawsuits over crop damage caused by dicamba.10
Another Round of Food Testing Raises Concerns About Glyphosate in Food Supply
A second round of food testing11,12
by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) now reveals glyphosate is a
staple contaminant in Cheerios breakfast cereals and Quaker Oats
products. All 28 samples contained glyphosate; 26 at levels suspected to
be harmful to children's health.
In the first round of testing,13
published in August 2018, 43 out of 45 food products made with
conventionally grown oats tested positive for glyphosate, 31 of which
had glyphosate levels higher than EWG scientists believe would be safe
for children. This included Quaker Dinosaur Eggs instant oatmeal, Cheerios cereal, Nature Valley granola bars, Quaker steel cut oats and Back to Nature Classic Granola.
Five of 16 organic oat foods also contained glyphosate, although at
levels below EWG's health benchmark of 160 parts per billion (ppb). (For
comparison, the legal limit set by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) for glyphosate in oats is 30,000 ppb.)
However, while the EWG's proposed safety level is nearly 188 times
more stringent than that of the EPA, Alex Lu, an associate professor of
environmental exposure biology at Harvard, who has researched pesticides
in children's diets, believes EWG's threshold is conservative and may
still be too high. "This is especially true for parents buying breakfast
cereals for their infants and children," he told Business Insider.14
In this latest round of testing, EWG focused exclusively on Cheerios
and Quaker Oats products. Of the 28 products sampled this time around,
Quaker Oatmeal Squares (brown sugar and honey nut flavors) fared the
worst, containing nearly 18 times more glyphosate than the EWG's safety
threshold (2,746 ppb and 2,837 ppb respectively).
In third and fourth place came Cheerios Oat Crunch (cinnamon flavor)
and Quaker Overnight Oats, with 1,171 ppb and 1,029 ppb of glyphosate
respectively. You can find a complete list of test results on EWG's
website.15 As noted by EWG:
"This round of tests confirms and amplifies EWG's findings from
the first round, with levels of glyphosate consistently above our
children's health benchmark in every sample but two."
There's No Safe Limit for Pesticides for Children
As you'd expect, General Mills (which makes Cheerios) and Quaker
(owned by PepsiCo.) insist their products are safe since they comply
with EPA standards, and that the glyphosate levels are too minute to
pose any health risks anyway.
In a statement to CNN, a General Mills spokesperson said, "The
extremely low levels of pesticide residue cited in recent news reports
is a tiny fraction of the amount the government allows."16 However, there are a number of problems with this stance.
First of all, just because it's within legal limits doesn't mean it's
safe. There's evidence suggesting the EPA has colluded with Monsanto to
downplay glyphosate's harmful effects, and since glyphosate has for
decades been wrongly believed to be harmless, there's reason to suspect
EPA limits — which were set in 2008, well before most of the
incriminating evidence against glyphosate came out — may be too high. As
noted by EWG:17
"EWG does not believe chemicals linked to cancer belong in
children's food. Our recommended maximum daily intake of glyphosate in
food is 0.01 milligrams. For a 60-gram portion of food, this daily
intake limit translates to a safety standard of 160 ppb of glyphosate.
This health benchmark is based on the risks of lifetime exposure,
because small, repeated exposures can add up if someone eats food
containing glyphosate every day."
Indeed, few people, and children in particular, eat only a single
serving of a single food containing glyphosate on any given day, and
when just about every food on the market is contaminated with
glyphosate, how can anyone claim children are consuming safe or
negligible levels?
Urine output of glyphosate shot up by more than 1,200 percent between 1993 and 2016,18
so clearly glyphosate exposure is a growing problem. Even if there were
limited danger from glyphosate, no organization or agency is looking at
the synergistic effects of combining it with other chemicals in our
food supply, including other pesticides.
It's also important to realize there's no known safe limit for any pesticide for children.
There is no published scientific evidence to demonstrate any level of
safety for children. There are, however, studies indicating that there
really is no level at which pesticides are safe for children since:
Chemicals in parts per trillion amounts can have an effect on fetal
development, and may affect a child all through puberty and beyond
Children's detoxification pathways are not yet fully developed. They
do not have the detoxification enzymes in their livers that adults
have, so their ability to eliminate even tiny amounts of pesticides and
other harmful chemicals is limited
More Glyphosate Than Vitamin D or B12 in Some Breakfast Products
What's more, EWG makes a really compelling comparison in this last report:19
"[W]hen EWG scientists compared the amounts of added vitamins and
nutrients to the amount of glyphosate contamination in Honey Nut
Cheerios, we discovered that if pesticide contamination were required on
ingredient labels, glyphosate would be listed above vitamins D and
B12."
