Avoiding GMOs isn’t enough to keep you safe from Roundup
One of the most dangerous weed killers around is being sprayed all over dozens of the foods we eat every day.
And it looks like we’ve been kept in the dark about it.
For years I’ve been warning you about the hazards of GMO foods — ones that have been sprayed with glyphosate (Roundup) that’s been linked to everything from intestinal problems to cancer.
But now it looks like they’ve found a new way to sneak dangerous levels of Roundup into foods that are supposedly not GMO at all.
It’s a dangerous secret Monsanto — and some of the largest food producers in the world — hoped we’d never learn about.
And it may be behind a digestive disease that’s becoming a full-blown epidemic.
We were told that by just steering clear of processed foods with genetically-modified ingredients such as soy, corn and canola, we would be safe from Roundup.
But it looks like going “GMO-free” isn’t good enough anymore.
It turns out the farmers everywhere, with Monsanto’s encouragement, have been applying Roundup to lots of non-GMO crops. And that includes things you would never suspect like lentils, peas, non-GMO soybeans, and especially wheat.
They’re doing it because apparently Roundup (in addition to being linked to more illnesses than you could shake a stick at) also acts as a “desiccant” or drying agent.
Just like those little packets they put in new shoes or purses — the ones that warn you should never put them in your mouth.
And that’s pretty good advice as far as Roundup is concerned, too. We’re talking about a chemical that has caused terrible kidney and liver damage, and that even the World Health Organization says can probably cause cancer.
Worse still, the application of Roundup to these crops — ones we thought were safe — may account for more than half of the exposure we get from our diets, according to Dr. Charles Benbrook, who recently published a paper on the snowballing use of glyphosate.
In fact, such pre-harvest usage is referred to by seed company owner Tom Ehrhardt as a “‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy in the industry.”
No surprise there, right? Because if they actually told us which products they were using Roundup on, we’d all stay away from them in droves.
As Ehrhardt puts it, “Can you imagine the public’s response if they knew that glyphosate is being sprayed on the oats in their Cheerios only weeks before it is manufactured?”
I don’t think we have to “imagine” anything at all — we’d all be outraged.
And some experts think that all this Roundup may be what’s really behind the explosion of gluten sensitivities, like celiac disease. Problems with gluten in wheat used to be pretty rare, but now it seems like we all know someone who can’t eat the stuff.
A study done by an MIT scientist states that the “alarming” increase in celiac disease in the U.S. may be caused by excessive exposure to herbicides, especially the glyphosate that ends up in our food. Other research in animals found that it kills gut flora making wheat difficult to digest.
All of which suggests that we may have underestimated just how serious and widespread a problem the use of Roundup poses. And that identifying and avoiding GMOs is only part of the solution.
While it may be impossible to kick glyphosate out of our diet completely, by following these three tips we’ll at least have a fighting chance to keep our exposure as low as possible.
Tip #1: Certain crops are more likely to have this “off-label” application of glyphosate than others, so try to buy only organic bread and other items made from wheat flour.
Tip #2: Other foods that you should only buy organic include: lentils, peas, dry beans, flax, oats, barley, and potatoes.
Tip #3: Non-GMO soy is also quite likely to have been sprayed. So it looks like the best measure here is to eat either organic soy or as few foods containing soy ingredients as possible (which aren’t particularly good for you anyway).
Sources:
“Why is glyphosate sprayed on crops right before harvest?” Ken Roseboro, March 5, 2016, EcoWatch, ecowatch.com
