Wheat bran the most toxic of all American foods?

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A shocking revelation

I found the glyphosate in wheat bran, as tested by CFIA, is a shocking story that deserves a section of its own. By “American” in the title, I meant north American which includes Canada. Mexico is out of this comment because Mexico makes so clean foods, as CFIA records show, that it does not belong in the Canada-USA grouping of America.

For the first 3,000 or so records from the CFIA, there was no wheat or wheat byproducts such as flour or bread. This was causing me both frustration and alarm, since most of us were very aware that conventional wheat was being  desiccated by glyphosate (RoundUp herbicide) just before harvest.

Bran, according to Wikipedia, is also known as miller’s bran, is the hard outer layers of cereal grain. It consists of the combined aleurone and pericarp. Therefore, wheat bran is essentially the outer hard layer of wheat kernel.

When wheat is processed to produce flour, this layer becomes a byproduct, and is called bran. In the case of processing wheat to make wheat flour, one gets miller’s or wheat bran. It is supposed to be packed with nutrition, and may offer many dietary benefits.

Wheat bran is commonly found in certain cereals, like Raisin Bran or Bran Flakes, as well as bran muffins, which rose to popularity in the 1980s. Wheat bran is beneficial toward providing digestive regularity and ending constipation because it is very high in dietary fiber. Some also claim that foods containing bran provide a feeling of fullness. This claim may be true, since it tends to absorb water and expand in the digestive system.

Wikipedia

The nutritional benefits of wheat bran are perhaps undisputed. For a time, it was even being touted that it might fight cancer. However, a cup (58 g) of wheat bran does offer significant nutritional pluses. One cup of this product in milk was supposed to contain 99% of the US recommended daily allowance (RDA) of fibre, nine grams of protein, and 34% of the RDA for iron. It was also known to be somewhat high in protein, various minerals and vitamin B6, also low in fat, with little cholesterol, or sugar. A magic food.

Wheat Bran is not a safe food! Not any more.

What happened in North America in the recent years, may have a very far reaching and devastating effect on tis product, by way of massive glyphosate contamination.This has likely not yet fully filtered down to the population, nor its implication sufficiently understood.

Why wheat product was not being tested in the first year of CFIA’s drive to test a wide spectrum of foods available to Canadians is a question only CFIA and the Government of Canada can answer. However, I am happy to find wheat beginning to appear in small samples tested in the second year of CFIA’s efforts, from around the summer of 2016. And the results appear to be shocking.

The table above refers. It has only a few of the most recent wheat bran items transcribed and not the entire lot. But all of them show bad readings and I shall be reporting on them all when I am done transcribing all the data. But these few figures are a good example of what the matter is with wheat in general and wheat bran in particular.

Most of these samples showed up with high measurable amounts of glyphosate and its first metabolite AMPA which is equally nasty. These two figures have been added up in this table to show a combined concentration of glyphosate and AMPA for each sample of wheat bran. Usually the readings show very high levels of glyphosate accompanied by a very small number for AMPA.

We know wheat is heavily desiccated with glyphosate. Now, I wonder if most that that glyphosate, applied just before harvesting, actually accumulates into the wheat bran? Could it be that wheat bran is the primary depository for glyphosate and AMPA? If that is true for wheat, could it also be true for all other grains that are desiccated with glyphosate and what have an identifiable “bran” ?

Guess I shall be looking for these answers elsewhere, to keep me busy.

Meanwhile the table above answers many questions and raises just as many more puzzles and questions. For example, there are wheat bran samples with over 4,000 ppb GLY+AMPA count that are of “unknown” origin. This “unknown” category has been a major irritant for me. I suspect that most of these unmarked food grains are of local (Canadian) grown or from USA. Since both USA and Canada try to protect their own agricultural produce from undue free competition from others, usually transportation of wheat across the border is not permitted by either country, since each of them produce the crop and want to protect its market. That is one reason I suspect most of the “unknown” foods are Canadian, unless the type is something that cannot not grow or is not cultivated in Canada.

Next, most of these samples with high glyphosate content is without any kind of identification mark, such as brand name of the product, or where it was grown or which store or farmer it was collected from. Therefore, it gets nearly impossible for an average consumer to figure out what to buy and what to avoid. This absence of clear identification of a potentially poisonous food item makes the entire class – i.e. wheat bran, a poison pill for me and I am going to avoid it like the plague.

This also proves that there is perhaps a need for grassroots people’s movement to get their local municipalities to start testing a few food items grown locally and sold in local stores, for glyphosate content, every month and making all results public, including brand names and source of the sample. Folks should insist, for example, that the first few food items their municipality tests in the first month should be wheat products such as wheat grains, wheat bran, and bread, that are available in local food stores, and make all results public. Those interested might check a related petition and effort at a movement on this front.

Then there is the question of allowable minimum residue limit (MRL) for glyphosate in wheat bran. From the above table, and going back to the raw data, it gets quite obvious that 4,610 ppb of glyphosate or 28 ppb AMPA is not a violation, but 6630 ppb of glyphosate and 159 ppb of AMPA is a violation. Therefore, the existing MRL lies between 4610 and 6630 ppb for glyphosate in wheat bran, and between 28 and 159 ppb of AMPA in wheat bran.

This observation raises even more questions. First, why is the MRL so low in AMPA and so high in glyphosate? Does the Government have proof that somehow glyphosate is a lot less harmful to us than its first degrading compound, AMPA? From what I hear, there is no evidence that glyphosate is a lot safer in comparison with AMPA and there may not be any provable justification for glyphosate’s MRL to be so much higher than AMPA’s.

Or could it be that the allowable MRL is neither specific to glyphosate nor to AMPA, but the total of both, as is actually shown on the above table? I need to find these answers.

As it is, Health Canada has till date not disclosed the safety test data and documents based on which it is supposed to have approved the use of Glyphosate in Canadian agriculture. My understanding of the law is that it may be illegal to release a product, such as glyphosate, for use in Canada, without disclosing its safety test report and raw data.

I have multiple petitions and ongoing struggles with the Canadian government, spanning two administrations, Harper’s and Trudeau’s, for Health Canada to make public all safety test records and data based on which it approved glyphosate’s use. The government does not deny one’s right to see such document, and yet keep dragging its feet on it. It has been dragging feet for thirty years and counting.
Petition 1
Petition 2 : e-413

Meanwhile, multiple “Access To Information” appeals to various wings of the government for disclosure or records of our foods tested for glyphosate has finally resulted in some success, in me getting over 7,000 records of foods tested by CFIA since 2015. I have so far transcribed only about half of it, and am still checking for errors and typo etc. I intend to publish an e-book of my findings and concerns regarding glyphosate in our food, for which the initial work has started.

Going back to the table above, what happens when the result is found to be in violation? Common sense tells me the product should be taken off the shelves and banned. Also, the public should be notified about it so they can avoid buying it, or return what they already have bought, and claim a refund. Also, folks that have already consumed some of it, should be advised what they need to look out for medically and how to detoxify themselves.

Anybody remembers such as incidence and a warning on wheat bran’s glyphosate content being too high?

There is another issue here. I can see that the allowable MRL is not fixed for all foods. It is argued that the MRL for foods were a lot lower a decade or two ago, and are being constantly raised. Based on what evidence? Has the public been shown this evidence?

The suspicion is, the MRLs are being raised simply because existing limits have already been crossed, so the safe limits are being raised above whatever the current levels turn out to be, so that all foods are still declared safe – never mind the proof and never mind showing such proof to the people.

Once my work in transcribing all the data is done, and I have listed out my range of unanswered questions, I shall be taking these up with the Canadian Government agin. it is a never ending process and highly frustrating since the Government attempts to hide rather than be transparent, o food safety issues, in my experience.

This blog is a kind of space holder for some of the emerging information. I am now convinced, that I myself shall avoid any food that has wheat bran mentioned, like the plague, unless it is certified organic and unless I find CFIA test results of Canadian or US produced wheat bran that is certified organic.

Comments welcome.

Food from China largely free of glyphosate

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We did not expect Chinese foods to be free of glyphosate, primarily because of two reasons.

  • China is the world’s largest producer of glyphosate.
  • China is known to be the largest importer of Argentinian, Brazilian and US RoundUp Ready Soy. The Argentinian Soy being grown in the Pampas is known for aerial spray over the plains which are suspected to be linked to birth defects of indigenous people that live there.

