Cheerios

Don’t Feed Your Child Cheerios

Posted by

0


General Mills’ Cheerios are one of the first solid foods many parents feed to their children. They’re small, convenient and easy to chew — and there’s even a section on the Cheerios website for “new parents who have invited … original Cheerios to introduce their children to finger foods.”1

The site states that toddlers age 9 months and older are typically ready for Cheerios, and even touts “the fact that 4 of 5 pediatricians recommend Cheerios as a finger food.” You may further believe Cheerios to be a good choice because they don’t contain genetically engineered (GE) ingredients.

Oats are the primary ingredient (there are no GE oats), and the corn starch and sugar they contain come from non-GMO corn and non-GMO cane sugar. So why the warning against this family favorite?

cheerios cereal

Story at-a-glance –

  • Independent testing revealed glyphosate residues of 1,125.3 parts per billion (ppb) in Cheerios cereal
  • Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, is a probable human carcinogen and may be an endocrine disrupter
  • Oats, Cheerios’ main ingredient, and many other crops are commonly sprayed with glyphosate just prior to harvest to accelerate drying, a process known as desiccating

Cheerios and Other Popular Processed Foods Contain Glyphosate Residue

Despite their GMO-free status, testing completed at Anresco, a laboratory registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), found glyphosate residues in Cheerios as well as other popular foods.

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, has made headlines recently because it’s the most used agricultural chemical in history and also because the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) determined it is a probable carcinogen.

Despite its prevalence, we don’t know exactly how much glyphosate may be in your food because the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) does not test for it.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced in February 2016 that it would begin testing some foods for glyphosate, but the testing was put on hold in November.2 In the meantime private organizations have been conducting tests on their own.

The latest tests, conducted by the nonprofit organizations Food Democracy Now and The Detox Project, were done via liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), which is considered the most reliable for analyzing glyphosate residues.3

Twenty-nine common foods were tested, with glyphosate residues found in a variety of products, including Doritos, Oreos, Stacy’s Pita Chips and the following:4

  • General Mills’ Cheerios (1,125.3 parts per billion [ppb])
  • Kashi soft-baked oatmeal dark chocolate cookies (275.57 ppb)
  • Ritz Crackers (270.24 ppb)

According to the report, the findings should be a wake-up call for all Americans:5

“New scientific evidence shows that probable harm to human health could begin at ultra-low levels of glyphosate, e.g., 0.1 parts per billions (ppb). Popular foods tested for glyphosate measured between 289.47 ppb and at levels as high as 1,125.3 ppb.

… These groundbreaking new findings that one of the most iconic cereals in [the] U.S. contains levels as high as 1,125.3 ppb should be a wake-up call for all Americans regarding unacceptable levels of pesticide residues in our nation’s food.

… It’s important for individuals and parents to understand that glyphosate contamination cannot be removed by washing and is not broken down by cooking or baking. Glyphosate residues can remain stable in food for a year or more, even if the foods are frozen or processed.”

Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for Glyphosate Is Far Too High

Adding insult to injury, U.S. regulators have set the ADI for glyphosate at 1.75 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight per day (mg/kg/bw/day) compared to 0.3 mg/kg/bw/day in the European Union.

The latest independent scientific evidence suggests the ADI should be set at 0.025 mg/kg/bw/day, according to the report, which is 12 times lower than the current ADI in Europe and 70 times lower than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently allows in the U.S. The Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH) explained:

“The safety level was determined based on industry tests of high levels of glyphosate on adult laboratory animals.

Critics claim that the tests may not be accurate because glyphosate may be an endocrine disrupter, which would affect hormones in the body and thereby produce different effects at various stages of human development.

Furthermore, the tests were done on glyphosate in isolation and did not include the commercial pesticide formulations containing additional adjuvants that may themselves be toxic or intensify the toxicity of glyphosate.”

Glyphosate Residues Revealed in Many Popular Breakfast Foods

https://player.vimeo.com/video/163580961?wmode=transparent

Figuring out just how much glyphosate the average American may be exposed to in a day is proving to be an overwhelming task because it’s showing up just about everywhere.

The herbicide was detected in a variety of instant oatmeal (including that meant for babies), including in strawberry, banana, cinnamon spice and maple brown sugar flavors, for instance.6 ANH previously detected glyphosate in a variety of additional foods as well, including bagels, bread and wheat cereal.

Ten out of 24 breakfast foods tested in ANH’s analysis had detectable levels of glyphosate. This included oatmeal, bagels, coffee creamer, organic bread and even organic, cage-free and antibiotic-free eggs.

