Is there glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide, hiding in your cereal?
Even if there is, there’s some reliable science that says it doesn’t pose a health risk. What?!
That sounds utterly contrary to intuition – that traces of a particular weed killer in food is actually NOT harmful. How can that be possible?
A few things to keep in mind when considering exposure to glyphosate in cereal foods:
1. The mere presence of a chemical like glyphosate doesn’t tell us everything we need to know about safety. The toxicity of the chemical in question needs to be identified and considered. According to the EPA toxicity ratings, glyphosate is categorized as slightly toxic, while baking soda, table salt and theobromine, an ingredient in chocolate, are moderately toxic. Caffeine is very toxic and nicotine is extremely toxic. These rankings are based on the LD50 ratings and consider acute toxicity.
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[A] person would have to eat an unreasonably large amount of oatmeal to be exposed to enough glyphosate to have any adverse effects. (This example also assumes that the oatmeal contains the maximum amount of glyphosate allowable, which is 30ppm (parts per million) …. [A] 150-pound adult would have to eat about 70 cups, or 10 pounds, of oatmeal each day to accomplish this. A 30-pound child would have to eat about 15 cups of oatmeal each day or almost 2 pounds of oatmeal.
