Unless you eat only organic foods, you are likely ingesting trace amounts of glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Roundup. Roundup is the weed killer used heavily by the agricultural industry.
Glyphosate was patented by Monsanto in 1974 as a weed killer for industrial agricultural use. Then the company marketed the product to consumers as a household herbicide. It is sprayed in staggering quantities on most commercially grown staple crops, including wheat, corn, soybean, beet, cotton, canola, and alfalfa.
However, the World Health Organization classified glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen” in 2015, and media interest in the potential health risks associated with the use of glyphosate has increased exponentially.
Glyphosate is used as a dessicant
What many people do not know is that glyphosate has been used as a ripening agent, or desiccant, since 1992. It is used in this manner for wheat and many other grains. This application stresses or kills the plants, to accelerate drying and speed the ripening of the grain immediately before harvest.
Desiccating wheat with glyphosate is common in years with wet weather. The practice is increasing in the Midwest as well as areas of Canada and Scotland, which is where the practice began. This pre-harvest application means there’s more glyphosate residue on the grain when it reaches the market than there would be if the chemical had only been used as an herbicide during the growing process.
In addition to wheat, glyphosate is also used as a desiccant on oats, rye, lentils, peas, flax, potatoes, buckwheat, and millet.
Some labs have tested common foods for the levels of glyphosate. The amount of glyphosate estimated in one slice of ordinary pizza is roughly 10 ppm. That level is enough to degrade human intestinal tight junctions in cell culture almost immediately upon contact.
The negative impact glyphosate can have on your health
According to some estimates, gluten intolerance and Celiac disease now affect approximately 5% of the population of North America and Europe. Symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, skin rashes, macrocytic anemia, and depression.
It is associated with numerous nutritional deficiencies, reproductive issues, and an increased risk of thyroid disease, kidney failure, and cancer. Some scientists have shown that the rise in Celiac disease seems to follow closely with the rise in glyphosate usage. It is a key causal factor.
Glyphosate was “classified as probably carcinogenic to humans,” according to a 2015 report from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the World Health Organization’s France-based cancer research arm.
The state of California has also moved to classify the herbicide as a probable carcinogen. A growing body of research shows the detrimental effect of glyphosate as an endocrine disruptor. The substance also kills beneficial gut bacteria, damages the DNA in human embryonic, placental, and umbilical cord cells, and is linked to birth defects and reproductive problems in laboratory animals.
Glyphosate: 300 million pounds per year
Monsanto introduced glyphosate after the ban on DDT. The company marketed it directly to consumers in the 1980s. Since that time, agricultural and consumer use have both skyrocketed, washing out of our driveways, our lawns, and our croplands and into our water systems.
In 1996, Monsanto introduced the first genetically engineered glyphosate-resistant “Roundup-Ready” crops — corn and soybean. Now the whole crop could be sprayed throughout its lifecycle to prevent weeds, without killing the plant and increasing crop yield. With each passing year more acres of wheat, corn, soybean, beet, cotton, canola, alfalfa, and other staple crops are sprayed with glyphosate.
Currently, glyphosate is used in the United States at the rate of 300 million pounds per year, almost one pound for every person in the US.
Tight junction damage
In the intestines, glyphosate is a profound zonulin stimulator. It damages the epithelial tight junction tissue on contact, weakening the barriers that protect us on the inside from the barrage of other environmental toxins to which we are exposed. Injury to the tight junction membrane in the gut can lead to intestinal permeability also known as leaky gut.
The zonulin production initiated by glyphosate exposure quickly becomes systemic; injury to the tight junction membrane in the brain can result in a breakdown of the blood-brain barrier and a host of neurological symptoms.
With the collapse of the tight junction firewalls, all organ systems experience stress. Just behind that microscopically thin layer of protection of the endothelial cells is the gastrointestinal lymphatic tissue (GALT). The GALT is a layer of immune cells that address any breach in that protection. It is estimated that 60-70% of the immune system, and more than 80% of the antibodies that the immune system produces, originate in the GALT.
The acute inflammatory response becomes chronic inflammation as the system becomes overwhelmed with toxins from the outside world.
Glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and environmental toxins. The negative impact on the body is profound and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body.
Glyphosate & GMOs
Genetically-engineered or genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) are live organisms whose genetic components have been artificially manipulated by creating combinations of plant, animal, bacteria, and even viral genes that do not occur in nature, or through traditional crossbreeding methods.
In the US, 88% of the corn crop, 93% of the soybean crop, 90% of sugar beets (accounting for 54% US sugar production), and 94% of cotton are genetically engineered to be able to survive the application of glyphosate. Consequently, they can be sprayed heavily with glyphosate to control weeds and simplify harvest.
What this means is that much of the US food supply is contaminated even prior to harvesting. Corn, soy, their oils, and beet sugar are used heavily in processed foods. In addition, livestock are increasingly fed corn and soy products that were treated with glyphosate, thereby contaminating the food supply even more. Alfalfa is also treated with glyphosate. Alfalfa is widely used as feed for dairy cows. The chemical becomes more concentrated in their milk, which results in dairy products having high levels of glyphosate originating from the alfalfa.
How to avoid glyphosate
Here are some recommendations for avoiding exposure to glyphosate:
Eat as low on the food chain as possible: This is good advice for a number of reasons; avoiding glyphosate is a big one.
Avoid all GMO foods: including processed and packaged foods containing non-organic corn, soybean, and sugar in all their myriad varieties. Organic means non-GMO. There are many non-organic packaged foods now bearing the non-GMO certification.
Choose vinegar as a home weed killer: Don’t use RoundUp!
Animal-derived foods pose complex issues for people trying to avoid environmental toxins. Animals fed and fattened on corn, soybean, and alfalfa feed are basically accumulating and concentrating glyphosate, as well as other toxins including animal antibiotics. This holds true for non-organic dairy products as well, which also concentrate glyphosate in cows’ milk.
Finding cleaner foods in your local grocery store takes a little extra effort. Most cities have health food grocery stores that stock more organic produce or have entire aisles devoted to non-GMO and organic foods. However, the payoff for making the effort is significant. You will be on a path to greater overall well-being.