However, the records from CFIA’s testing of foods available in Canada, both of local and imported origin, show a trend of remarkably clean foods as imported from China into Canada.

This had originally made me skeptical and doubt the quality of my transcription of the CFIA data, or the selection of sampling varieties by CFIA. However, as more data is transcribed, totalling over 3,700 records, I can see that the samples have a wide variety. Also, readings of similar foods grown in other countries including Canada and the US are showing much higher level of glyphosate in them. Eventually I had to acknowledge, grudgingly at first, that for some inexplicable reason, the foods exported from China to Canada are a lot better in terms of glyphosate poisoning, than one might expect.

There are around 120 samples of foods listed by CFIA as originating from China, among the fist 3,700 odd records. The average parts per billion count of glyphosate and AMPA turns out to be below 5. This makes China among the best five countries whose foods are available in Canada, and whose sample numbers as tested by CFIA is above 40. The few countries that beat China in this category of clean food supply, are Mexico, Thailand, South Africa and Peru. This has been covered in a separate blog. A few other countries also have exported very good food to Canada, and their numbers are catching up, such as Bolivia, with 23 samples and an average ppb of 4.

Since soy is a big item in Chinese cuisine, there was an expectedly high number of samples tested that contained soy. So a separate table was prepared for them, as shon above. With 26 samples, the average ppb count came to be just 5, and the worst one, a dry, roasted, salted, gluten free soy product, had 51 ppb of the herbicide.

Although soy is also a bean, it was separated from other beans because of the number of samples and because of its prevalence in Chinese food. The rest of the bean containing samples were compiled in a second table, shown above.

A single bad sample, of Pinto Beans with a combined ppb of glyphosate and AMPA measured 204. All others had either zero or low values of the herbicide. The average ppb in this group, totalling 24 samples, came to 10.3.

Next come the grains. Again, out of 21 samples, only a few had any glyphosate or AMPA. The highest concentration was only 24.8 ppb in a sample of Barley. The average ppb for this group was 2.3.

And then comes a long list of almost fifty samples that all showed zero glyphosate.

I consolidated that longish list by category type and number of samples, as shown here. The largest number of samples in this group are baby food.

I remember the local story of baby food scandal in the interiors of China some years ago, when I heard it from locals during one of my past work visits to the coastal region.

Apparently, there was this odd phenomenon of babies in the interior being reported to have a proportionately larger head for its body. Eventually some doctors and specialists went there to look into it and found a whole different and horrible story. The heads were normal, but the body was underdeveloped. The root cause was found to be lack of nutrients and too much of synthetic stuff that looks like food into the baby formulae.

At that time, China was making the major change from a state controlled economy to a free market entrepreneurship. In the process, food quality inspection and control was not as well established, especially in the rural areas, as they should have been. So free market entrepreneurship when rampant and at reached at times extreme levels of adulteration.

Also, at the same time, westernization and modernism was spreading into the rural heartlands, where nursing through breast milk was not as cool as giving modern balanced food through baby formulae.

The combination of all this was causing severe malnourishment in babies. This practice was reportedly put a stop to, and ruthlessly, by a new regime of quality control in baby food. That is what I heard at the time.

And now, so many years later, here is a list of 15 baby food samples from China, tested in Canada, show absolutely no glyphosate at all. Of course, glyphosate was not the issue at the time – adulteration and lack of nutrition was. The current test involves glyphosate and AMPA only. I suspect the reasons such large number of Chinese baby foods are in the test records is because Canadians that trace their origin back to China might be importing these foods for their babies. This is just a guess.

Anyhow, this post was made with the best efforts to show that, whatever might be the case with China producing glyphosate and importing Argentinian RoundUp Ready Soy, the   samples of foods imported from China and collected in Canada seem to show a remarkably clean range of foods comprising of grains, soy, beans and various other natural and processed foods.

All these records were based on the first 3,700 odd records, or about half of the total numbers of tests conducted by CFIA. When the rest are also transcribed, I should be revisiting this topic, if there is a major change in the findings.

A note of caution

We should remember that China is the largest producer as well as exporter of glyphosate, for Roundup as well as many other glyphosate based herbicides for sales around the world.

Following learned from some Chinese activists :
In 2015 and 2016, over 80 million tons of RR (RoundUp Ready) soybeans soaked with glyphosate residues were imported into China, mostly from USA, Brazil and Argentina. They contain neurotoxin solvent hexane (with carcinogen benzene residues) chemically extracted for the RR soybean oil with glyphosate/AMPA residue flooding the domestic food market (inside China).

The side-product RR soybean meal soaked with glyphosate + hexane + benzene residue is partly processed into animal feed, and partly processed into human consumed RR soybean protein, added to ham, sausages, frozen food, bread, cakes, soy milk, infant formulas etc etc. These are again sold on the Chinese market.

China still produces about 10 million tons of non-GMO soybeans, including much smaller amount of organic soybeans. American, European, Japanese importers actively purchase them for processing medical products, health care products and food products, and in many cases hire inspectors to test these soybeans in the field.

Chinese companies exporting food products to USA, Europe, Japan etc., are very careful in only using non-GM soybeans to process such products, Chinese government inspection bureaus also carefully test exported food products, making sure they are not processed by RR soybeans with glyphosate residue which only enter the food supply for Chinese domestic consumption.

For the above reason, China experiences the same dramatic increase of malignant diseases as in the USA

Reference article by Chinese Military Scientist on GM Watch.

Its a bizarre world.

Comments welcome.

Wheat finally shows up

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Its been a long while, over 45 days that I have been pouring over the CFIA data – transcribing, cross checking, error correcting, and reading through the results to make sense of it all.

It has been exhilarating and disappointing the same time. Exhilarating because I managed to get the food testing data from CFIA. Disappointing because it clearly shows that foods produced in Canada and USA are without a question the very worst in the world, when it comes to glyphosate/AMPA poisoning. More than disappointing, it has been heartbreaking to face the harsh and glaring truth that your government may be in collusion, knowingly or unknowingly, in slow-poisoning you, and in a manner that leaves a smaller and smaller path, not well defined that too, for you to avoid subjecting yourself to slow-poison from your food.

It is heartbreaking to see how this toxic, dangerous and unnecessary technology can strong arm its way into every facet of a supposedly democratic system and pollute its science, regulatory mechanism, academia, media, and the widest imaginable swath of political process, leaving virtually no clear avenue for the people to correct this wholesale chemical attack on society and an assault on nature.

But one thing that baffled, annoyed, disappointed me at the same time, was absence of the very foods that were suspected to be at the top of the this glyphosate pyramid: wheat, canola and corn.

And now, after 45 breathtaking days and a lot of sleepless or fretful nights, long hours of thinking through, transcribing and fruitlessly searching for the elusive data on glyphosate test involving wheat, corn and canola, finally I begin to see a glimmer of hope on one side, and the ominous indication that what folks suspected all along, is actually true. Wheat and wheat products have much glyphosate.

CFIA started sampling foods for glyphosate testing back in 2015. But it took till the middle of 2016, and almost 3000 tests of other foods, for them to first start taking samples of wheat and wheat products, collected mostly in the eastern maritime provinces marked by CFIA as “Atlantic”, for glyphosate testing. And the results do not look pretty at all.

Other than a few Canadian and US products, a vast majority of the samples are recorded as “unknown” of origin. This has been a source of major vexation for me. I suspect most of them are local, i.e. Canadian. Canada is not a major importer of wheat at all, since it produces more than it needs. Also both Canada and USA protect their respective agricultural sector against each other and against the rest of the world. So most of the US foods that are also grown in Canada, cannot be imported without a hefty tax, and vice versa.

I know this protection of local agriculture from foreign competition in itself was a very sore point for many emerging nations at the WTO talks, primary irritant being India. I might even add that such resistance against one-sided free trade deals involving only manufactured goods, banking and other services with the emerging nations while keeping agriculture out of the same deal was the straw that more or less broke the camel’s back with many of the emerging and third world nations backing and standing behind India on this account, which was cleverly sidestepped by the media, but more or less killed the WTO where it stood at the time. That collapse of the global free market trade talks in turn created the need for regional agreements, bypassing such irritant nations, and we started seeing the likes of TPP etc. I am yet to read any meaningful report from the media or any of the trade-guru with a fair, balanced and inclusive report on these issues covering all sides of the argument – one reason I also have a low opinion of financial, political, and trade experts as well as politicians that talk about such trade deals. They are buffoons and jokers, far as I am concerned – not worth the time.

