https://draxe.com/glyphosate-in-cereal/
Glyphosate in Cereal: Monsanto’s Weedkiller
Detected at Alarming Levels, Report Says
by <https://draxe.com/about-us>Christine Ruggeri, CHHC
Published: October 24, 2018
Environmental Working Group (EWG) just released
its second round of 2018 test results measuring
glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s
Roundup weed killer, in popular oat-based cereals and foods.
The nonprofit organization released the new
results after two companies, Quaker and General
Mills, told the public it has no reason to worry
about traces of glyphosate in its products.
Seems that’s not the case.
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Glyphosate in Cereal
In the latest batch of testing, all but two of
the products tested contained levels of the
potentially-carcinogenic weedkilling chemical
above 160 parts per billion (ppb), the health benchmark set by EWG.
These findings come two months after EWG released
its first series of tests measuring glyphosate in
popular children’s breakfast products. Still,
General Mills and Quaker Oats Company immediately
went on the defensive, claiming glyphosate levels
found in its foods fell within regulatory limits
set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
That may be true, but many public health experts
believe the levels of allowable glyphosate in
food are far too high and don’t properly protect
human health. Previously, Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) calculations suggest that
1- to 2-year-old children likely experience the
highest exposure to glyphosate, the potential
cancer-causing chemical used in
<https://draxe.com/monsanto-roundup/>Monsanto’s
Roundup. And according to the agency’s risk
assessment, the exposure level is 230 times
greater than EWG’s health benchmark of 160 ppb.
In the October 2018 batch of testing, EWG
commissioned Anresco Laboratories to test a range
of oat-based products, including 10 samples of
different types of General Mills’ Cheerios and 18
samples of Quaker brand products. These included
cereals, snack bars, granola and instant oats. Of
the 28 products tested, those with the highest
levels of glyphosate include:
(<https://www.ewg.org/release/roundup-breakfast-part-2-new-tests-weed-killer-found-all-kids-cereals-sampled>1)
* Quaker Oatmeal Squares, Honey Nut (2,837 ppb)
* Quaker Oatmeal Squares, Brown Sugar (2,746 ppb)
* Quaker Overnight Oats, Unsweetened with Chia Seeds (1,799 ppb)
* Cheerios, Oat Crunch Cinnamon (1,171 ppb)
* Quaker Overnight Oats, Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven (1,029 ppb)
* Quaker Breakfast Squares Soft Baked Bars, Peanut Butter (1,014 ppb)
* Quaker Breakfast Flats Crispy Snack Bars, Cranberry Almond (894 ppb)
* Apple Cinnamon Cheerios (868 ppb)
* Honey Nut Cheerios (833 ppb)
* Chocolate Cheerios (826)
The tested products contain glyphosate at levels
well above EWG’s safety standard of 160 ppb;
Quaker Oatmeal Squares breakfast cereal contained
levels of glyphosate 18 times higher than the benchmark.
----------
A Look at Previous Glyphosate in Cereal Testing
Earlier in the year, EWG set a more stringent
health benchmark for daily exposure to glyphosate
in foods than the EPA and tested an initial batch
of products. Considering EWG’s standard of 160
parts per billion (ppb), the following products
exceeded that limit in one or both samples
tested, with the starred products exceeding 400
ppb: (<https://www.ewg.org/childrenshealth/glyphosateincereal/#.W3QgP1Mvy9Y>2)
* Granola
* Back to Nature Classic Granola*
* Quaker Simply Granola Oats, Honey, Raisins & Almonds*
* Nature Valley Granola Protein Oats ‘n Honey
* Instant Oats
* Giant Instant Oatmeal, Original Flavor*
* Quaker Dinosaur Eggs, Brown Sugar, Instant Oatmeal*
* Umpqua Oats, Maple Pecan
* Market Pantry Instant Oatmeal, Strawberries & Cream
* Oat Breakfast Cereals
* Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal*
* Lucky Charms*
* Barbara’s Muligrain Spoonfuls, Original Cereal
* Kellogg’s Cracklin’ Oat Bran Oat Cereal
* Snack Bars
* Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bars, Oats ‘n Honey
* Whole Oats
* Quaker Steel Cut Oats*
* Quaker Old Fashioned Oats
* Bob’s Red Mill Steel Cut Oats
Companies negatively affected by these tests may
point to the EPA’s legal limit for glyphosate in
oats, which is 30 parts per million. But since
this outdated standard was set in 2008, the
International Agency for Research on Cancer
labeled glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic” and
the California Office of Environmental Health
Hazard Assessment categorized it as a “chemical
known to the state to cause cancer.”
EWG suggests that the solution is simple – keep
chemicals linked to cancer out of children’s
food. This may start with the EPA sharply
limiting glyphosate residues allowed on oats and
prohibiting the chemical’s use as a pre-harvest drying agent.
Earlier in the year, a jury found Monsanto liable
in a $289 million-dollar-cancer verdict, independent lab tests.
What does this mean for our children? Without
some serious changes made to the food industry
and EPA standards, they’ll continue to ingest
potentially toxic levels of glyphosate for
breakfast. Maybe this will be the last straw for consumers?
EWG turned to Eurofins, a nationally recognized
lab with extensive experience testing for
chemicals. This testing involved measuring the
amount of glyphosate found in popular products
containing oats. What is this a big deal? I’m glad you ask …
Glyphosate in cereal - Dr. Axe
Previous research suggests that glyphosate, the
active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, is
linked to the development of
<https://draxe.com/non-hodgkins-lymphoma/>non-Hodgkin’s
Lymphoma. The bad news? The latest testing
detected it in all but two of 45 non-organic
product samples. The list of products tested
includes Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Nature Valley granola bars and Quaker oats.