This is an explosive conclusion. These kinds of breakfast cereals are
marketed as "good nutrition," in part due to being fortified with
important nutrients, yet they contain higher amounts of toxic glyphosate
than added vitamins! That's nothing short of crazy.
Oats Would Have Virtually No Glyphosate Residues if Farmers Quit Using the Chemical as a Preharvest Drying Agent
One key point to realize here is that there's no good reason for this
massive glyphosate contamination. While genetically engineered
Roundup-ready crops will as a rule contain glyphosate, this chemical is
unnecessarily sprayed on wheat, barley and oats as a preharvest
desiccant to dry the grain faster.
As noted by EWG, "In fact, the highest levels of glyphosate are found on foods treated this way, and unlike GMO corn
and soybeans, these foods often make up a large part of the American
diet." Farmers do not need to use glyphosate in this way, and these
kinds of test results clearly indicate that we as consumers must insist
on a change.
EWG, along with nearly a dozen food companies, recently filed a petition20
with the EPA, urging the agency to prohibit the use of glyphosate as a
preharvest drying agent. By eliminating glyphosate from this practice,
much of this contamination simply would not occur. As noted by EWG:21
"Using glyphosate for harvesting oats is not necessary and not
worth risking children's health … Protecting children's health from
pesticides is essential, and cancer-causing chemicals do not belong in
children's meals, whether served at home, in a child care center or at
school …
You can take steps to minimize hefty doses of glyphosate in foods
by choosing organic. Although small amounts of glyphosate have been
detected in some organic foods, every organic sample tested in our first
study was well below EWG's health benchmark.
Tell companies to step up and get glyphosate out of kids breakfast food by signing our petition … "
EWG president, Ken Cook adds, "Our message to General Mills, Quaker
and other food companies is that you can take the simple step of telling
your oat farmers to stop using glyphosate. You can hide behind an
outdated federal standard, or you can listen to your customers and take
responsibility for cleaning up your supply chain. It's your choice."
Novel Testing Project Reports Finding Glyphosate in Human Hair
Other glyphosate testing done by The Detox Project22 in collaboration with Kudzu Science reports finding glyphosate in human hair samples.23
Seven of the 10 hair samples contained over 66 ppb — far higher than
the 3 ppb previously found in urine samples — and six of them also
contained AMPA, the main metabolite of glyphosate, at 330 ppb or higher.
While urine testing reveals what you've been exposed to in the past two
to three weeks, hair testing shows your accumulated exposure over the
past three to four months. Sustainable Pulse reports:24
"The Kudzu Science mass spectrometry gold standard method used
for testing glyphosate, AMPA and glufosinate is fully validated, which
gives these results even more significance.
The Detox Project director, Henry Rowlands, stated … 'Even at
this early stage of testing we believe it is vital to warn the public
and regulators that glyphosate is being found in human hair. The levels
found are surprising to everyone involved, as we have been working on
urine testing with university and commercial laboratories over the past
four years and we have never seen such results.'
One of the main questions now for the public, scientists,
regulators and the pesticide industry, is how are such levels of the
world's most used herbicide first entering the blood stream and then
ending up in our hair?"
Food Testing Strongly Suggests Glyphosate Contamination Is a Massive Problem
Aside from the tests already mentioned, a number of others have made
it crystal clear that our food supply is suffering from severe
glyphosate contamination. For example:
U.S. Department of Agriculture testing done in 2011 revealed glyphosate in all soybean samples tested.25
Limited testing for glyphosate done by the FDA in
2016 found glyphosate in virtually all foods tested, including wheat
crackers, granola cereal, corn meal, oatmeal products and honey.26 The only food found to be free of glyphosate was broccoli.
The glyphosate in corn was found to exceed tolerance levels. It was
detected at 6.5 parts per million (ppm) and the legal limit is (5.0
ppm).