Anyhow, these are the reasons I suspect most of the “unknown” wheat samples are of Canadian origin.

There are mentions of pasta – which do not say they are made of wheat flour, but I suspect they do.

One sample is from Italy, but it may well be that the Italians made that product out of wheat initially imported from Canada in the first place.

There is a lot more to do with and about wheat, from my end, to try and bring as much of the story out to the people as possible in the coming days and weeks. I shall also include them in the book.

I have no doubt that, should this effort gain traction and begin to get noticed outside of a small group of interested parties, then there would be counter comments from “experts” claiming to be scientists, nutritionist, politicians, lobbyist and the like, stating either that my statements are my opinion only (true), and are not based on facts (which can be argued since fact and fiction has been allowed to merge heavily and freely in the current system of smokes and mirrors). But these false-experts do not bother me since I hold these people in such low esteem that I cannot bother to consider their comments. Before I can take anyone’s opinion serously on this issue, he/she has to first earn my respect.

I would consider discussing glyphosate safety levels if and when:

1) Government encourages Scientific study on glyphosate in food and environment in public institutions such as universities to be funded by public and not industry, and bans the industry and politicians for interfering with the study

2) When scientists are funded and given a free hand in checking both good as well as potentially harmful effects of glyphosate on humans, on biological diversity, and on the micro organisms at the base of the food chain, and none of their findings are hounded, attacked, or withdrawn from the body of literature, allowed chips are allowed to fall where they may.

3) When twenty or thirty years have passed with such free and unfettered investigation has been conducted on Glyphosate

4) When safety tests on glyphosate that go with the application for approval and registry of this molecule is conducted by approved independent third parties outside of industry or political meddling, but at the cost of the producer of the product, as a minimum requirement for product approval, and all known avenues of a conflict of interest has been eliminated

5) When all such safety test records are automatically placed in public domain for anybody to recheck and raise an alarm if they find evidence that the pesticide may have caused harm to test animals

only then, I might consider spending even two seconds of my time to hear what these jokers have to say. Till such time, they remain jokers, in my mind.

My only response to them might be a suggestion that they fix a red ball on their nose, paint their face garishly, put on ballooning pants with polka dots on them, wear huge floppy shoes, and join a circus.

Meanwhile, I have much more homework to do.

Another thing that is beginning to show up in the records is – corn.

Mexico, Thailand, Peru, S.A., China among cleanest food exporters to Canada

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Subject covered in this blog will grow and expand, and may get included into the book eventually. This post is made after transcribing around 3,000 records and going back for some error correction and cleaning up of the data so far transcribed.

I look up at the statistics offered by the service provider who hosts my tonu.org blog site where I put up the WordPress blogs, most of which has been to do with food security in general, and Glyphosate in particular in the recent years.

One of the statistics provided is for me to see which area of the world had people that liked looking into and reading my blogs in the last few days. I could even check more details such as which particular blog post was or had been read, or which devices were used (computer, tablet, or smart phone etc). This is how I came to know that quite a few folks actually look at my blog using tablets and smart phones, and not necessarily computers. This was a sort of revelation for me, since I personally find a smart phone too small to read blogs. However, I understand that the so called smart phones are becoming very powerful and versatile gadgets where the “phone” service is only one part, and that there are increasingly more number of people that use just one device, such as a smart phone, for all their needs including browsing the net.

Who in the world is reading about glyphosate in Canadian food?

I also take note when folks from uncommon places, or places that do not seem to have heavy readership in the past look into my blog,

Russia had been an interesting cast. First, English is perhaps not the major language folks read or speak, though things are perhaps changing, and penetration of english as an international language is creeping into Russia as well. Also, Russia is largely a promoter of clean food. It has justification in being suspicious of the toxic agricultural technology coming out of the US. Also, a very large part of the total Russian food supply comes from home grown food – I think to the tune of some 40% or so. In other words, small farmer and home grown food is deeply enmeshed into the Russian culture. I feel this is a very good thing, in light of what is happening in the west with regard to industrially grown and processed stuff that goes in the name of food.

Clean Food exporters to Canada

And since my blogs mostly deals with the toxicity issue in industrial food systems that Russia appears to be wary of, and since my blog is invariably in English, I did not expect heavy readership from Russia, and am not surprised to see few hits from there.

However, I do see a persistent interest from the area of the three major Russian cities from the west – St. Petersburg, Moscow and Volgograd. These three names are sort of deer to me because of a different reason – I have been fascinated by Russian resistant to German invasion, and in particular the battles for Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad. Hitler lost all three of these battles, but the carnage and hardship endured by people in Leningrad (Ex Petrograd and todays St. Petersburg) as well as Stalingrad (today’s Volgograd) is unimaginable. This also confirmed to me that the Russian character (and not necessarily their past communist regime) has a fierce sense of patriotism and ability to withstand unimaginable hardships in order to endure and keep their nation from foreign subjugation. This is also borne out in the previous western invasions into Russia going back to the time of Napoleon.

I had read a vast number of books, of German, Soviet Russian, American as well as post Soviet Russian versions of the battles and the history continues to amaze me, although I abhor wars in general, I find the essence of the Russian character under stress to be something to learn from.

And so, when I see hits from these cities, two of which have changed their name after the end of Communism. They removed Lenin from Leningrad and gave back the original name, St. Petersburg. I am however, a bit confused about this. I know the town was founded by the Tzar Peter the Great of Russia and was named after him as Petrograd. However, the current name – St. Petersburg, implies it is named after a saint. Peter the great was a tzar, and although he is called Peter the great, he was a mortal and not a saint. So who is the current town named after?

Then, in random order, comes two areas from Africa. Africa has not been a place where my blog generates interest. Therefore I was happy to see Lagos, Nigeria, being one dot on the map. And there has been relatively consistent interest from South Africa, from towns such as Durban.

Regarding Alaska, I can make a faint guess as who it might be, since I had a recent exchange with someone there that has an interest in the subject of Glyphosate in food.

I noted Guadalhara, Mexico for two reasons. First, I find the name so charming – Guadalhara. I wish I knew what it meant and where the name originates from. The second reason is, Mexico is the only country in North America that provided consistently high quality food to Canada with virtually no glyphosate. I am preparing a fresh blog on countries that exported food to Canada, where the number of samples tested by CFIA is larger than a minimum of 40, and where the average glyphosate content per sample is less than 5 parts er billion.

Mexico tops the list with a few others, and stands like an exceptionally shiny example for North America, since the other two in the continent – Canada and USA go to the bottom of the pile as the countries that have the most toxic foods on average, with regards to glyphosate.

I am not yet ready for the blog since I have to delve into some specifics of which kinds of food are imported into Canada from these cleanest suppliers (of which there are a few more besides Mexico) and if there is something to be learned from that for the consumers.

Also, I made a sort of temporary halt to further transcriptions as I found some errors in the records between records 2,500 and 3,000 and decided to go back there with a magnifying glass and clean it up instead of leaving it for later. I did managed to clean most of it off, but lost some data in the process and am re-entering them, and feeling better for having done it this way.

Anyhow, on to the hit list map.

Buenos Aires, Argentina flashed up recently. I do not have much contact with folks there, but find the name Buenos Aires, very charming and understand that is means “good air” or something like that. Lovely !

I am very aware of the devastation going on with regard to industrial level growing of RoundUp ready GM soy in the pampas, where aerial spray of the chemical is suspected to be causing serious birth defects in the villages where the indigenous (first nation) people stay, and how laboratory tests in Buenos Aires conducted on flog embryo by subjecting the mother frogs to corresponding levels ( corresponding to body weight) of glyphosate resulted in comparable birth defects of the similar type that are being found in the newborns in the Pampas villages.

I am aware of the fact that most of this soy goes to China, for production of soy based food, which would have made me suspicious of the foods the Chinese are eating. However, the Chinese foods imported into Canada and tested by CFIA turns out to be very clean. This is another puzzle that I intend to dig into later. It is possible that Canada is not importing the toxic kinds of Chinese food, which may be left for the Chinese consumers. However, it also raises a second question – where do the Chinese restaurants in Canada get their soy sauce, or tofu from?

