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Is there a herbicide in your beer?
(Updated: 2/25/19 3:30 pm)
We incorrectly referred to glyphosate/Roundup as a pesticide and should have known better. It is of course a herbicide and we’ve corrected.
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New research has found that a number of significant beer and wine brands are contaminated with glyphosate, the main ingredient in the weed killer Roundup.
Not great news given that the World Health Organization found glyphosate to be a probable carcinogen in 2015, and in 2017 the state of California agreed.
According to US PIRG there is ample reason for concern…
“In 2018, a jury in California found that Roundup was a major cause of a man’s cancer, and awarded him $78 million in damages.”
“Thousands of other people, mostly farmers, are now alleging that their incurable cancers may have been caused by Roundup. And in January 2019, France banned the use of Roundup, citing it as a “serious risk” to human health. Other countries in the EU are considering similar bans.”
To explore how much Roundup we might be drinking US PIRG tested five wines and 15 beers.
The wine brands tested included big names such as Beringer, Barefoot and Sutter Home.
The beer brands tested included majors like Budweiser, Coors, Miller Lite, Heineken and Guinness, and widely distributed craft brands like Samuel Adams, Sierra Nevada, and New Belgium.
And the sobering results was that the weed killer glyphosate was found in almost all of the products tested including 14 of the 15 beers.
It’s interesting to note that even Samuel Smith Organic showed trace amounts of the chemical (although the lowest) and only Peak Organic got a clean bill of health…
USA TODAY reached out to companies whose products were tested. And not surprisingly “many contested the accuracy of the PIRG study,” while “others acknowledged the potential for the presence of herbicides in trace amounts beyond their control.”
And while all the levels of glyphosate found in testing were below EPA risk tolerances, US PIRG contends “that even low levels of glyphosate can be problematic,” citing one study which found “that 1 part per trillion of glyphosate has the potential to stimulate the growth of breast cancer cells and disrupt the endocrine system.”
Infographic credit: USA TODAY