In 2016, tests27
conducted by the nonprofit organizations Food Democracy Now! and The
Detox Project found glyphosate residues in a variety of foods including
Doritos, Oreos and Stacy's Pita Chips.
Glyphosate has even been detected in PediaSure
Enteral Formula nutritional drink, which is given to infants and
children via feeding tubes. Thirty percent of the samples tested
contained levels of glyphosate over 75 ppb — far higher levels than have
been found to destroy gut bacteria in chickens (0.1 ppb).28
The Health Research Institute Labs
(HRI Labs), an independent laboratory that tests both micronutrients
and toxins found in food, is compiling data on the pervasiveness of
glyphosate in the food supply. HRI has found glyphosate in Ben & Jerry's ice cream
(10 of the 11 ice cream samples contained substantial levels), orange
juice, grains, legumes and beans, just to name a few. As in EWG's tests,
Quaker Oats was found to contain very high levels of glyphosate.
When Moms Across America29 used HRI Labs to test lunch food products, they found glyphosate in samples of almond milk, veggie burgers,30 hummus31 and more.
Moms Across America also tested orange juice in 201732
and 2018. This year, the glyphosate level in orange juice ranged from
2.99 ppb to 17.16 ppb depending on the brand, with Tropicana having the
highest glyphosate levels of brands tested.33
HRI Labs has also analyzed more than 1,200 urine
samples from U.S. residents. This testing is being done as part of a
research project that will provide valuable information about the
presence of glyphosate in the diet and how lifestyle and location
affects people's exposure to agrochemicals. Among their findings:
76 percent of people tested have some level of glyphosate in their system
Men typically have higher levels than women
People who eat oats on a regular basis have twice as much glyphosate
in their system as people who don't (likely because oats are desiccated
with glyphosate before harvest)
People who eat organic food on a regular basis have an 80 percent
lower level of glyphosate than those who rarely eat organic. This
indicates organic products are a safer choice
People who eat five or more servings of vegetables per day have
glyphosate levels that are 50 percent lower than those who eat fewer
vegetables
Organic Food Cuts Cancer Risk
Monsanto and the pesticide industry in general would like you to
believe their products are harmless; if not entirely, then surely in the
"trace" amounts found in food. The evidence, however, paints a
different picture.
Several studies have shown organic foods contain far lower amounts of
pesticide residues than conventional foods, and recent research34
found people who eat mostly organic indeed have a significantly lower
risk of cancer than those who eat mostly conventional fare.
The study,35
led by French government scientists, tracked the food intake of nearly
69,000 people for four years. Those who consumed the most organic food
were 25 percent less likely to develop cancer, including Non-Hodgkin
lymphoma — which has been linked to glyphosate specifically — other
lymphomas and postmenopausal breast cancer. According to the authors:36
"[N]atural pesticides allowed in organic farming in the European
Union exhibit much lower toxic effects than the synthetic pesticides
used in conventional farming … Although our findings need to be
confirmed, promoting organic food consumption in the general population
could be a promising preventive strategy against cancer."
How You Can Test Your Glyphosate Level
While both the USDA's Pesticide Data Program and the FDA measure
pesticide residues in foods, neither of them include glyphosate in their
testing as of yet, ostensibly because it's too expensive and partly
because glyphosate has been assumed safe (based on Monsanto's own
evidence).
The good news is you no longer need to rely on the government when it
comes to glyphosate testing. HRI Labs has developed home test kits for
both water and urine, so you can test your own level at any time, thereby assessing your own individual exposure.
The current threshold for HRI Labs is 0.5 ppb. If you're below that
threshold, your exposure is low and you're unlikely to experience
adverse effects. If your levels are high, you would be wise to address
your diet and consider buying more organic foods.
You may also want to consider some form of detoxification protocol,
and take steps to repair the damage to your gut caused by glyphosate and
other agrochemicals. Chances are, if your glyphosate levels are high,
you probably have a number of other pesticides in your system as well. Fermented foods, particularly kimchi,
are potent chelators of these kinds of chemicals. Taking activated
charcoal after a questionable meal can help bind and excrete chemicals
as well. Remember to stay well-hydrated to facilitate the removal of
toxins through your liver, kidneys and skin. Using a sauna on a regular
basis is also recommended to help eliminate both pesticides and heavy
metals you may have accumulated.
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