All these made me notice the spot – Buenos Aires, on the map.

Canada and USA has always been heavy readers of the blog, and the dots are so closely packed that I often cannot pick out unusual towns and villages from the map, exceptions aside, like Alaska.

Likewise in Europe. However, I have seen an increased level of interest of late from countries such as Poland. And today, I noted a repeat visit from Scandinavia, Ireland and Greece.

In Asia, India is a consistent visitor to my blog. Even then, I managed to pick up a new name – Bhawan, in the Himalayan foothills not far from Delhi.

Sihet in Bangladesh, Bangkok in Thailand, and Wuhan in China caught my attention. Thailand should be equally pleased with my next blog, since that is one more great country whose foods have been tested by CFIA coving a large sample base and found to be remarkably clean with respect to glyphosate poisoning.

From the middle east there has been some sporadic interests, often from Israel. This time UAE shows up.

That about sums it up with the blog hit map for today, as I ponder into the details of the few countries that so far seems to export very clean food to Canada, with regard to glyphosate poisoning.

Thanks for reading. Comments welcome.

Tale of two lentils – Canadian and Indian

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Hello folks.

Today I bring to you another fifteen minutes of rant – me talking to myself in a video, about glyphosate poisoning of food, as in north America, specifically from a Canadian’s perspective.

We are supposed to have monthly brainstorming meetings, to appraise each other of what is going on, and to get folk’s opinion on what to do about it all. Each brings his or her own perspective and view point, and we search for a path out of this topic jungle.

The first of these meetings has not yet happened, as Richard Miller is organizing it. Meanwhile, I could not wait and had to come out with his blog and a fifteen minute video – about lentil, as produced in two countries – Canada and India.

This blog and update is prepared after going through the first 3,000 records entered by CFIA, covering almost whole of year 2015. It also reflects my frustration and bafflement as well as the difficulty in dealing with different entries of similar foods using different names or spellings, which makes it harder for the software to analyze the data. There is a famous saying about computerization – garbage in, garbage out. So I had to consider creating an extra column to the side and re-entering some of the sample identifications using more descriptive and standardized terms, which the computer can then pick up and analyze or compare. But doing that for thousands of records is backbreaking, tiring and frustrating.

Frustration also from the fact that I have not found a single regular wheat item or its derivatives such as flour or bread, in the first 3,000 records. I am extremely puzzled and frustrated about it.

But, in absence of any wheat item in the first 3,000 records, the next major food groups turns out to be rice and lentils. Rice turns out to be reasonably clean of glyphosate, though even here, Canadian Rice fair poorly against most others.

But this blog and video is about lentils, which has reasonably high glyphosate content, especially if it is grown in Canada. Samples from United States has not been considered for this graph and video. Perhaps it will be included for comparative study later on. Also, a large group of food samples that contain lentils are marked “unknown”. I might analyze them as described, i.e. “unknown”, which may not be too helpful, but I cannot help that. I suspect most of the unknown samples are of Canadian origin, but cannot prove it.

Readers may have to reach a decision on them by themselves, for now.

Anyhow, the tale of two lentils is as follows:
Canadian lentils have almost 90% samples containing glyphosate, and average content is 282 ppb.
Indian lentils have 40% samples with glyphosate, and average level is 25 ppb.

Tale of two lentils

The Rice Story

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Transcribing the data from CFIA on foods tested for glyphosate – thousands and thousands of records, has given me a new insight into the changing scene in North America with regarding to creeping toxicity in most foods, thanks to glyphosate and its indiscriminate use in our agriculture and in nature.

A lot of effort has gone into transcription of the data as well as trying to make sense out of it. A lot of sleepless nights. Somewhere down the line, it came to me that I should consider writing a book on it, perhaps an e-book on Amazon, sold for a couple of dollars, which will contain all the efforts to make sense of the looming catastrophe of increasing amounts of this most controversial herbicide that is likely at the root of all sorts of illnesses in humans and a white swatch of the living world that is exposed to it.

Meanwhile, I have yet to reach the halfway mark in transcribing the data from CFIA, but have covered over 3,000 records already, though proof reading, error correction and more of the same is going on.

But, there is enough material here to talk about, say, rice, in this blog.

The Rice Story

Out of the 3,000 odd records so far transcribed, one item that still eludes me is the major food group comprising of conventional wheat and the wheat products such as flour and bread etc. The only items with “wheat” in their name are fringe grains such as buckwheat, or terms like “wheat less”. Why standard wheat is still missing, out of the first 3,000 records, I do not know. Some friends are speculating that CFIA did not wish to test wheat because so much glyphosate is expected to be found there, that they did not wish to frighten the people.

Well, it is known that wheat mostly in not GMO, not RoundUp ready, and cannot tolerate glyphosate. Therefore glyphosate is used to desiccate wheat just before harvest. Therefore, glyphosate is expected to be in the wheat grains more than a roundup ready crop. And perhaps wheat was the first major cereal to be thus desiccated, and the practice may now be very widespread. So there is justification in the speculation that glyphosate content in wheat might be rather high today, especially for wheat grown in Canada and USA.

Nonetheless, I have not given up hope, and shall wait till I have transcribed all the data to check if wheat and its byproducts indeed does come up in significant number of tests. But its absence has made me wary for now, or wheat, and fostered my resolve to only have organic bread, if I must have bread at all.

And in comparison, rice seems to have been tested enough times and the readings are comparatively good. So I decided to check up on the results a bit, and come up with some comparative charts to show how rice from different countries stack up. Also, this has increased my interest in leaning towards eating more rice and less wheat, till he comparable glyphosate content for wheat is available.

There were 208 samples of rice, among the first 3,212 test records, out of which the biggest bunch comprises of rice from unknown source. This “unknown” country designation has vexed me throughout my effort to transcribe the data. However, unmarked bulk rice, which may be available in some stores, are, in my guess, more likely to be Canadian than from any other country. This is just a guess. I have no means to prove it at this point. Anyhow, for the sake of this chart, I combined Canada + Unknown as an added source. So there are perhaps seven countries from which rice has been imported, if we lump unknown with Canada. Out of them, Canada (along with unknown) has the most number of samples, at 43. The other countries are USA, Thailand, India, Italy, China and Pakistan. China and Pakistan each have only two samples so far, so they might not be statistically significant.

The chart, when compared with readings of other major grains such as legumes, and buckwheat, seems to indicate that rice has been comparatively clean, and with much less glyphosate than some of the other grains.

And within them, the best rice is from the bottom four – India, Thailand, China and Pakistan. If we discount China and Pakistan for low sample count as of now, then the major best source of clean rice in Canada might be those imported from India and Thailand.

However, some disturbing news is emerging out of India, indicating rice farming in some eastern provinces of India is beginning to introduce glyphosate desiccation. So, perhaps the story is not as rosy as it seems for the future of Indian rice. I am trying to get to the bottom of this issue and find out if this is true or untrue.

Then comes the top few, with relatively higher glyphosate content, of which Italian and US rice still looks good enough with reasonably low glyphosate count. The worst seems to be Canada, either lumped with Unknown, or standing by itself.

Its both galling and frustrating to learn that, even on a relatively clean cereal, Canada had to be about the worst producer when it comes to glyphosate concentration. Also, if glyphosate is not used for desiccation here in Canada, then the relatively higher concentration might be an indication of general level of glyphosate pollution here in Canada.

That is something that the government as well as the people, should think about and consider addressing.

Judy Hoy on Glyphosate and Wildlife

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I had a telephone interview with Judy Hoy on January 24, 2017, regarding effect of glyphosate (RoundUp) on wildlife. Judy is a wildlife biologist that has cared for wildlife all her life and is 77 years old.

She had a lot more to say beyond what is covered in this eight and a half minute video, regarding birth defects through glyphosate affected newborns, and how some of the deformation can be cured through the right kind of treatment, though the doctors do not like to acknowledge that, and claim the deformations are genetic, from the parents and cannot be cured. That conversation has not been recorded for inclusion in this video.

