Think twice before pouring a bowl of oat cereal for your child or munching on a chewy granola bar as a go-to snack.
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Major food companies are continuing to market popular children’s breakfast cereals and other types of foods as “healthy” with full knowledge that these food items contain glyphosate — the cancer-causing ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, according to the Environmental Working Group.
Glyphosate was identified as a probable human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2015. Roundup, manufactured by Monsanto (now Bayer), is the most heavily used agricultural chemical in history. The weed killer’s usage continues to grow dramatically every year, in spite of more than 13,000 pending lawsuits charging that Monsanto's herbicide Roundup caused the plaintiffs' Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Friends of the Earth tested oat cereal samples and 100% of the samples tested positive for glyphosate with the average level in the samples measuring 360 parts per billion — more than twice the level set by EWG scientists for lifetime cancer risk in children.
Glyphosate residue is prominent in oat-based foods, including granola bars, breads and cereals because farmers spray the plants with the herbicide shortly before harvest to dry out the crops, a process called desiccating.
The most significant use of glyphosate is in the Midwest, where the majority of corn and soy is produced; however, the weed killer is used throughout the U.S. More than 90% of corn and soy — ingredients commonly found in processed foods — is genetically engineered. Even though wheat, oats and barley are not GE, farmers in the colder, northern regions must wait for their crops to dry out before harvest, so the crops become a source of glyphosate because of the desiccant process.
Currently, there are no warning labels on your child’s favorite cereal, granola bars or other processed foods. When 28 Cheerios and Quaker Oats products were tested for glyphosate contamination, all tested positive. In fact, if glyphosate were listed as an ingredient on nutrition labels, it would have to be listed above vitamins D and B12 on Honey Nut Cheerios.
The legal limit in 1993 for glyphosate on oats was 0.1 ppm and has since been raised 300fold. Monsanto petitioned for the increase around the same time farmers began to use more Roundup as a desiccant on oat crops.
You can avoid the risks of glyphosates by choosing organic food and steering clear of processed foods. Studies show that subjects who ate an all-organic diet for only six days showed an average reduction of 70% in organophosphate pesticides (such as glyphosate). One study in France found that people who consumed the most organic food were 25% less likely to develop cancer, including Non-Hodgkin lymphoma — linked to glyphosate — other lymphomas and postmenopausal breast cancer.
The test results justify a long list of reasons to avoid processed foods and choose organic meats, dairy and produce whenever possible.