Unveiling Glyphosate - How It Affects Our Health
As I read this article below, it sparked a question in my mind.
Click on photo to read article
Does everyone actually know what ‘Roundup’ is? The main ingredient in the product Roundup is GLYPHOSATE. An Instagram poll I did on my page recently, concluded that 33% of people did not know what glyphosate was.
Roundup containing glyphosate is common herbicide for the backyard that gets rid of those pesky weeds in our gardens. But that is just a small use for the big chemical.
Glyphosate is a herbicide introduced in 1974 by the agriculture conglomerate, Monsanto. This herbicide was developed to target certain plants/weeds and to prevent them from growing. For use in large farms, this chemical was used to spray on crops and kill the weeds to allow the specific crops to thrive for a successful harvest a high crop yield.
A Breakdown of Glyphosate
Glyphosate is a chemical, specifically a herbicide, a substance that is toxic to plants. Glyphosate is a non-selective herbicide meaning that it is non selective in the types of plants that is kills. It works by poisoning the plant by preventing it from making certain proteins required for plant growth. It can be applied easily by spraying the plant that you want to die such as those pesky thistles that may grow in your lawn or it is also applied industrially to crops (wheat, corn, barley, oats) just before harvest to kill the leaves of the plant so the crop will dry out more quickly. This makes harvest more efficient.
Absorption of glyphosate is done through a plants leaves and not roots. It is localized when sprayed onto individual leaves. But when used as a crop desiccant to dry out the leaves of large crops, this herbicide is sprayed industrially by machine and is then scattered to the soil, where is can remain for up to 6 months. It is then absorbed by the plant’s root system. This becomes a huge problem especially in the monoculture of crops. (Which is the basis of primarily all wheat, corn, oat and barley crops are grown in the US and Canada) Glyphosate then seeps into groundwater, rivers and lakes due to over spray and rainwater flow. Glyphosate is the most common herbicide used on lawns, gardens, parks and school grounds.
Monoculture of crops is when only one crop species is in a field at one time with no crop rotation. This depletes the soil of all nutrients and leaves the bees with only one source of pollen as a food source. The farmer becomes dependent on chemical insecticides, disease resistant genetically modified plants, and soil fumigation (a pre-plant application of pesticides to kill the bugs that live in the soil that could harm the crops).
The Approval of Glyphosate
When this chemical was approved in 1974, initial testing found that it posed low risk to humans and therefore a high acceptable exposure limit was set. But like anything with long term data, they have now concluded that glyphosate is carcinogenic and long term, high level exposure leads to illness and disease such as Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
Although still legal to use in Canada and the US, countries like France, Netherlands, Belgium and Mexico have banned this chemical for use and there are other countries that have limited use. Italy for example does not use this as a harvest desiccant.
Why is glyphosate so popular as a herbicide? Two words: Cheap and Effective. When patents expired in the 1990’s, low cost versions from China flooded the market.
How Do We Avoid Glyphosate?
Well that is the question isn’t it. It is hard to do really when it is used so liberally on our food and sprayed in the air we breathe. But there are things we can do.
Look for ‘glyphosate residue free’ products and labels.
Buy organic when possible. Certified organic produce and other crops are grown without the use of herbicides and other chemicals.
If you are a home gardener, do not use weed killer and opt for a non toxic method instead.
Reduce your processed food intake. Foods with glyphosate residues are found in GMO corn, GMO potatoes, GMO soy and wheat desiccated with glyphosate.
The Environment Working Group (EWG) has measured levels of glyphosate in foods and found the list to contain more then the allowed amount of 160 ppb for children.
The most glyphosate-contaminated products were:
Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch (833 ppb)
Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bars, Maple Brown Sugar (566 ppb)
Nature Valley Granola Cups, Almond Butter (529 ppb)
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios (400 ppb)
Nature Valley Baked Oat Bites (389 ppb)
Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bars, Oats and Honey (320 ppb)
Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bars, Peanut Butter (312 ppb)
Nature Valley Granola Cups, Peanut Butter Chocolate (297 ppb)
Nature Valley Fruit & Nut Chewy Trail Mix Granola Bars, Dark Chocolate Cherry (275 ppb)
Nature Valley Protein Granola, Oats and Dark Chocolate (261 ppb)
Multi Grain Cheerios (216 ppb)
Nature Valley Soft-Baked Oatmeal Squares, Blueberry (206 ppb)
Fiber One Soft-Baked Cookies, Oatmeal Raisin (204 ppb)
Nature Valley Granola, Peanut Butter Creamy & Crunchy (198 ppb)
Nature Valley Biscuits with Almond Butter (194 ppb)
Glyphosate in the News
Over the years there have been many claims and lawsuits against Bayer/Monsanto. (Bayer bought out Monsanto in 2016. Bayer is one of the largest pharmaceutical and biomedical company in the world). Many have been settled for billions of dollars. In 2020 Bayer paid our 9.6 billion to settle ongoing lawsuits in the US. This is in addition to the latest settlement of 2.25 billion this month.
Bayer had agreed to stop selling glyphosate in it small home weed killer products as of 2023 but Bayer continues to distribute glyphosate in all professional and agriculture industry. Bayer continues to ‘fully stands behind its product as safe’. This is supported by a team of scientists that still conclude that
exposures to glyphosate from food are below the amount that can be ingested daily over a lifetime with reasonable certainty of no harm.
But isn’t it funny that this team of scientist are also employees of Bayer. READ BELOW.
Other newsworthy articles:
Bayer to end glyphosate sales to US consumers (acs.org)
Bayer to Buy Monsanto, Creating a Massive Seeds and Pesticides Company - Scientific American
Opinion: Roundup verdict shows need for greater transparency in Canada (msn.com)
As I took the deep dive into researching and writing this article it has taken me down a long rabbit hole from chemical approval and use, to monoculture crops of food and to the corrupt pharmaceutical industry who now has control of the food.
It also got me thinking about the rise of allergies, autoimmune disorders, etc. that seems to circle around wheat and gluten specifically. My own journey of a gluten sensitivity came into question when I ate pizza crust made from flour imported directly from Italy with no reaction recently. What makes their flour/wheat different then what we use in Canada and the US? They do no desiccate with glyphosate prior to harvest is the big one. There is no chemical residue on the processed wheat. Maybe our bodies are not reacting to the wheat/gluten but to the chemical that is sprayed on the plant…
As I leave it here, rest assured this is not the last article I research and write on this subject. If you have found this article interesting and informative, please share with others. The more who know about what is in our food supply, the louder we can become.
Danni
I am so glad you wrote this article. GMO foods were specifically designed to withstand the dousing of glyphosate. After visiting Italy 10 years ago and not having any GI problems, I only buy Italian flour and use it in all my cooking and baking. No problems ever, which lead me to think exactly what you write here - the gluten and other allergies may be from GMO foods and foods sprayed with glyphosate. I recently wrote an article on Greek honey. Greece does not have problems with bee colony collapse like the U.S. GMO foods and glyphosate are not allowed in their agriculture. These countries may not be perfect but at least they value their food system and their people with laws. If you don’t you will have a very sick population.
Is Nature Valley the worst?