A major study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, found a significant reduction in cancer risk in those individuals who eat lots of organic food. If you want to be one of those individuals, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) suggests you refrain from eating oat-based cereals made by General Mills or Quaker. Here's why:
The EWG hired Anresco Laboratories to test samples of 28 different breakfast products made by Quaker and General Mills. In all but 2 of the products tested, the amount of Monsanto's weed killer Roundup was found at levels that endanger the lives of children, i.e., higher than 160 parts per billion (ppb)*. As you no doubt recall, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) deems the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, "probably carcinogenic to humans." This decision was reached after the review, in 2015, of U.S., Canadian, and Swedish epidemiological studies of glyphosate. Real-world exposures and genotoxicity were the basis for these studies. Genotoxicity is the damaging effect a chemical can have on DNA. The damage triggers mutations in DNA that can lead to cancer.
In contrast, the EPA has found the amounts of glyphosate in these oat-based breakfast products to be acceptable. Their research is based upon studies paid for by Monsanto that ignore independent research connecting Roundup with genotoxicity. Since the literature review of 2015, an additional 26 of 27 published studies report that glyphosate can be genotoxic. The FDA did not release its own glyphosate tests for more than a year, which were not conducted on oats or wheat. This oversight is unfortunate, because both constitute the main crops to which glyphosate is applied as a pre-harvest drying agent. Both the makers of the breakfast products in question defend the use of contaminated oats, stating the glyphosate found on them falls at or below federal standards.
It should be noted that the EPA's standards for pesticides are heavily influenced by lobbying done by the food industry. The government's standards do not change as often as they should, and are frequently outdated, rather than being based upon the best and most recent research. If your family has a proclivity for cancer, as mine does, you will want to take the advice of the authors of that major study cited at the beginning of this article to heart. Eat all the organic foods you can grow or lay your hands on!
*a standard established by the EWG
With thanks to the Environmental Working Group.
The EWG hired Anresco Laboratories to test samples of 28 different breakfast products made by Quaker and General Mills. In all but 2 of the products tested, the amount of Monsanto's weed killer Roundup was found at levels that endanger the lives of children, i.e., higher than 160 parts per billion (ppb)*. As you no doubt recall, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) deems the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, "probably carcinogenic to humans." This decision was reached after the review, in 2015, of U.S., Canadian, and Swedish epidemiological studies of glyphosate. Real-world exposures and genotoxicity were the basis for these studies. Genotoxicity is the damaging effect a chemical can have on DNA. The damage triggers mutations in DNA that can lead to cancer.
In contrast, the EPA has found the amounts of glyphosate in these oat-based breakfast products to be acceptable. Their research is based upon studies paid for by Monsanto that ignore independent research connecting Roundup with genotoxicity. Since the literature review of 2015, an additional 26 of 27 published studies report that glyphosate can be genotoxic. The FDA did not release its own glyphosate tests for more than a year, which were not conducted on oats or wheat. This oversight is unfortunate, because both constitute the main crops to which glyphosate is applied as a pre-harvest drying agent. Both the makers of the breakfast products in question defend the use of contaminated oats, stating the glyphosate found on them falls at or below federal standards.
It should be noted that the EPA's standards for pesticides are heavily influenced by lobbying done by the food industry. The government's standards do not change as often as they should, and are frequently outdated, rather than being based upon the best and most recent research. If your family has a proclivity for cancer, as mine does, you will want to take the advice of the authors of that major study cited at the beginning of this article to heart. Eat all the organic foods you can grow or lay your hands on!
*a standard established by the EWG
With thanks to the Environmental Working Group.
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