Do you know what your children are really eating for breakfast? If it's cereal, it could be a bowl of weed killing poison linked to cancer.

Lab tests by the Environmental Working Group show popular cereals like Cheerios, oatmeal, granola and snack bars have a "hefty dose of the weed-killing poison in Roundup."Glyphosate was detected in all 28 samples of General Mills' Cheerios and Quaker products, 26 showing levels above EWG’s health benchmark of 160 parts per billion(ppb).

“How many bowls of cereal and oatmeal have American kids eaten that came with a dose of weed killer? said EWG President Ken Cook. “If companies would just switch to oats that aren’t sprayed with glyphosate, parents wouldn’t have to wonder if their kids’ breakfasts contained a chemical linked to cancer. Glyphosate and other cancer-causing chemicals simply don’t belong in children’s food, period.”

List of breakfast foods with over 160 ppb of

BREAKFAST CEREAL
Quaker Oatmeal Squares Brown Sugar
Quaker Oatmeal Squares Honey Nut
Apple Cinnamon Cheerios
Very Berry Cheerios
Chocolate Cheerios
Frosted Cheerios
Fruity Cheerios
Honey Nut Cheerios
Cheerios Oat Crunch Cinnamon
Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal
Lucky Charms

SNACK BARS
Quaker Chewy S’mores
Quaker Chewy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip
Quaker Breakfast Squares Soft Baked Bars Peanut Butter
Quaker Breakfast Flats Crispy Snack Bars Cranberry Almond
Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bars, Oats 'n Honey

OATS
Quaker Instant Oatmeal Apples & Cinnamon
Quaker Real Medleys Super Grains Banana Walnut
Quaker Dinosaur Eggs, Brown Sugar, Instant Oatmeal
Giant Instant Oatmeal, Original Flavor
Quaker Steel Cut Oats
Quaker Old Fashioned Oats

General Mills sent a statement to Fast Company saying "our products are safe and without question they meet regulatory safety levels."

Quaker said "any levels of glyphosate are significantly below any regulatory limits and well within compliance of the safety standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) as safe for human consumption."

In April, internal emails revealed the Food and Drug Administration has been testing food for glyphosate for two years and found “a fair amount,” but the findings haven't been made public.

In 2017, California's Proposition 65 identified glyphosate as a chemical that can cause cancer. In August, a California jury awarded $289 million to a man dying of cancer, which he says was caused by exposure to Roundup and other glyphosate-based weed killers. The case opened up thousands of new lawsuits against the company Monsanto.

EWG started a petition to get glyphosate out of food. It's been signed by more than 150,000 people and several companies are joining the fight.

“Our message to General Mills, Quaker and other food companies is that you can take the simple step of telling your oat farmers to stop using glyphosate,” said Cook. “You can hide behind an outdated federal standard, or you can listen to your customers and take responsibility for cleaning up your supply chain. It’s your choice.”


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