Here is her statement, and the talk recorded over the phone and converted into this video

I would like to address atmospheric transport of pesticides (an umbrella term that includes herbicides, insecticides and fungicides) and the consequences of those pesticides falling in rain and snow downwind of where they are applied. With regard to so called organic crops, rain containing pesticides, especially those extensively applied, like Roundup with its primary ingredient glyphosate, contaminate all of the foliage on which the rain falls, including organic crops. Such pesticides also contaminate the surface water used for irrigation of all crops, including the otherwise organically grown crops. This causes most organic crops to have measurable levels of glyphosate and/or metabolites, but much less than crops that are directly sprayed with Roundup. With regard to pesticides sprayed by aircraft, studies have shown that approximately 20 percent of the chemicals fall on the area sprayed. The rest of the chemicals are carried by the winds far from where they are initially sprayed, sometimes hundreds of miles in just one day.

Studies have shown that the environmental toxins travel across North America in a northeasterly direction so a large amount of the pesticides sprayed here in Western United States goes across the United States and north into Eastern Canada. It has also been shown that most pesticides sprayed in the Northern Hemisphere north of the equator travel around and around the earth towards the north, eventually ending up in the snow and ice above the Arctic Circle. Environmental toxins sprayed in the Southern Hemisphere go around the earth in a southern direction ending up in the snow and ice in the Antarctic.

Animals all over the world now have the same birth defects, many being far from sprayed cropland. For example, Roundup is not used in the extreme backcountry of Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks, but the animals in remote areas of both parks have the same facial and male reproductive malformations reported in studies of big game animals and documented on domestic grazing animals here in the valleys of Western Montana. This observation is based on pictures of the animals in documentaries and photos taken by photographers who hike far from roads in the national parks to photograph wildlife.

The Forest Service person I contacted by phone emphatically stated to me that they do not and have not used Roundup on the National Forest here in Western Montana. That is because Roundup kills everything and the forest service does not want to kill the native plants and trees. Yet, the examined hunter-killed deer and elk that live on the Forest Service land full time, well away from the valley where sprayed fields are, have the same birth defects. And the birth defects there appear to be at the same high prevalence as the animals living in the valleys. I would like to state that when collecting the study data from accident-killed big game animals, I didn’t separate the animals I examined into valley animals and forest animals.

My biologist colleague and I have examined a fairly large number of mule deer and pronghorn antelope from Eastern Montana and the same birth defects were higher in prevalence on those from Eastern Montana than on our Western Montana mule deer. We don’t have pronghorn antelope here in extreme Western Montana where most of the white-tailed deer I examined came from. White-tailed deer from Central and Eastern Montana brought to my colleague or to me to examine have an equally high prevalence of underbite and a much higher prevalence of overbite than our white-tailed deer here in Western Montana. My colleague examines the bite of each animal when he cleans the skull for the hunter. Those animals lived on the open prairie or in small isolated mountain ranges until the hunter harvested them, so we don’t find much difference in the birth defects with regard to where the animals live. They all have the same birth defects at very high prevalence. Some birth defects, especially underdeveloped premaxillary bone and male reproductive malformations are close to or over 50%. Biology books state that any birth defect with a prevalence of over 5% should raise a red flag, so the prevalence of those birth defects on wild ruminant species here in Montana is 10 times more. It is far past time to raise that proverbial red flag.

Severely underdeveloped lower jaw or overbite was found on over 5% of the white-tailed deer taken to a butcher shop in New Brunswick, Canada. The butcher who reported the overbite on the deer did not look for underbite on other deer brought to his shop.

The evidence shown by the extremely widespread identical birth defects on the wild and domestic animals and the evidence that Tony Mitra reported was found in the Canadian glyphosate test levels, indicates a high level of contamination in the rain and snow. Most of the pesticides in the weather fronts that come through our area are on dust picked up by the winds as they move across the bare fields in the states to the west of us. The millions of acres of bare fields in states upwind of our Western Montana valley are the source of large dust storms when the autumn months are dry. Even if there aren’t large dust storms, when the wind in the weather front passes over the bare fields, the soil particles on the very top of the dirt in the field is blown up into the air. When Roundup is used as a desiccant and applied just prior to harvest, glyphosate and other chemicals in the Roundup are still on the top layer of soil just prior to winter. When the weather front carrying the pesticide laden dust particles hits the high mountains, it slows down, dropping the contaminated snow or rain on the mountains and into our Western Montana valleys.

The snow is especially significant because the toxins that melt out of the snow during the spring and early summer are released into the creeks, rivers and dams that provide the irrigation water. When the water evaporates after the crops are sprinkled with the contaminated water, it concentrates the Roundup and other toxins on the leaves and in the top surface of the soil. In the winter the highly contaminated soil from organic fields and directly sprayed fields is picked up by winds and carried in the weather fronts to be deposited in the snow and surface water downwind and the whole contamination cycle begins again. It will take years to rid the environment of biologically significant levels of Roundup if they never spray another drop for the rest of time.

As many researchers have stated and shown so emphatically in studies, the biologically significant levels of glyphosate that cause birth defects and health issues in developing young animals are hundreds or even thousands of times lower than what is present on the foliage, in the rain and snow, and in the air throughout North America and now likely throughout the world.

Judy Hoy

Meanwhile, for those interested might read up on a dozen year old report from environment Canada on the spread of pesticides through the Canadian estuarine and aquatic environment, and results of its presence from various such samples.

Click on the image for browsing the file from Environment Canada

Charts on glyphosate

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Glyphosate content in ppb.

Above chart with partial data (2,000 test results out of over 7,000 from CFIA so far looked at) is for buckwheat only. For those who like to eat buckwheat for health or other reasons, but do not like to have glyphosate with it, may consider a few options – consider buying buckwheat from China or Russia and avoid the other sources, or alternately go organic.

Glyphosate contamination in ppb in legumes produced in Canada and US (out of the first 2,500 records)

And above is the chart for legumes produced in just two countries. Samples of legumes tested elsewhere gives a different story. Some countries have far less glyphosate in them, but only a few samples tested. Some countries have very high glyphosate figures in some categories but not others, also with low sample number. Canada and USA stand out as particular bad example for legumes with regard to glyphosate contamination, and garbanzo is the worst.

There is so much data to go through, covering the CFIA test of foods collected in Canada for glyphosate content, that analyzing it meaningfully is a task that demands attention and also an effort to look at it from different angles and present views that might be easier to understand.

I wonder if I might some day have a book on the topic of glyphosate in food as collected in Canada. Some of the details are revealing, while absence of some foods from test is equally galling. Therefore there is likely a need for some effort that fills the gaps. Getting Municipalities to start testing foods is believed to be an excellent opportunity to fill the blanks.

And, here are a few charts from the data so far transcribed, about the CFIA test records.

This is a partial country breakdown, after transcribing 2,000 records. Some countries have low sample numbers so their indications may not be true representation. Canada & USA have high sampling numbers.

And then the table below. Food samples marked as Canadian are turning out less than American foods. I find that hard to believe when samples are being drawn from al corners of Canada. Equally puzzling is the largest chunk of the samples coming under “unknown” origin. I suspect these unknown foods are unlabelled bulk foods picked up from local stores all over the country, and are likely to be more of Canadian origin than any other. Also that makes the Canadian sample count to be almost twice as many as US samples. So I created a row with the combined Canada+Unknown items, and consider that to be a better representation of Canadian foods. This also brings the average glyphosate (and AMPA) count o the foods from Canada and USA closer to each other, which seems logicals since both have similar agricultural practices and Canada is so heavily (and in my view negatively) influenced by American agro-industrial influence.

The table below gives some of the basics.

One kind of presumably healthy food category that has really surprised me with astonishingly high glyphosate content – is gluten free food. So much so that I had to try and separate them from the rest and see how the figures play out.

Out of the first two thousand odd records, I find very very few gluten free items from any country except USA and Canada, so I ignored them and focussed on just these two. USA has 130 samples and Canada 99, that have “gluten free” in their description. Average glyphosate + AMPA readings for the US produced gluten free product is 248 ppb and that for Canada is 286.

These readings are between two and three times the national average for USA and Canada, which are already hight to start with. Somehow, anything that has “gluten free” mentioned has become suspect- in my mind.

This is but a preliminary report. I shall later check if Organic-Gluten free is any better, and if it is any better than standard, non-organic, non-glutens free, off the shelf conventional food.

Gluten Free foods have been among the most baffling due to high glyphosate concentration.

But when you break it down to organic and non-organic of the gluten free foods produced in USA and Canada, the pictures changes dramatically, as below.

