{"id":1943,"date":"2012-02-08T15:40:15","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T21:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/realfoodhouston.com\/?p=1943"},"modified":"2014-06-04T13:51:21","modified_gmt":"2014-06-04T18:51:21","slug":"monsanto-wants-glyphosate-limit-in-food-to-be-raised-up-to-150-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/2012\/02\/08\/monsanto-wants-glyphosate-limit-in-food-to-be-raised-up-to-150-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Monsanto wants glyphosate limit in food to be raised up to 150 times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lentils\"<\/a>According to breaking news<\/a>\u00a0from GM Freeze, Monsanto has asked the European Union to increase the permitted amount of its most widely used herbicide glyphosate\u00a0in\u00a0lentils.\u00a0 The\u00a0amount of increase Monsanto wants is 100-150 times<\/em> the current legal limit. This ‘crisis’ occurred because a shipment of Canadian lentils failed to meet the current\u00a0glyphosate limits and was pulled from the market in the Czech Republic.\u00a0 The proposed higher limit is apparently close to what is already<\/em> being found in the food.\u00a0 Both U.S. and Canadian farmers use glyphosate for weed control and also\u00a0to dry their crops one to two weeks before harvest.\u00a0 This is not just a European problem!\u00a0 The foods with\u00a0the high levels of glyphosate are coming from the U.S. and Canada<\/em>–it’s almost certainly the same glyphosate-laden food sold\u00a0to us.<\/p>\n

In January the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) indicated\u00a0that it supports Monsanto’s\u00a0request.\u00a0 Of course\u00a0it would–there have been multiple reports of conflicts\u00a0 of interest within EFSA.\u00a0 One report said that 10 of 13 members of an EFSA working group had conflicts of interest.\u00a0 Other reports told of a member\u00a0who left EFSA\u00a0and within two months\u00a0began working for Swiss biotech firm Syngenta, then lobbied former colleagues on biotech crops.\u00a0 Higher limits for other more common crops, such as wheat and genetically engineered (GE)\u00a0soybeans,\u00a0have already<\/em>\u00a0been approved.\u00a0 Glyphosate is heavily used around the world on Roundup Ready genetically engineered crops and has been found in air and groundwater samples in the U.S. and other countries.\u00a0\u00a0Although most of the GE\u00a0crops are used for animal feed, we eat their meat and milk and can, therefore, eat\u00a0glyphosate residues.\u00a0 Glyphosate\u00a0breakdown products\u00a0have\u00a0been found in human blood serum and urine.<\/p>\n

Many health concerns and\u00a0much environmental damage\u00a0from exposure to glyphosate have already surfaced:<\/p>\n

Glyphosate has been found to<\/strong><\/em>
\n–Cause infertility and miscarriages in farm animals
\n–Bind\u00a0nutrients, such as manganese, copper, potassium, and zinc,\u00a0in plants\u00a0so they are not available to the animals and people who eat them
\n–Kill\u00a0beneficial soil microorganisms which increases the incidence of plant disease
\n–Cause deformities in babies of pregnant women exposed to glyphosate
\n–Disrupt the endocrine system
\n–Spawn\u00a0‘superweeds’ resistant to the herbicide through heavy overuse<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/em><\/p>\n

Food Herbicide Residues Set to Rise As Much as 150 Times<\/a>
\nEU food agency slammed over GM crops conflict of interest case<\/a>
\nNetwork of industry agents uncovered in Food Authority EFSA<\/a>
\nThe Organic and Non GMO Report interview with Robert Kremer,\u00a0Experts say Roundup causing problems in soil, plants, and animals\u00a0<\/a><\/em>
\nThe Organic and Non GMO Report, interview with Dr. Don Huber,\u00a0Scientist warns of dire consequences with widespread use of glyphosate<\/a><\/em>
\nDr. Mercola\u2019s interview with Dr. Don Huber, The Hidden Epidemic Destroying Your Gut Flora
\n<\/a><\/em>Carrasco, Andres E., Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Produce Teratogenic Effects on Vertebrates by Impairing Retinoic Acid Signaling<\/a><\/em>
\nSeralini, G.E., Time- and Dose- Dependent Effects of Roundup on Human Embryonic and Placental Cells<\/a><\/em>
\nFarm and Ranch Freedom Alliance<\/a>\/GMOs<\/a><\/p>\n

Other Real Food Houston Posts you might be interested in:<\/em><\/p>\n

Glyphosate is already in our food, air, and water: What is it and why should we care?<\/a>
\nIt\u2019s Not Pretty Behind the Biotech Veil, an Interview with Howard Vlieger<\/a>
\nWhat Does Genetically Engineered (or GMO) Mean?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to breaking news\u00a0from GM Freeze, Monsanto has asked the European Union to increase the permitted amount of its most widely used herbicide glyphosate\u00a0in\u00a0lentils.\u00a0 The\u00a0amount of increase Monsanto wants is 100-150 times the current legal limit. This ‘crisis’ occurred because …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[63,59,80,19],"tags":[64,95,405,84,113,100],"class_list":["post-1943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-safety","category-gmos","category-health","category-real-food","tag-food-safety-2","tag-glyphosate","tag-gmos","tag-health-2","tag-herbicides","tag-monsanto"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p70SEj-vl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1943"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1974,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943\/revisions\/1974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}