Going organic to avoid glyphosate (Round-up)
Glyphosate used for crop ripening
Glyphosate (Round-up) is typically sprayed on grain crops and crops such as sugar cane to hasten the dessication process. These crops can be harvested green, sprayed with weedkiller to promote faster drying of the grains, and then prepared more quickly than without the use of weedkiller.
If glyphosate is a weed killer, what's the big deal? The main ways glyphosate works is two fold:
- glyphosate interferes with the shikamate pathway (which creates the aromatic amino acids, tryptophan, phenylalanine, and tyrosine) in plants resulting in plant death
- glyphosate is a powerful chelator capable of binding metals so that they're no longer bioavailable to the plant
Animals, including humans, do not rely on the shikimate pathway and metal chelation, so what? Why is glyphosate such a concern for humans?
Well... the bacteria comprising your microbiome and the microbiome of insects and other animals use the shikimate pathway, so when you ingest food contaminated with glyphosate, the weed killer just might alter the composition of your gut microbiome by killing off friendly bacteria.
Indeed, it's been demonstrated that exposure to glyphosate alters the composition of intestinal bacteria in humans and may contribute to neurological effects (see reference 2). The microbiome of honeybees is also disrupted by glyphosate making the honeybee more susceptible to opportunistic pathogens and glyphosate exposure may play a role in colony collapse.
In this episode, Stephanie Center shares some of the other problems with glyphosate, where this weed killer is hiding in your diet, and how to avoid it.
References
Most common herbicides used in the US
Herbicide restrictions by state in the US
Trends in glyphosate use in the US
Metabolic breakdown of glyphosate in your body
Bayer to end residential sales of glyphosate in the US
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1803880115. Glyphosate perturbs the gut microbiota of honey bees. Erick V. S. Motta https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9360-4353 erickvsm@utexas.edu, Kasie Raymann, and Nancy A. Moran https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2983-9769 September 24, 2018 | 115 (41) | https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1803880115
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0161813X19300816 Lola Rueda-Ruzafa, Francisco Cruz, Pablo Roman, Diana Cardona, Gut microbiota and neurological effects of glyphosate,NeuroToxicology,Volume 75,2019,Pages 1-8,
ISSN 0161-813X,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuro.2019.08.006.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0161813X19300816)
https://gmoanswers.com/ask/why-did-monsanto-patent-glyphosate-antibiotic-also-medical-establishment-has-been-preaching
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