Non-organic gluten free stuff is way worse than national averages, and out of the two, the Canadian product sucks more

The confusion regarding Organic stamp and gluten free food

If you go to my blog, and download the initial 803 records, in searchable pdf, you can check each record that has the words “gluten free” and see the test results and what kind of food.

There still will be a problem. CFIA has removed the label and the true description of the source of the food sample.

So, if you find ten cases of gluten free flour of some kind, and see that nine out of those ten are having high glyphosate and only one is clean, it might be impossible to ascertain which specific brand, or store or place one must to to pick up the clean variety and not the nine dirty types. This is one reason I would say that gluten free this or that item is in general suspect, because the average glyphosate content (adding the glyphosate amount of the nine positive samples and dividing by ten total samples) gives a pretty high glyphosate parts per billion figure and chance of me getting a good doze of it from this item is high.

For those that are gluten intolerant, the problem is amplified and becomes circular. eating high glyphosate gluten free food on one side removes the pair or discomfort of taking in gluten, on the other side perhaps ensure that the gluten intolerance (it is now more or less established that gut bacteria damage is one of the root causes of gluten intolerance, and that glyphosate hurts gut bacteria) problem is likely to continue or worsen instead of get better, because of continued intake of more glyphosate.

It just so happens that “Organic” gluten free food, in general, are a lot cleaner than conventional gluten free food.

One could download the pdf file and check it for any kind of permutation and combination to arrive at suitable decisions that address one’s particular need.

As and when more data is transcribed, cross checked and error-corrected, more of it will be published on line.

Time to time I take a break and make a chart or two to address some things that appear puzzling or surprising to me.

Finding glyphosate content so much higher in gluten free food that the general average of all foods, came as a surprise since I used to think of gluten free as a healthier kind of food. I personally do not buy gluten free, do not have allergy to gluten and do understand that keeping my gut bacteria healthy has gotten to be very important for my immune system and general health.

We are living in a very difficult world, where the US and Canadian Government is constantly changing definitions of food stamps. Today they accept certain kind of contamination even within certified organic label and has invented multiple kinds of USDA-Organic stamp, with different colours accepting different percentage of the food to have non-organic content.

For example, I just learned from a scientist in USA that the “green label” USDA organic stamp allows 5% non-organic food to be within it. The black USDA-Organic stamp will allow 30% non-organic content in it and still have that black circular USDA Organic stamp.
I am trying to figure out Canadian Government standards on this. As far as CFIA records go, the foods are only described “organic” without any clarification.

For any that wish to investigate and help us with the general work, you may wish to read through the Canadian Safe Food (read Organic) regulation standard for 2017 and see if the Canadian Government is also following the US counterpart in allowing various levels of impurity into the food and yet agreeing to stamp it with different flavours of the circular “CANADIAN ORGANIC – BIOLOGIQUE CANADA”stamp. Click on the image below for the full pdf document and download for your study.

Click on image for the full pdf document

Some text here might appear long winded or a bit out of context. That is because I am aiming to eventually prepare a book or an e-book on the topic and am using some of these blogs as a store of some of my off the cuff write-ups.

I know the pro-Monsanto and pro-glyphosate lobby will snigger and pass condescending notes that the amounts mentioned are tiny, irrelevant and is not harmful to humans, based on yada yada yada reports.

But this blog, or my efforts, are not to engage in any argument with these characters. To me, no amount of glyphosate is desirable, because:

  1. Safety test records and data, based on which Health Canada approved glyphosate, is still kept hidden from the people, illegally I might add, and I am having a multi-year long battle to get them to disclose the data, without which I am unprepared to listen to these industry cronies.
  2. Science has been hijacked by industry. We need science funding to be taken away from industry, restriction removed so that Universities can test for both good points as well as potential dangers of glyphosate, without any interference from promoters, and let all the findings be part of the body of science. Let chips fall as they may. Let twenty years pass and enough material be collected to highlight both sides of the argument. Only then am I willing to even consider listening to reports or evaluations of the scientific community, on safety of glyphosate.
  3. Let someone prove Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff wrong by showing that glyphosate is NOT an analog (mimic) of glycine and it does NOT get picked up by our biology into the extra-cellular matrix, does NOT get into our cells, does NOT get used by our RNA to produce peptides or peptides which eventually end up as new proteins where glyphosate replaces glycine with disastrous consequence to the function of the protein. If such a proof is not produced, I am prepared to ignore all comments on mere toxicological tests and studies on safety of glyphosate.

Meanwhile, I intend to analyze the CFIA test record data with my own assumption that the only safe limit for glyphosate is ZERO, irrespective of what guideline CFIA, Health Canada, EPA or anybody else follows. This analysis is based on that assumption. Those that follow my reasoning, they may continue to read them Those that do not believe my reasoning – go someplace else. I have no time nor any inclination, to argue with you all. Just go.

Lentils and Chickpea/ Garbanzo beans

These have been a nightmare – since these readings are so high, often going into several thousand ppb (parts per billion – which is derived by multiplying the ppm or µg/g figures by CFIA) on some of the samples. I shall address those items later on on this blog. Meanwhile, I prepared some charts for India, since lentil is a heavily consumed group of seeds in India and since this is increasingly popular in the west and since North America is beginning to produce a lot of it, perhaps hoping to re-export back to India where production is falling behind rising demand.

Indian lentils seem to have rising amount of glyphosate, but nowhere as high as lentils produced in Canada (not shown in this chart)

The chart below shows, among all the foods imported from India into Canada, nearly seventy such samples so far seen out of 2,000 odd records, the worst group is the lentil + Chickpea group, compared to say, rice, or any other item.

Canadian grown lentils are way worse than the Indian grown. I shall show them later. Meanwhile, here is another chart about India, or rather, about the foods imported from India into Canada and tested by CFIA. Its the percentages of samples that contain glyphosate/AMPA.

Percentage of bad food among imported Indian samples. You may click on the image to get to the pdf file of the 800 odd records so far transcribed and put on line.

The above chart means, out of all the lentils imported from India, 50% are having glyphosate. Over 12% of the rice has glyphosate, though mostly trace amount, and among the rest – which include a whole gamut from pickles to snacks, over 71% have some glyphosate. However, the averages as you can see in the previous chart above, are still low compared to foods grown in North America.

I shall come back with more shortly. I am also trying out various chart types to practice on them, for perhaps putting in an e-book I might publish on Amazon kindle, about glyphosate in food.

General North American Food

Since readings between USA and Canadian food samples appear more or less similar when compared to foods imported from anywhere else, I have also combined to two for a general idea of glyphosate contamination in certain categories that appear to have high glyphosate contamination, without separating organic from non-organic labelling. The graph below shows that.

Suspect categories of North American food with regard to glyphosate contamination.

More later.

Gluten Free Food maybe suspect

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Over 1600 records so far have been transcribed, but error correction going on, and only around 800 of them so far placed on line in this blog.

The details are shedding light on many issues, but raising as many questions. So far, there seem to be no standard wheat, nor flour made from the wheat, nor standard bread, or Asian flat bread, or Pasta, made out of that wheat, has apparently beed tested. If I was a political analyst, a Psephologist and involved in tracking of trends, I might have concluded that CFIA has not tested any wheat or wheat product on purpose, to keep the people and the government in the dark about the one food item that is suspected to have the most glyphosate.

However, I am just an engineer and do not fully understand nor sure about political analysis or psephology. So I shall wait till I have transcribed all the near 8,000 records before I conclude if wheat and wheat products have at all been tested or not. I shall likely be having further communication with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency about it, once the preliminary analysis of all data received is concluded.

One kind of presumably healthy food category that has really surprised me with astonishingly high glyphosate content – is gluten free food. So much so that I had to try and separate them from the rest and see how the figures play out.

Out of the first two thousand odd records, I find very very few gluten free items from any country except USA and Canada, so I ignored them and focussed on just these two. USA has 130 samples and Canada 99, that have “gluten free” in their description. Average glyphosate + AMPA readings for the US produced gluten free product is 248 ppb and that for Canada is 286.

Gluten free foods may be suspect – due to much higher glyphosate content. You may also click on this image for the PDF file uploaded with the transcribed data comprising of the first 803 records. The remaining records going to around 2,000 are still being proof read. There are yet another five thousand odd records to be transcribed, before this lot will be over.