In addition, advocacy group Moms Across America sent 10 wine samples to be tested for glyphosate. All of the samples tested positive for glyphosate — even organic wines, although their levels were significantly lower.7

A study of glyphosate residues by the Munich Environmental Institute also found glyphosate in 14 best-selling German beers.8

Glyphosate has even been detected in PediaSure Enteral Nutritional Drink, which is given to infants and children via feeding tubes. Thirty percent of the samples tested contained high levels of glyphosate over 75 ppb — far higher levels than have been found to destroy gut bacteria in chickens (0.1 ppb).9

Human blood and urine samples, perhaps not surprisingly, also contain glyphosate. U.S. women had maximum glyphosate levels that were more than eight times higher than levels found in urine of Europeans, according to Laboratory testing commissioned by the organizations Moms Across America and Sustainable Pulse.10

Glyphosate Is Sprayed on Some Crops Right Before Harvest

Eating non-organic GE foods (the prime candidates for Roundup spraying) is associated with higher glyphosate levels in your body.11 However, even non-GE foods, like Cheerios, can contain high levels of glyphosate, which are likely the result of the common practice of using the herbicide as a desiccant shortly before harvest.

In northern, colder regions, farmers of wheat and barley must wait for their crops to dry out prior to harvest. Rather than wait an additional two weeks or so for this to happen naturally, farmers realized they could spray the plants with glyphosate, killing the crop and accelerating their drying (a process known as desiccating).

Desiccating wheat with glyphosate is particularly common in years with wet weather and has been increasing in North Dakota and Upper Midwestern states in the U.S., as well as in areas of Canada and Scotland (where the process first began).

In some cases, non-GE foods may be even more contaminated with glyphosate than GE crops, because they’re being sprayed just weeks prior to being made into your cereal, bread, cookies and the like. No one is keeping track of how many crops are being desiccated with glyphosate; those in the industry have described it as a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Along with wheat and oats, other crops that are commonly desiccated with glyphosate include:

✓ Lentils ✓ Peas ✓ Non-GMO soybeans
✓ Corn ✓ Flax ✓ Rye and Buckwheat
✓ Triticale ✓ Canola ✓ Millet
✓ Sugar beets ✓ Potatoes ✓ Sunflowers

Why You Should Be Very Concerned About Glyphosate Residues in Your Food

Glyphosate’s makers have long touted it as harmless to humans and the environment, and even claimed that it was rapidly biodegradable. Its safety was so widely accepted that neither the USDA nor the FDA monitored its use or residues in food.

However, since the IARC’s classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen (it’s been linked to an increased risk of breast, thyroid, kidney, pancreas, liver and bladder cancers as well as myeloid leukemia), glyphosate’s “safe” image has been tarnished.

Research published in Entropy,12 authored by Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Anthony Samsel, Ph.D., a food supply research scientist and consultant, and using Monsanto’s own early studies on glyphosate, reveals some of the possible mechanisms by which glyphosate may cause disease.

Glyphosate causes extreme disruption of microbes’ function and life cycle and preferentially affects beneficial bacteria, allowing pathogens to overgrow and take over. According to the Entropy report, glyphosate residues “enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease.” This includes (but is not limited to) the following:

✓ Autism ✓ Gastrointestinal diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, chronic diarrhea, colitis and Crohn’s disease ✓ Obesity
✓ Allergies ✓ Cardiovascular disease ✓ Depression
✓ Cancer ✓ Infertility ✓ Alzheimer’s disease
✓ Parkinson’s disease ✓ Multiple sclerosis ✓ ALS and more

Test Your Personal Glyphosate Levels

If you’d like to know your personal glyphosate levels, you can now find out, while also participating in a worldwide study on environmental glyphosate exposures. The Health Research Institute (HRI) in Iowa developed the glyphosate urine test kit, which will allow you to determine your own exposure to this toxic herbicide.

Ordering this kit automatically allows you to participate in the study and help HRI better understand the extent of glyphosate exposure and contamination. In a few weeks, you will receive your results, along with information on how your results compare with others and what to do to help reduce your exposure. We are providing these kits to you at no profit in order for you to participate in this environmental study.

In the meantime, eating organic as much as possible and investing in a good water filtration system for your home are among the best ways to lower your exposure to glyphosate and other pesticides.

If you know you have been exposed to pesticides, the lactic acid bacteria formed during the fermentation of kimchi may help your body to break them down, so it’s a good idea to eat fermented foods like kimchi regularly. In the case of glyphosate, it’s also wise to avoid desiccated crops like wheat and oats.

 

Whole-Grain Foods Not Always Healthful.

Posted by

0


Often synonymous with good health, whole grains may lack heart-healthy fiber—in fact, some processed forms increase cardiovascular risks

Last month the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) reaffirmed in a report that fiber-rich whole grains lower the risks of diabetes and heart disease. Media outlets such as Reuters duly reported the news, but many failed to point out a crucial detail: some whole grains may do nothing to reduce disease risks. In fact, many foods legally marketed as whole grains could actually harm health.

whole-grain-foods-not-always-healthful_1

The term “whole grain” might evoke an image of a whole, intact grain—that is, a fiber-rich coating of bran surrounding a starchy endosperm and a small reproductive kernel known as the germ. But in a definition created in 1999 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists (AACC) International, an organization of food industry professionals and scientists, and adopted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2006, “whole grain” refers to any mixture of bran, endosperm and germ in the proportions one would expect to see in an intact grain—yet the grains can be, and usually are, processed so that the three parts are separated and ground before being incorporated into foods. (Refined grains, on the other hand, are grains that have been stripped of their bran and germ.) For a food product to be considered whole grain, the FDA says it must contain at least 51 percent of whole grains by weight. Compared with intact grains, though, processed whole grains often have lower fiber and nutrient levels.

