Junking Down Our Food Supply – preventdisease.com

“Great article on glyphosate (Roundup) and how it strips vital nutrients from crops thus making our food calorie dense and nutrient deficient, a sure prescription for health disaster.” Admin

It is high time to change the debate from the safety of engineering food to the pesticides that are inside the food. The technology is essentially about spraying a weed killer on the crops and the herbicide RoundUp is an integral part of the technology –the engineered crops are called RoundUp Ready. Farmers everywhere have been assured complete safety, higher yields and savings of herbicide. When these promises don’t quite pan out, the farmers don’t have much of an opportunity to do something different. It turns out the technology has been incredibly successful, so much so that there is not much of a market for non-engineered seeds now. Monsanto has a monopoly and has cornered the seed supply of much of the planet.

Since all engineered foods come from crops sprayed with RoundUp, they all contain residues of RoundUp. And it turns out other crops are also sprayed with this herbicide, but much later, just before harvest, because it kills the plants and they are dried fast to make harvesting easier for the farmers. This is commonly done with sugar cane, beans, grains, potatoes and many other crops. I usually say in my lectures that if you want to avoid any residue of RoundUp herbicide in your food, go organic. That is the only choice.

A bit of history to show why RoundUp should be avoided: in the early 60’s, a small chemical company was testing new molecules that could be used to clean industrial pipes and boilers of mineral deposits –just like the kettle in your home that makes mineral deposits after a few months or years. In 1964, the company, called Stauffer Chemicals, patented their best molecule. It was named glyphosate and described as a strong and very broad spectrum descaling agent. A descaling agent is a chelator in chemistry and biology lingo. A chelator is a molecule that can grab onto and hold metal ions.

Within a few years, the descaling agent was also found to kill plants very effectively. It was then bought and patented in 1969 as an exceptionally broad spectrum herbicide by a bigger chemical corporation named Monsanto. The 70’s were the years of my graduate work in North Carolina and I remember RoundUp being touted as the new wonder herbicide. Allegedly, it was non-toxic to animals, had no effect on the environment and biodegraded rapidly. It was a really effective weed killer that grew very popular very fast.