These readings are between two and three times the national average for USA and Canada, which are already hight to start with. Somehow, anything that has “gluten free” mentioned has become suspect- in my mind.

This is but a preliminary report. I shall later check if Organic-Gluten free is any better, and if it is any better than standard, non-organic, non-glutens free, off the shelf conventional food.

Here is a two and a half minute video about eggplants. I made it because so far it looks as if this is one vegetable that somehow has avoided being contaminated with glyphosate.

And then below is a 16 minute video of the first 803 records analysed.

 

A few of the issues and tems I have so far found puzzling, are:

Wheat – so far, I have not yet found a single record of normal wheat grain, or popular items made from wheat flour such as bread.n The only wheats so far mentioned are esoteric varieties and special grains that carry “wheat” in its name, such as buckwehat flour,  Buckwehat kernels, gluten free buckwheat, and more buckwheat this or buckwheat that. Most of the stuff, even organic varieties, appear to have glyphosate. But regular no-fancy basement variety wheat grain, and the vast type and name brand of bread that is made from such bargain basement varieties of wheat grain – are so far completely absent from the records. Thus, a major part of human food in these regions, are without a test result. Meanwhile, all sorts of foods that are wheat-like, are tested, and their results do not look good. I am getting increasingly careful and worried about where I get my bread from and how much of it I should consider consuming regularly. My bread intake has been cut from two slices a day to three slices a weak, and I only buy organic bread, but at this point, I am not sure what they contain.

Chickpea and Garbanzo : These are turning out to be, nasty stuff. There are hardly any sample containing these foods have good readings. There are 20 samples tested with Garbanzo – not one of them are organic and all of them have glyphosate – a 100% record. Many have astronomically high glyphosate content and categorized as in “Violation” of whatever standard that CFIA is following. All these samples are picked up in only two regions of Canada so far – The Atlantic and Ontario. No samples from Quebec or West. Some of the very worst samples have been collected from Ontario and originate from the US. I have already gotten rid of unmarked chickpea and Garbanzo we had, and decided to either get organic versions, or do without them.

Brand Name and labels are missing from processed and packaged food. This makes it hard for people to distinguish one sample from the next, when their descriptions are very similar but their glyphosate content may not be.

Above is a good reason municipalities to test foods sold in local stores and make the data, including brand names, available to the people along with the test result. Ref: https://www.change.org/p/let-our-government-test-food-for-glyphosate?\

Regions within Canada have food growing provinces areas missing. The sample data, containing over 800 records so far transcribed – gives the areas within Canada where the samples were picked up. There are only four such areas mentioned so far – Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario and West. I presume Atlantic to mean the east coast maritime provinces of Lewfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edwards Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. I presume West to mean the land west of the Rockies, but basically British Columbia. This leaves aside Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba as the three major food growing regions of Canada. While many of the samples picked up elsewhere must have originated there, I wonder why no local collection has so far shown up in the records. Is there a story here or I just have to wait till those turn up too. Its very odd that these three provinces are missing, as are the northern territories. Not much food may be growing there, but one aught to pick up what food is being sold there, transported from elsewhere. I have been to White Horse, Yellowknife and Tuktuyaktuk. Most foods are packaged and processed, and there are not much food labelled organic there anyway. What are the average glyphosate intake in those foods? I would have wished those to be showing up in the tests too.

Atlantic and Ontario stand out negatively with some of the high glyphosate food items. This has been another major ensuing puzzle for me. Food items that appear to contain measurable and high amount of glyphosate, seem to only appear in samples collected i Ontario and Atlantic. The other two regions so far identified as sollection points – Quebec and West, seem to contain a few items with “trace” glyphosate content and zero measurable amount. How come? Also, where do the missing provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta fit in? The data so far transcribes answers some questions, but raises many more, and presents quite a few major puzzles.

USA & Canada: There are always more samples showing up from the US than Canada. This is extremely odd when all samples are collected in Canada,s since Canada is a major food producing nation, just as the US. Also, the foods identified as of “unknown” origin number higher than both USA and Canada. This is also very odd. I therefore suspect, but cannot prove at this point, that most all of the “known” (meaning unidentified) foods were picked up in food stores where origin was not mentioned, especially for unpackaged bulk food, such as some grains, seeds, flour made from ground seeds etc that were being sold in stores in bulk and without packaging.

I suspect most of these are of Canadian origin. Therefore I have also combined both the Canadian Origin and those that were entered as of “unknown” origin. This way, the total samples in Canada overtakes US samples, which makes sense for foods collected in Canada. This also brings the average glyphosate content below that of USA. The average glyphosate content should be of great interest for Canadians, but the US value is, I suspect, not a true representation of foods in USA. They at best represent American Grown foods that are available in Canadian stores. To get a better idea of what kind of food Americans are buying and eating, one would need to collect similar high number of food samples, local and imported, that are available in American food stores, and then analyze them for glyphosate and AMPA.

I am told EPA had started testing local foods in USA for glyphosate, but stopped its efforts soon after. The reason for stopping it, I am told, is that it ran out of funds and would need more money from congress. I find it strange that USA would not have funds to test its own food. Something very strange going on.

Meanwhile, I am extremely thankful that I managed to get this Canadian food test result treasure trove, and aim to do as good a job as possible, to bring it out to the people.

Tony

An older 10 minute quick update after 500 readings out of 7,000 transcribed.

Thanks and best wishes to all. Comments welcome.

About New Brunswick Herbicide Spray

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IN the last few days, I have had a number of exchanges from people in New Brunswick, regarding a near collapse of big game wildlife, suspected through herbicide spray over the forests on one side, and a long lasting sad story of people getting sick from the same as power companies spray the ground under power lines that border human habitation. Here are a few quick observations and calculations. New Brunswick is under a peculiar and undesirable condition of a single corporation having a stranglehold on the province and able to manipulate government regulations to suit its business model. It is also alleged that the spray chemicals might actually be paid for through taxpayer dollars.

Wall mounted deer head with overbite

Meanwhile, people of the province are pushing for a ban on spray and the effort is going door to door, having garnered tens of thousands of signatures in a province that is low in population.

Wild game meat cutting shops in Fredericton are reporting strange cases when they receive animals that were killed by hunters for butchering, where the deer heads show lower jaw severely under developed (having an overbite). Others have seen similar animals in the wild, including animals with only one horn developed. Same is also observed and a few of such heads are also collected by wildlife scientists, looking to have them meaningfully tested somewhere.

Then there is the case of continuing and long lasting history of the province under a crippling history of a higher percentage of people being sick and dying of all kinds of  ailments suspected from exposure to toxicity that are much less prevalent elsewhere. Some areas are so bad that almost every single family has dear ones that died, or are dying, or are suffering from severe illness, including permanent disabilities, even in young children and youths. And the suspected culprit is excess use of herbicides too close to these habitations for too long.

Deer killed by hunters with great overbite

The area is also well known for military testing of nasty chemicals such as agent orange and others that have been for decades and reportedly are still being tested over the ground in secret locations out of bounds for the people or media, and the effects may be spilling over to the local flora, fauna and humanity.

To make things worse, the province is under a sustained recession. There are no jobs except with the Government and a single corporation that owns everything, including involvement in the forest management and herbicide application. So, the people have nowhere to complain without risk of losing their job, and nowhere else to go. They are suffering silently.

It almost sounds like wilful genocide being committed on the Canadian people of the province through a sustained chemical attack ongoing for multiple generations.

Some of them contacted me.

My thoughts – it is neither easy nor perhaps the best idea to have the deformed deer heads sent off for some lab test for presence of Glyphosate. Why? Because:

  • Canadian labs are not offering testing of animal tissue or body fluids for glyphosate, to the best of my knowledge. They only offer glyphosate testing on soil, water and some kinds of food and plant matter (foliage might be tested by labs that test plant matter, but if they will accept samples from the public or only from Govt needs to be investigated, since only one lab does this plant matter test and I am not sure if they only do it for the Govt or also for the people)
  • The bone malformation in the deer are suspected to be caused through epigenetic effects from toxic influence while in embryonic stage in mother’s womb, or soon after birth while still going through major development process and before they have had time to develop a robust immune system. Therefore, testing for presence of glyphosate on an adult dead deer might not point to the root cause.
  • Glyphosate might not be the only chemical involved in this malady, although it is the most used herbicide and suspected to be linked to a whole swath of ailments in humans and the living planet. Other chemicals equally suspect could be Killex, Mecoprop-P, 2,4-D etc.