In what it calls a scientific statement the ASN reviewed studies published about whole grains between 1965 and 2010. Descriptions in many studies did not conform to the current definition in that they considered foods such as wheat germ and bran cereals to be whole grain. (Both are now considered partsof a whole grain.) Ultimately, the researchers found that the only whole-grain-rich diets that reduced the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes were those that included bran as a whole grain or those that contained high amounts of fiber. Studies of “whole grains using the currently accepted definition don’t have enough data to support them for preventing these different chronic diseases,” says co-author David Klurfeld, the national program leader for human nutrition in the Agricultural Research Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Missing fiber
One problem with the current definition of “whole grain” is that it doesn’t account for fiber—and many whole grain products on supermarket shelves contain very little. An individual would have to eat 10 bowls of Multi-grain Cheerios, 16 slices of whole-wheat bread, or nine cups of brown rice to get the fiber recommended for an American adult for one day. “There’s nothing wrong with eating brown rice, but you can’t expect health benefits if you’re going to be eating brown rice as your source of whole grains,” Klurfeld explains.

The common processing of whole grains—which can involve grinding, puffing and flaking them—can also impact their healthfulness. Processing can make whole grains tastier; it can give them a longer shelf life, too, by removing fats from the outer layer of the grain that can turn rancid. But some processing techniques have been shown to degrade natural antioxidants and reduce fiber content. In fact, the AACC International recently proposed modifying its definition of “whole grain” to allow for some nutrient losses during processing.

Individuals also absorb the sugars from some processed whole grains more quickly than they do those from intact whole grains, triggering blood sugar spikes that can “possibly increase hunger, lead to overeating and increase the risk for diseases related to insulin resistance, like diabetes and heart disease,” says David Ludwig, a professor of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. For instance, bread made from 80 percent–whole-wheat kernels is absorbed much more slowly than bread made from ground whole wheat. When a person eats intact grains, the body has to break down the outer bran before digesting the inner endosperm and germ. Ground grains often don’t provide these metabolic brakes.

Fast-cooking penalty
But even when whole grains aren’t ground, they can be processed in ways that can cause metabolic problems. In a 1999 study Ludwig and his colleagues split 12 obese teenage boys into groups. Some were given a breakfast of instant oatmeal, in which whole oats have been rolled and steamed so that they cook quickly. Other boys were given steel-cut oatmeal, comprising whole oats that have been sliced but not steamed. Although both meals had the same calorie and fiber content, the instant oats triggered much larger blood sugar spikes (a reflection of how quickly they were absorbed) and caused the boys to consume 53 percent more calories at lunch than the boys who ate the steel-cut oats. (A third group of boys were given identically caloric breakfasts of vegetable omelets and fruit and ate 81 percent fewer calories at lunchtime than did the instant oat eaters.) Food companies lump ground whole grains, partially processed grains and intact unprocessed grains together under the same broad category of “whole grains,” so it’s difficult for consumers to know which they’re getting.

Whole-grain foods can also contain unhealthy additives. In January Ludwig and other Harvard researchers compared the nutrient composition of 545 grain products and found that those labeled with the “Whole Grain” stamp, an industry-sponsored label for foods containing at least eight grams of whole grains per serving, contained more calories and sugar than those without the stamp. They were also more expensive. When a food is marketed as containing whole grains, “it takes on a ‘health halo,’ and companies can slip in all sorts of junk without people recognizing what they’re getting,” Ludwig says. Joanne Slavin, professor of food science and nutrition at the University of Minnesota, who served on the committee for the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, agrees that many foods with whole-grain labels are “really not very nutritious food products.”

More isn’t good
So how did “whole grain” become synonymous with “healthy”? Part of the confusion stems from the U.S. dietary guidelines, which recommend that individuals triple their consumption of whole-grain foods from an average of one ounce per day to three ounces. But the goal is for Americans to replace half of their refined grains with whole grains, not to eat whole grains in addition to the refined ones they have been eating, Slavin explains. “We don’t want people to think that because a food has whole grains, they should eat more of it,” she says. “Grains in general are overconsumed in the U.S.”

Another reason whole grains may seem more healthful than they really are: people who eat lots of them tend to make smarter lifestyle choices in general. A 2006 study (pdf) reported that the quartile of people who eat the most whole grains are less than half as likely to smoke and 25 percent more likely to regularly exercise as the quartile of people who eat the least whole grains.

If one clear piece of advice is emerging about whole grains, it is that individuals should buy whole grains that are high in fiber: All of the diets that reduced disease risk in the ASN’s review were high in fiber or fiber-rich bran, and Ludwig and his colleagues found in their 2013 study that whole-grain foods with a ratio higher than one to 10 of fiber to total carbohydrate also contained less sugar, sodium and trans fats than other whole-grain products. People should consider cooking with intact whole grains, too, such as whole-wheat berries or spelt. And when in doubt, consumers should always trust their nutritional instincts. “If it’s a whole-grain cookie, you probably don’t need it,” Slavin says. Deep down, most people already know that.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com