Fooxury

Our goal has always been to motivate, encourage and release our fellow creatives to do their thing

We have never sprayed so many chemicals on our food, yards, or kids’ playgrounds before. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Roundup, the widely used weedkiller, finds its way into our bodies. Maybe, unexpectedly, it’s not that hard to remove. One of us co-authored a recent peer-reviewed study that examined the levels of pesticides in four American families over the course of six days on a non-organic diet and six days on an entirely organic diet. In just six days, eating an organic diet reduced glyphosate levels, the hazardous primary ingredient in Roundup, by 70%.

“What would other families have if my kids’ numbers changed by this much?” questioned Minneapolis, Minnesota, resident Scott Hersrud, a father of three who took part in the study. That inquiry has an increasingly obvious answer: a huge one. This study is a component of an extensive body of research that demonstrates how quickly and significantly converting to an organic diet lowers exposure to pesticides.

Although this is encouraging news, it begs the serious question: why must we constantly be on the lookout for organic labels in supermarkets to make sure our food isn’t contaminated with hundreds of other harmful chemicals like glyphosate?

“The public is more familiar with bad design than good design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer bad design, because that is what it lives with. The new becomes threatening, the old reassuring.”

In actuality, the EPA has increased the permissible threshold for residues on some foods up to 300 times above levels judged safe in the 1990s, instead of limiting the use of glyphosate. Additionally, in contrast to other widely used herbicides, the government has not tested for glyphosate on food or in human bodies for decades, turning a blind eye to the chemical.

The agency’s careless regulation has caused exposure to skyrocket. According to research, the proportion of Americans who had glyphosate in their bodies rose from 12% in the middle of the 1970s to 70% in 2014.
The latest study paints a far more alarming picture. Every individual, including four-year-olds, had glyphosate in their systems, according to the researchers. “I would really like to remove those pesticides from my body and the bodies of my family members,” said participant and mother of two Andreina Febres, of Oakland, California.

Concerns regarding their children’s exposure to glyphosate and other pesticides are legitimate for parents to have. Even government scientists have acknowledged that US rules have not kept up with the most recent scientific findings, even though food residue levels are often within acceptable limits. To start, they do not take into account the cumulative impact of our everyday exposure to a poisonous soup of industrial chemicals and pesticides. Furthermore, they fail to take into account the fact that humans may be more exposed to harmful exposures at different stages of life and under different circumstances. For example, developing fetuses, children, and people with impaired immune systems are all particularly susceptible. Rather, US authorities establish a single “safe” threshold for everyone. Furthermore, even at very low concentrations, chemicals known as “endocrine disruptors” have been linked to an increased risk of cancer, learning disabilities, birth defects, obesity, diabetes, and reproductive diseases, according to a recent study. (Consider the equivalent of one drop in twenty swimming pools the size of Olympia.)
The pesticide industry’s ability to maintain a product on the market despite its known toxicity is indicative of a serious systemic breakdown. The US has legalized over 70 pesticides that the EU prohibits. Furthermore, the EPA has authorized over 100 new pesticide products with chemicals thought to be extremely dangerous in just the past few years.

However, it appeared last year that glyphosate would be a different kind of success story—one in which science triumphs. Following the WHO’s announcement that glyphosate is likely carcinogenic to humans, thousands of farmers, pesticide applicators, and home gardeners filed lawsuits alleging that Roundup caused their cancer. Once the judges settled the plaintiffs’ three first cases, they left Bayer with $2 billion in damages, which they eventually lowered. However, even though Bayer consented to pay $10 billion to settle an extra 95,000 lawsuits out of court this summer, the business once again avoided accountability: according to the settlement’s terms, Roundup will still be sold and used without a safety warning on farms, public parks, school grounds, and yards.