Pour Me Another Glass of Weed Killer, Please

Do you know how much glyphosate is lurking in your glass of wine, beer, or cocktail? Or how much is in your bowl of conventional cereal?

WTH is glyphosate?

In short, poison. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in common herbicides like Roundup. It’s highly carcinogenic (causes cancer) and widely used in the US. You may have heard about the lawsuit regarding a school groundskeeper, Dewayne Johnson v Monsanto, who was awarded millions of dollars because his exposure to Monsanto’s toxic Roundup caused his terminal cancer (Non-Hodgkin lymphoma). Tragic story, and if carcinogenic chemicals like these were banned in the US, stories like this would be 100 percent avoidable.

How much exposure is too much?

While heavily debated, it is consensual that glyphosate exposure should be very limited. In fact, many countries ban the use of glyphosate altogether. Since herbicides and pesticides are so commonly used in the US, it’s impossible to know how much exposure we’re actually getting. Glyphosate is found in our drinking water, oceans, air, rain and therefore, even on our unsprayed lawns and gardens. However, it’s in our best interest to do our due diligence and control our exposure as much as possible.

• The EPA established the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) of glyphosate to be 1.75 mg per kilogram of body weight.
• In Europe, the ADI of glyphosate was set to be no more than 0.3 mg per kilogram of body weight.
• In California, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment determined the max of 1.1 mg of glyphosate per day.
• The Environmental Working Group (EWG) set their limit recommendation at no more than 0.01 mg per day.

To put this into perspective, one measly serving of Honey Nut Cheerios cereal contains 18.8 mg of glyphosate, which greatly exceeds all recommended limits for the entire day. And who just eats one serving of Cheerios?

One Coors Light beer contains 0.03 mg of glyphosate residue. Here is a handy calculator you can use to convert ppb to mg.

While it’s impossible to avoid altogether, the most important thing you can do is limit your exposure.

• Do not use toxic chemicals in or around your homes, lawns, farms, gardens.

• Eat and drink as clean as possible: certified organic foods whenever possible, and even better, local organic foods so you can talk to the farmers.
• Grow your own food at home.
• Invest in a high-quality water filtration system that filters out harmful chemicals. I use Aquasana in my home.

• Look for certifications on your products that are labeled to be tested and free of glyphosate residue.