POISONOUS EFFECTS OF ROUNDUP WEEDKILLER
Why Your Hummus and Falafel Need to Be Organic
If you regularly eat beans, lentils, or anything made of oats or chickpeas (including hummus and falafel), you need to read this article VERY closely. It is of the utmost importance that these foods be organic or grown in a manner consistent with organic standards to ensure they are safe for consumption.
Many of us are aware that genetically modified organisms (GMOs), such as GMO corn and soy, are health hazards. These crops are also heavily sprayed with the herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) and should be avoided. What many people do not realize is that in 2010 Roundup was originally licensed to be used as a “drying agent” to prepare seed crops such as corn, oats, wheat, beans, chickpeas, and lentils for harvest. During this process, Roundup is sprayed on an entire crop several days prior to when that crop is expected to be harvested. As the plants die (from being sprayed with an herbicide), they produce MORE of their seed (such as the wheat kernel or the bean), and they dry out. This allows for an early, consistent harvest. In northern areas of the U.S. and in Canada, the ability to plan a harvest before impending rain or snow in the fall is a boon to farmers, who are largely unaware of the nefarious nature of chemical glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup.
In his book “Poisoned Foods of North America: Guide to Navigating the Glyphosate Mine Field in Our Food Web,” researcher Tony Mitra evaluated an amazing variety of foods for glyphosate and reported the results. He found the foods of North America and Canada to be extremely contaminated. An average food sample from the U.S or Canada might contain 20-120 ppb of glyphosate, as compared with 3-10 ppb in a foreign country, such as China. Flour made from chickpeas had the highest levels, with samples reading over 8,700 ppb glyphosate! Other products with astonishingly high levels of Roundup (glyphosate) residues were the chickpeas themselves, lentils, peas, wheat germ/bran, pizza products. Oats (especially oatmeal) and beans were also found to have significant glyphosate residues.
EXAMINING THE FACTS
Glyphosate (Roundup) is one of the most insidious and nefarious chemicals on the planet because it harms in a multitude of ways, and those harms are not immediately obvious. Glyphosate was initially patented for its ability to bind to metals and remove them from unwanted places, such as pipes and vats. However, it also binds them in the soil, making minerals unavailable to plants or to the microbes in the soil. Thus, areas sprayed with Roundup produce crops that are deficient in minerals that are essential to human health, such as calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron, and manganese.
THE DANGER TO OUR HEALTH
Glyphosate was also patented as an antibiotic because it inhibits a key pathway in bacterial metabolism. Since humans do not contain this pathway, it was “cleared” as safe for humans. However, two things were not carefully considered. The first is that soil bacteria play a significant role in the maintenance of soil quality. Rich organic soil produces molecules that nourish plants and help break down this toxic chemical. However, as the glyphosate kills off the good soil bacteria, the soil has less and less ability to neutralize it. This results in the buildup of glyphosate in the soil over time. Unfortunately, a similar thing happens inside the human gut when glyphosate is on the foods we eat (and it is universally present in our food supply). In the gut, glyphosate kills the “good” gut bacteria and leaves potentially harmful gut bacteria to thrive. This compromises gut function in several ways. The overgrowth of bad bacteria can lead to life-threatening infections, such as seen with Clostridium difficile infections. More commonly, microbiome destruction plays a part in the overgrowth of less favorable bacteria which leads to inflammation in the gut and contributes to conditions such as leaky gut, SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), Colitis and Crohn’s disease. The “good” bacteria in the gut make important signaling molecules that are essential for proper mood, brain, and immune function. They also tell the body what nutrients to absorb. The absence of these “good” bacteria compromises our system in almost every way imaginable. We are now understanding that “as goes the gut, so goes the rest of the body.” Compromised gut function and deficiencies in key minerals, such as zinc and magnesium, predispose people to severe COVID as well as to illness in general. It is also highly likely that they predispose our children to developmental disorders and to vaccine injury. Dr. Stephanie Seneff found that autism is highly correlated with the increased use of Roundup on crops.
As if these harmful aspects of glyphosate were not enough, glyphosate has now been found to randomly reprogram mammalian DNA in ways that promote cancer and lead to diseases and birth defects in future generations. A study done on rats found that exposure of the mother to glyphosate did not lead to overt disease in the mother or her children BUT caused progressively more pathologies in generations after that. The diseases seen in the future generations (that were NOT even fed glyphosate) predominantly affected reproduction and included mammary cancer, prostate disease, ovary disease, testis disease, as well as difficult labor resulting in maternal and infant mortality. Diseases not directly related to reproduction included kidney disease and obesity in both male and female rats. While the science of how glyphosate destroys the body is complex, the answer is not. When it comes to beans and seeds, especially chickpeas and lentils, make sure it is organically grown and from a reputable source.