Alexis Temkin, PhD, an EWG toxicologist and the
author of the report, expressed her concerns
about these findings. “Parents shouldn’t worry
about whether feeding their children healthy oat
foods will also expose them to a chemical linked
to cancer. The government must take steps to
protect our vulnerable populations,” she said.
----------
Why Is Glyphosate in Our Food?
Why is there glyphosate in our food? According to
the U.S. Geological Survey, 250 million pounds of
glyphosate are sprayed on American crops each
year. Glyphosate is primarily used on Roundup
Ready corn and soybeans that are genetically
modified to withstand the herbicide.
Glyphosate is a systemic herbicide, meaning it’s
taken up inside of the plant, including the parts
livestock and humans wind up eating.
And on top of that, glyphosate is sprayed on
other non-GMO crops, like wheat, oats, barley and
beans, right before harvest. Farmers sometimes
call this “burning down” the crops and do this to
kill the food plants and dry them out so that they can be harvested sooner.
----------
How Much Glyphosate Is Too Much?
Why do we have to pay attention to glyphosate
levels in our food? The simple answer is that
glyphosate is linked to an elevated risk of
cancer. In fact, the World Health Organization
categorizes the weed-killing chemical as “probably carcinogenic in humans.”
So, really, any amount of glyphosate in our food
is concerning, especially when it’s found in our
children’s food. (And especially since children
consume it during critical stages of development.)
So how did EWG come up with the limit for child
glyphosate exposure? Using a cancer risk
assessment developed by California state
scientists, EWG calculated that glyphosate levels
above 160 parts per billion (ppb) are considered
too high for children. To break that down into
simpler terms a child should not ingest more
than 0.01 milligrams of glyphosate per day.
How did tEWG come up with this health benchmark?
Under California’s Proposition 65 registry of
chemicals known to cause cancer, the “No
Significant Risk Level” for glyphosate for the
average adult weighing about 154 pounds is 1.1
milligrams per day. This safety level is more
than 60 times lower than the standards set by the EPA.
To calculate the recommendation for children, EWG
took California’s increased lifetime risk of
cancer of one in 1 million (which is the number
used for many cancer-causing drinking water
contaminants), and added a 10-fold margin of
safety, which is recommended by the federal Food
Quality Protection Act to support children and
developing fetuses that have an increased
susceptibility to carcinogens. This is how EWG
reached the safety limit of 0.01 milligrams of glyphosate per day for children.
EWG’s health benchmark concerning the amount of
glyphosate that poses a threat in our food is
much more stringent than what the EPA allows.
Although this amount of glyphosate present in oat
products doesn’t seem like much in one portion,
imagine consuming that amount every day over a
lifetime. Exposure to this toxic herbicide will
certainly accumulate over time, which is worrisome, to say the least.
“The concern about glyphosate is for long-term
exposure. As most health agencies would say, a
single portion would not cause deleterious
effects,” explains Olga Naidenko, PhD, EWG’s
senior science advisor for children’s health.
“But think about eating popular foods such as
oatmeal every day, or almost every day that’s
when, according to scientific assessments, such
amounts of glyphosate might pose health harm.”
And there is some controversy over whether or not
we can trust government regulators to make sure
the food we eat is safe. This past April,
internal emails obtained by the nonprofit US
Right to Know revealed that the FDA has been
testing food for glyphosate for two years and
found “a fair amount.” But these findings haven’t
been released to the public. According to The
Guardian, the news outlet that obtained these
internal documents, an FDA chemist wrote: “I have
brought wheat crackers, granola cereal and corn
meal from home and there’s a fair amount in all
of them.”
(<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/30/fda-weedkiller-glyphosate-in-food-internal-emails>3)
According to Naidenko, “It is essential for
companies to take action and choose oats grown
without herbicides. This can be done, and EWG
urges government agencies such as the EPA, and
companies to restrict the use of herbicides that end up in food.”
----------
Glyphosate in Cereal: Organic vs. Non-Organic Products
What about organic cereals and oats? EWG findings
suggest that organic products contain
significantly less glyphosate that non-organic
products. To be exact, 31 out of 45 conventional
product samples contained glyphosate levels at or
higher than 160 ppb, while 5 out of 16 organic
brand products registered low levels of
glyphosate (10 to 30 ppb). Of all the organic
products tested, none of them contained a level
of glyphosate anywhere near the EWG benchmark of 160 ppb.
Glyphosate can get into organic foods by drifting
from nearby fields that grow conventional crops.
Organic products may also be cross-contaminated
during processing at a facility that also handles conventional crops.
While glyphosate was detected in some organic oat
products, the levels were much, much lower than
conventional products, or non-existent. So it
looks like the rule still stands to avoid
increased exposure to cancer-causing chemicals like glyphosate, choose organic.
----------
Final Thoughts on Glyphosate in Cereal
* EWG commissioned independent laboratory
tests to measure the levels of glyphosate present
in popular oat-based products. Scientists found
that almost three-fourths of the conventionally
grown products contained glyphosate levels that
are higher than what EWG considers safe for children.
* Feeding your family clean, healthy meals
may already feel like a daily challenge. We
shouldn’t have to worry about whether or not our
seemingly healthy choices contain toxic herbicides.
* To join EWG to get glyphosate out of our
food,
<https://www.ewg.org/childrenshealth/glyphosateincereal/#.W3QgP1Mvy9Y>take
action here.
