FOR THE LOVE OF FOOD: Monsanto pays for causing cancer, Roundup found in most oats, and salt proven mostly safe

by Darya Rose | Aug 17, 2018

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week Monsanto pays for causing cancer, Roundup found in most oats, and salt proven mostly safe.

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Links of the week

Jury rules Roundup carcinogenic, Monsanto malicious: awards $289 million to plaintiff – Big news this week: Monsanto has been found accountable for giving a man cancer with its chemical glyphosate (aka Round Up). 1.8 billion pounds of this stuff are used worldwide every year. Certainly Monsanto will appeal, but this is a huge victory for consumers and farm workers. It’s also worth reflecting on the fact that the man who got cancer was the groundskeeper for a school, where kids play. He was spraying 20-30x/year from a 50 gallon drum for 2-3 hours per day. (Food Politics)
Report Finds Traces of a Controversial Herbicide in Cheerios and Quaker Oats – Man, this is a bummer. Even a significant portion of the organic samples they tested had glyphosate. I eat a lot of oats and don’t know yet what I’m going to do with this information. (NY Times)
Food Quality Trumps Variety, Experts Say – Newsflash: If you increase the variety of your food by adding more processed industrial foods, you’re doing it wrong. It’s still important to eat a greater variety of vegetables, grains, seeds, nuts, legumes, fungi, sea plants and animals, animal products, parts and organs for optimal health. You should be even more resourceful if you eat a restricted diet (e.g. vegetarian, gluten-free). (NY Times)
How to eat mindfully in the real world — and that doesn’t mean distraction-free – Excellent article and perspective on mindful eating. (Washington Post)
Pass the salt: Study finds average consumption safe for heart health – Another large study adds to the evidence that salt itself doesn’t appear to be dangerous unless consumed in very large quantities. Processed foods of course contain insane amounts of sodium, and they are bad for you for a zillion reasons. But if you generally eat real foods, you don’t need to worry much about salt. (ScienceDaily)
Exercise linked to improved mental health, but more may not always be better – Don’t be obsessive, but the optimal amount of exercise for wellbeing is still quite a bit more than most people get. (ScienceDaily)
Dear Mark: Is Farmed Salmon Worth Eating? – A nice reminder that perfection doesn’t always need to be what’s for dinner. (Mark’s Daily Apple)
‘Fat-burning’ foods and other scientific-sounding nutritional trickery – Yup. (Washington Post)
Why Sitting May Be Bad for Your Brain – One more part of you sitting is bad for. (NY Times)
Burmese Style Vegan Coconut Curry with Cauliflower – A delicious looking curry (with some baby pics thrown in for good measure LOL). (Snixy Kitchen)

What inspired you this week?

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Tags: brain, cancer, depression, Exercise, farmed fish, glyphosate, Health, mental health, mindful eating, Monsanto, mood, oats, Roundup, salmon, salt, sedentary, sitting, sodium

5 Responses to “FOR THE LOVE OF FOOD: Monsanto pays for causing cancer, Roundup found in most oats, and salt proven mostly safe”

Sam says:

August 17, 2018 at 12:50 pm

Here’s an article that says (basically) that the first set of articles that came out on this subject (like the one you linked to) were fear-mongering. https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/glyphosate-from-monsantos-weed-killer-roundup-in-breakfast-cereal-isnt-something-to-worry-about.html

It leaves me wishing I knew more, but I’m not even sure where to start and so much of the peer-reviewed research is locked behind paywalls. So I can’t go to the source of the information, even if I knew what questions to be asking.

I think this whole thing talks to how little we distrust the food companies and how little anyone knows about many aspects of farming and nutrition. We need more research and we need more unbiased sources of information. (and especially we need less people who are just trying to make a buck by being contrarian or fear based – whichever side turns out to be right on this issue).

Reply
amy says:

August 17, 2018 at 12:55 pm

Darya, did the Washington Post use your mindful meal challenge videos to write their article? Those sounded like direct quotes!

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Lilian B says:

August 17, 2018 at 1:07 pm

Darya, I’m a little disappointed that you shared the NYT article about oats and glyphosate. If you look at the actual EWG report, there were only 1-3 samples for each of the 29 food items tested (it wasn’t linked in the NYT article, but is found here: https://www.ewg.org/childrenshealth/glyphosateincereal/). While that’s sort of interesting from a preliminary standpoint, you as a scientist *know* that you can’t make authoritative claims from such a small sample size. Also, the EWG set their safety benchmark at an order of magnitude smaller than EPA guidelines. If you think that “no amount is an acceptable amount”, that’s fine, but the organization is setting their own standards for safety and it’s not entirely clear to me what the rationale is.

Reply
- Drew Kime says:
  
  August 18, 2018 at 8:43 am
  
  It’s actually more than an order of magnitude lower. https://twitter.com/TamarHaspel/status/1030442040381919233?s=09
  
  Reply
  - Lilian B says:
    
    August 18, 2018 at 12:40 pm
    
    Oh right, I re-read the report too fast – They do say was an order of magnitude smaller than the CA limits, which themselves are an order of magnitude smaller than the EPA limits. I saw that the first time I read it and misremembered. Thanks!