“We need to be happy and not worry about everything, and then again we can’t live our lives in denial.”

According to the findings of several new studies, glyphosate—the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer has been linked to cancer, specifically non-Hodgkin lymphoma—this secret ingredient is in almost every beer, wine and also grains and beans that have been tested. This, of course, could lead to serious health problems. “A chemical compound found in the world’s most widely used weed killer can have disrupting effects on sexual development, genes and beneficial gut bacteria at doses considered safe, according to a wide-ranging 13-week pilot study in rats conducted by The Ramazzini Institute. Disruption of the microbiome has been associated with a number of negative health outcomes, such as obesity, diabetes and immunological problems,” says Daniele Mandrioli, one of the study’s authors.[1]

 

All though the amounts found in wine and beer were far below the safety limits for glyphosate set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Wine Institute also declares that “wines sold in the U.S. are safe to enjoy,” we need to consider that this is just one daily consumable product, and when combined with food crops, it pushes the safety markers to the dangerous levels with the bioaccumulation of toxins. And, as we know, it really goes beyond wine and beer or oat-based food.

While last year, two rounds of tests commissioned by Environmental Working Group (EWG) found glyphosate in more than 95% of oat products, this year’s test show that 100% of wheat-based foods are also contaminated as well as other grains and beans. It means that most of the foods you eat in a day—your breakfast cereal, the pasta for lunch or beans in your favourite Mexican food, your afternoon snack and after-dinner wine—very likely contain this herbicide even if you choose non-GMO options. Because the problem is that glyphosate is not only used with genetically engineered grains and beans, according to the Cornucopia Institute it is also sprayed just before harvest on non-GMO crops to speed up the drying process referred to as desiccation, it’s now become part of the harvesting process and is highly toxic.

So what are we supposed to do? Should we forget about the dangers, and just live and enjoy the life in its fullness or should we take note, and acknowledge the facts and become proactive, first to protest the use of harmful chemicals in our food and also use preventive measures to compensate by learning to calculate. We need to be happy and not worry about everything, and then again we can’t live our lives in denial.  Have your wine and beer and enjoy, and look for ways to compensate by looking for non-GMO options and making a mental note that “for my wine I will buy more organic.”

The presence of glyphosate in our food is becoming a major health concern and not just in the world of tests and studies but also in public. Probably the biggest controversy regarding this subject is that the World Health Organisation (WHO) agency—the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)—judged glyphosate to be a “probable human carcinogen” in 2015, US and European regulators still consider it acceptable for use. The truth is that Round Up should not sold on the shelf and used at home as a weed killer nor should glyphosate be found in our food and we really need to be aware what “secret ingredients” we are feeding ourselves with.

 

References:

 

Key Facts About Wine and Glyphosate. https://www.wineinstitute.org/the-facts

[1] Neslen, Arthur. 2018.