If you are trying to “eat healthier” you are most likely reading package labels. If you are reading package labels you are most likely getting confused. The food industry wants you to be a little confused. A lot of the information on a label is regulated so that consumers are protected from false claims but some claims are still confusing. Do you choose “Organic” or will “Non-GMO” be ok?? What is the difference?
I have been thinking about this. For a long time I have chosen items with the “non-GMO” label because, well, it is good to eat REAL foods instead of genetically modified foods. Genetic modification of a plant is intended to do one of two things: make the plant be distasteful to bugs AND/OR make the plant stand up to being sprayed by an herbicide (Round Up). But, the non-GMO label is unregulated by the FDA and it leaves out the possibility that the ingredients in the product could be sprayed with Roundup (glyphosate) and that in itself is hazardous to health. In other words if you eat a food that has just the “non-GMO” label on it, you could be consuming glyphosate residue.
The “organic” label is stricter than the non-GMO label. It means there is no genetically modified organisms in the food, AND no Round Up herbicide was sprayed on it. It also means no artificial colors or ingredients are added. This is much healthier.
If you are buying none-of-the-above and are eating conventional foods (no special labeling) you are assuredly eating glyphosate residue. You may think that eating food sprayed with Round up is not possible in today’s modern world but it is. Many crops are sprayed with Round Up to desiccate or dry them out in the fields before harvest. This helps the farmer process the crops more easily. The crops routinely sprayed are wheat, oats, rice, beans, canola, soybeans, corn, sugar beets, and potatoes. This is done several weeks before harvest. The crop is then harvested and turned into breads, cookies, oils, sugars, breakfast cereals and many other products. And then you buy the products and eat them, yikes! Not only that, the crops are also fed to cattle and livestock as animal feed. Farmers only admit this practice anonymously . “I have talked with millers of conventionally produced grain and they all agree it’s very difficult to source oats, wheat, flax and triticale, which have not been sprayed with glyphosate prior to harvest,” he said. “It’s a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell policy’ in the industry.”
To be fair, the industry says that glyphosate decomposes quickly after it is sprayed on crops. However that is not always the case.
“In plants, glyphosate is taken up largely through the foliage and redistributed through the plant to roots and actively growing areas and metabolized within the plant with an approximate time to 50% dissipation of foliar residues ranging from approximately 2 days to 10-27 days” (Thompson et al. 1994, Newton et al. 1984; Feng and Thompson 1990).
That means it could still be present when the crop is made into your breakfast cereal. The half-life of glyphosate in soil ranges between 2 and 197 days; a typical field half-life of 47 days has been suggested.
Maybe you have heard that Round Up (glyphosate) is a possible carcinogen? California now lists glyphosate as a possible carcinogen. Exposure to glyphosate — the world’s most widely used, broad-spectrum herbicide and the primary ingredient in the weed-killer Roundup — increases the risk of some cancers by more than 40 percent, according to new research from the University of Washington. This is physical exposure not consumption of glyphosate.
Bayer (Monsanto) the maker of Round Up recently paid a huge settlement to a man who had cancer and used Round Up in his job. Thousands of other folks are also receiving settlements. More and more data is coming out concerning ingesting of glyphosate and a good article is here.
So how do you avoid eating such food products? Do you look for the non-GMO label? Do you look for the “organic” label? The only way to avoid genetically modified foods AND glyphosate is to buy foods with the organic label as much as possible.
Here is my last word: Genetic modification of a plant is intended to do one of two things: make the plant be distasteful to bugs AND/OR make the plant stand up to being sprayed by an herbicide (Round Up). Neither of these are good for humans or even farm animals. Glyphosate is insidious. Try to buy organic when possible. Support the organic industry.
I welcome your comments.