There is glyphosate in our food, including infant cereal. Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world.

Tony Mitra, a retired engineer living in Vancouver, asked the CFIA for test data on glyphosate, and they provided it this year. The CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) has been testing the food in Canada for only about 2 years.

Mr. Mitra has found (so far):

  • Infant cereals are contaminated, except for Nature’s Path Organic and imports from Germany, Poland and Switzerland.
  • Wheat and its products are contaminated. Bran is extremely high on a relative basis. Organic is better in all wheat cases.
  • Gluten-free products are relatively high. Organic gluten-free products are much lower.
  • Rice is not bad, especially from India and Thailand. No mention so far of organic.
  • Legumes from the US and Canada are contaminated, especially garbanzos/ chickpeas. No mention so far of organic. Chinese imports appear to not contain glyphosate.
  • Fruits and vegetables are generally without glyphosate (preliminary review).

General principles emerging are:

  1. if it is a grain or legume grown by conventional methods in Canada or the US, the more likely the contamination; and
  2. the more processed, the more likely the contamination.

Glyphosate is used in conventional farming in North America to: (1) kill weeds; and (2) make growing crops (like chickpeas and wheat) “dry-down” (desiccate) for harvest.  When used as a desiccant, it can get right into the seed.

Mr. Mitra is still working on this project, and indicates the results are not complete. He is periodically posting his findings and providing backup on his blog at www.tonu.org.  He intends to complete his analysis and publish an e-book in the Spring.

 

 

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