Did you know that Glyphosate was actually patented as an antimicrobial by Monsanto in 2010? The active ingredient in Roundup kills bacteria amongst many other things. Here is another interesting fact: whilst it mainly acts on plants it also interferes with a key family of enzymes found in our body called the Cytochrome P450’s, and these enzymes are really important for clearing toxins out of our bodies.
In 2023 when the EU extended the licence for Roundup, they stopped its use as a desiccant in certain crops. A desiccant is a chemical that is sprayed onto crops before harvest to remove moisture from them. Roundup is used as a desiccant on many crops, from wheat and oats to chickpeas and beans. Incidentally if you are a sugar addict, it may be interesting to know that Glyphosate is used to help ripen sugar cane also, and as some of our sugar now comes from imported sugar cane, there is a high probability we are getting an unhealthy does of glyphosate in our sweet treats as well.
This practice of desiccation with Roundup has been outlawed in Europe, which is a really good thing. So, you would be forgiven for thinking we have been saved from exposure to this toxic chemical. But here’s the thing we import a lot of food from America and there, Roundup is still commonly used on crops as a desiccant. If current appointments of ex Chemical industry executives to the EPA in America are anything to go by, the use of chemicals in the food chain across the water is only going to increase.
Europe imported approximately 12.4 million tonnes of wheat in 2023. We also imported 150,000 tonnes of chickpeas. Both of these crops are commonly sprayed with roundup pre harvest, meaning this systemic chemical will remain in the plant after harvest and correspondingly will remain in the bread or the hummus that we consume.
EWG tests (Environmental working group, A US based environmental organisation) conducted in 2020 found glyphosate in 60 percent of conventional bean and lentil samples and more than 80 percent of conventional hummus and chickpea samples. 3
So, with Glyphosate in our food, the question that needs to be asked is what impact might it be having on our health? There has been some detailed research done that has demonstrated that Glyphosate is responsible for upsetting our microbiome even at very low doses.1 Good Bacteria found in our intestine have the same biochemical pathway that is found in plants which Glyphosate interferes with. It has now been shown that relatively small amounts of this chemical does in fact cause our good bacteria to diminish and pathogens to proliferate.
As our microbiome is crucial for our overall health, it is now beginning to become apparent that this chemical may be contributing in other ways to ill health. 2
Aside from the damage to biodiversity that the indiscriminate spraying of Roundup does, it’s direct application to food is impacting our health in ways that initially were not considered, and it is now clear that it is damaging not only the bacteria in the soil4 but also the good bacteria in our microbiome.
The only sure way to avoid consuming this chemical is to choose organic food where possible.
As always thank you for your support
Kenneth
1
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3945755/
3
https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/five-lesser-known-foods-high-in-pesticides.php