Glyphosate is a hot topic! One that could be discussed at length because there is so much interest.
If you don’t know anything about glyphosate, you’re not alone. Ever seen commercials on television for weed killer or been shopping at your local hardware store and seen Round Up on the shelves? Well, that is glyphosate. Round Up is owned by Monsanto. A significantly large company that developed this product. They created this herbicide to help farmers kill weeds and bugs that try to destroy their crops. The problem with using this product is that it gets into our food and spreads like wildfire.
Glyphosate was first introduced in 1997. At the time, it was the 5th most active ingredient in pesticides and 36 million pounds were used. In 2001, glyphosate moved to the #1 spot and became the most widely used ingredient in pesticides. The use rose to 90 million pounds. In 2008, glyphosate accounted for 182.5 million pounds used and is still the top ingredient in pesticides. It passes the second highest ingredient by 100 million pounds. This was the last data sample from the EPA until May 2017.
When glyphosate first wanted to be introduced by Monsanto, the EPA wanted more testing. But Monsanto fought back and won the fight. No more testing. There hasn’t been any testing on humans (ever, from my research). When the EPA finally decided to approve glyphosate, three people decided not to sign the approval for Round Up. On a podcast I listed to, the interviewee said he asked one of these EPA employees why they chose not to sign and in a nutshell, this employee said the EPA was making a mistake.
Here’s what I want you to take away from this post.
- Yes, glyphosate is everywhere. Even in organic food.
- There is no requirement in the US or Canada for labels to indicate if the food or product has GMOs in it. There has been a law passed, but we’ll see where that goes…
- The World Health Organization has classified glyphosate as a possible carcinogen (that means cancer) but the government has yet to do anything about it.
- Glyphosate is predominantly used on wheat, corn and soy crops. This is clearly the majority of the foods most of us eat!
What do we do? There’s a lot more to this story but first and foremost, do some research yourself. One place I’ve been able to get a lot of information on is The Walk a Mile Project. They are a non-profit organization that’s goal is to address one issue at a time and deliver the truth about what’s really going on. They make documentaries to showcase the effects of GMOs. I HIGHLY recommend you watch. And stay tuned in to what’s going on, what our government is approving and what is happening in our local communities. You can help change the world by just taking one small action at a time.