Weedkiller Found In Popular Kids' Breakfast Foods

You'd be hard-pressed to find a parent of a toddler who didn't keep a baggie full of Cheerios on their person at all times for daily snacking emergencies. No doubt parents everywhere will find the news this morning particularly distressing. As Fortune reports, "If you or your children are eating Cheerios right now, there's a good chance that they're accompanied by a potentially harmful weed killer called Roundup."

The Environmental Working Group released a report yesterday that stated after testing a variety of foods including granola bars, instant oatmeal, and breakfast cereal, "Glyphosate, an herbicide linked to cancer by California state scientists and the World Health Organization, was found in all but two of 45 samples of products made with conventionally grown oats." Products tested included Nature Valley Granola Protein Oats 'N Honey, Quaker Dinosaur Eggs Brown Sugar Instant Oatmeal, Lucky Charms, Kellogg's Cracklin' Oat Bran, and yes, Cheerios. Fortune notes that "in 31 of those cases, glyphosate levels were above the organization's health benchmark of 160 parts per billion."

The news comes on the heels of the $289 million a California jury awarded to a dying man last week, saying that he developed cancer after years of prolonged exposure to Roundup due to his work as a groundskeeper. After this week's findings, Quaker Oats Co. made the following statement: "Quaker does not add glyphosate during any part of the milling process. Glyphosate is commonly used by farmers across the industry who apply it pre-harvest," leaving it unclear as to how this problem can be resolved. Those who want to be on the safer side may want to stick with organic, where "just five products were discovered to have had Glyphosate and none of them reached the 160ppb benchmark."