A new study has a lot of people thinking about what else they're consuming when they eat food grown with pesticides.
According to that study, which comes from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the majority of Americans have traces of a weed-killing chemical in their urine.
About 80% of the 2,310 samples collected from children and adults between 2013 and 2014 had detectable levels of glyphosate, the active ingredient in some herbicides. That's bad news for most of us because, according to the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer, the chemical is "probably carcinogenic to humans."
Toxicologist Alexis Temkin made a bold statement about the new findings. "Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the country, yet until now, we had very little data on exposure," Temkin said. "Children in the US are regularly exposed to this cancer-causing weed killer through the food they eat virtually every day."
“The Environmental Protection Agency should take concrete regulatory action to dramatically lower the levels of glyphosate in the food supply and protect children’s health,” said Temkin.
Glyphosate showing up in food due to herbicide being used as a pre-harvest drying agent. It makes it so that crops, such as oats, can be harvested sooner. While it makes for more efficient harvesting, it may not be great for those consuming what comes from the harvest.
