Mon, Nov-26-18, 12:49
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Senior Member
Posts: 14,606
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Plan: EpiPaleo/Primal/LowOx
Stats: 220/125/150
BF:
Progress: 136%
Location: USA
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Herbicides: another reason to gluten free
I don't know about you, but things like this give me the willies:
Quote:
Herbicide Is What’s for Dinner
According to the EPA, between 1993 and 2015, glyphosate MRLs increased by 100 percent to 1,000 percent in the U.S., depending on the crop. Desiccation has changed the game: Because we are using more herbicides, herbicide residues and MRLs have also gone up. Countries can use MRLs as a bartering tool to negotiate lower prices, and will raise their MRLs in response to pressure. Monsanto and other manufacturers of glyphosate have requested increases in MRLs, and been granted many of them.
Current MRLs for glyphosate range from 0.2 ppm to more than 300 ppm, depending on the crop. Between 1993 and 2015, the U.S. EPA glyphosate tolerance levels have increased by a factor of 50 for corn, and 2,000 for alfalfa.
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I don't see this much discussed, even in Wheatbelly and Grain Brain circles. But I think it's a factor in the increasingly poor picture of how grains impact health.
Quote:
I asked Sheri Roberts, a crop specialist with Agriculture and Agrifood Canada in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, whether she thought desiccation was safe. She was reluctant to make the call, but said she wished it was not so commonly used. “The timing’s really tight,” she said. “If you don’t get it just right, that herbicide ends up in the grain.” If farmers apply a non-contact herbicide (like glyphosate) too early, it will be taken up by the growing plant and end up inside the seed. Non-contact herbicides are taken up by the living plant and incorporated into still growing tissues, while contact herbicides kill the tissues they touch.
A 2015 study by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency found glyphosate in 30 percent of 3,200 food products. Similar studies have found glyphosate exceeding maximum residue limits (or MRLs) in Cheerios, beer, and wine.
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More reason to fight against factory farms. Big Agriculture tries to tell us it's the only way to feed the world, but it strikes me as a very efficient way to kill the world, too.
Can't we grow local and eat local? It might not be the full range of foods we are used to, but having more variety in bad food is not a plus. As my husband and I have shifted to more local and sustainable food, we eat more apples, greens, chicken, and beef, but this is all incredibly tasty stuff that we have no interest in trading for lesser versions.
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