Next – it may be a better idea to actually start a practice of measuring pollution levels of these chemicals in soil, water, and plant foliage periodically over some suspected areas.

Average test using Liquid Chromatography (HPLC-MSMS), for glyphosate goes to say around CAD 300 to 400 per sample, and cost for ELISA test goes to just over CAD 100. So, a mix of the two systems used might result in an average cost of say CAD 200 just for a rough estimate. ELISA test is indicative but considered not accurate or consistent (repeatable) enough to hold up in court. However, if the results also show up similar in multiple tests or also show similar results in LCMS methods, they will be good enough. Also, any suspect results can then be cross checked and verified by a more costlier test.

So, with an average cost of CAD 200, if sample of ground water, soil and foliage is collected from a sample test area (three samples) and if tests are done say four times a year, to see seasonal variation depending on spraying cycle, foliage growth period, pregnant animal foraging period, and newborn period (say four seasons in a year), then a single area will have 3×4 – a dozen samples to be tested. At CAD 200 that makes it CAD 2,400 annually – from one area and for one chemical (glyphosate). This breaks down to a budget of say CAD 200 per month.

Now, if one wishes to check against five chemicals and not just Glyphosate alone, and assuming test costs will be very similar for other chemicals too, then a single area would need a budget of 200×5 = 1,000 per month.

If ten such places need to be placed under continuous monitoring, in order to get an idea of the degree of chemical pollution to environment, then a monthly budget of 10k x 10 = 100K is needed.

In other words, a million dollars will cover ten years of data accumulation, covering ten test areas, for five pollutants, from three kinds of samples, tested four times a year.

This kind of money is unlikely to come from volunteers or the people. This can however be made available from provincial government, even if started small and then expanded.

The trick might be gathering enough public support to lean on their government to cough up with this testing regime.

At the end of the day, this problem may not be dealt with purely on a scientific platform because of two basic problems with science today:

  1. Independent study and verification of the safety of the industrial biocides are not being allowed, on various pretexts.
  2. Scientific institutions by and large are no more public funded, and are supported by the same industry that benefits from the production, sale and application of these biocides. And industry is not interested in funding any science project that might find a problem with their herbicides. Therefore science has become biased, and has lost its neutrality and objectivity.

So, if it cannot be solved within the ambit of science, how might it be addressed? A million dollar question, but I suspect it cannot also be solved by money. In other words, people donating to a good cause will not solve the problem. Why ? Well, if money could be the deciding factor then the people have already lost the battle because the herbicide pushing corporations and lobby have far more money than the people, and can easily outspend the public and also buy the government if the government is for sale.

So then, in my thinking, the only ace that the public has that has not yet been taken away, is their vote – at the federal, provincial and municipal level. How the people might get together on this issue – remains a million dollar question. But building a grassroots movement to resist this chemical attack seems to be a good place to start.

The people of New Brunswick already have performed a near miracle – they have dedicated people working towards the petition to ban spraying in NB, and have garnered over twenty thousand signatures, going literally door to door. That is a support base that, if used properly, should begin to make a difference.

My heart goes out to the people of New Brunswick, and I stand in solidarity, helping them in whichever way I can, starting with, but not ending with, this blog.

Meanwhile, I am looking for people in New Brunswick who have a story or  an observation, or a personal statement, for making the rest of us more aware and alarmed at what appears to be a sustained chemical attack that the people of the province might have been subjected to, and how to find ways to stop this madness, and how initiate a public funded and transparent scheme of measuring the levels of toxic pollutants in the forest and residential environment, and how to trigger an independent analysis and study of the effect of such practices on the flora, fauna, people and biological diversity of the land, skies the estuaries and the oceans around New Brunswick. Everybody stands to benefit from such an endeavour, but most of all, it helps the people and the wildlife of NB who are at the front line of this chemical assault.

Any interested person – feel free to contact Tony Mitra by email.

Recent Blog attendance map.

Above blog attendance map shows degree of interest in the New Brunswick story. The red areas are sort of “hot” meaning multiple hits from them since this blog came up. Clearly, there is high level of interest from both coasts in Canada and also USA. It also shows some noticeable interest from pockets in western Europe as well as some of the eastern block nations such as Poland and also from the western part of Russia. This shows that some of the issues faced in New Brunswick might have a parallel, perhaps at a lesser extent, in matters of forest management in Northern Europe and Russia.

India has a long and sustained grassroots movement against GMO in general and a rising awareness about the herbicide that goes with GMO, though they are not, far as I know, too aware of herbicide use in forests. Anyhow, India has a healthy grassroots activism against chemicals in environment, who are also curious on similar goings on across the world. That might explain their level of curiosity here.

Then there are isolated points of interest in Taiwan, Malaysia, New Zealand, and the populated arc of south western Australia. Add isolated points of interest from Panama, Antigua, Colombia and Brazil – and that covers up central and south America. One would have to post in Spanish or Portuguese to get more response from there.

In the middle east, there is some interest from Israel and Iran – an indication that hazards of herbicide spray can find common ground among even arch enemies.

Africa is mostly missing, perhaps due to lack of internet access, or preoccupation with more pressing issues of their lives. Cape Town is the sole exception.

That’s all for today. So far so good.

Update Sunday, March 8, 2020

This is an update on this over three year old blog. A lot has happened in these three years. My success in getting the Canadian Government to test thousands of food samples for glyphosate is one. Handing me over all that test data and me analysing them to discover that Canada along with the US produces far and away the most toxic food on earth with glyphosate poisoning – and publishing all that in the book “Poison Foods of North America” is another. Both of these actually happened before this blog was written.

And then there were follow up issues such as me warning folks from India that by importing toxic lentils or other grains from Canada, the nation was mass poisoning its own people. This warning reached the floor of the Indian Parliament and resulted in the food ministry, something that India has but Canada does not, deciding to test imported Canadian lentils for glyphosate, and the Canadian Government trying to impress India that there was nothing to worry about as the level of glyphosate was within safe limits. The safe limits in Canada is astronomically high without any proof of safety, while in India, which has not approved use of glyphosate in agriculture, the effective safe limit is zero – and so on.

I met Rod Cumberland last time we visited Fredericton, to speak about glyphosate years ago. Lately he got fired from the college of forestry on a cockamamie pretext, while the real reason was his continued objection to the use of glyphosate spray over forests. It made me so mad that I ended up sending a nasty public letter to the Governor of New Brunswick accusing the provincial government of acting like a regime of a fourth world warlord, a letter which the Governor chose not to respond to.

There are people that sent me emails and I ended up speaking with a few. There is perhaps a plan to make a video or two, with voice recordings of some of the NB residents and activists. Some concerned people from British Columbia are considering visiting New Brunswick to check up who all are already there trying to fight the Mono-corporation Goliath Irvin and perhaps join the fracas of other protesters, movement initiators and general noise makers.

On retrospect I do believe the poisoning of New Brunswick is rooted not just in glyphosate, but poisoning of its economic and political landscape. The people are either employed by Irvin or by the Government which appear to be owned by Irvin. There is nobody else. As a result most folks who have relatives earning wages from one of these two employers, are afraid to shout too loudly against the chemical attack for fear of their loved ones turning up unemployed. It is almost unbelievable that such a thing can happen in Canada. In olden days, at least in Europe and Asia, these are reasons why heads used to end up on pikes.

I wonder why the church does not stand up on behalf of the people and the land. They are supposed to have independent financial resources, do they not? God and Jesus used to be a powerful motivator once. I am saying this although I am a Hindu turned agnostic tending to be an atheist. I appeal to the various church groups to get together and lead the way, or try to find a path out of this nightmare.

Anyhow, I do believe this needs to somehow turn into a political movement, and not just for New Brunswick. I have been generally greatly disappointed by the political class the world over, but understand that ultimately, it is the fault of the people.

If Irvin has a monopoly on business there, it is unto the people to break that monopoly. If the government is violating its constitutional duty and working for Irvin, it is still the duty of the people to fix it. At the end of the day, the buck stops at the feet of the people. But, in all history, people only rise up when the right leader leads them to resist tyranny.

New Brunswick sorely needs a local leader that will shepherd the people. We the rest of Canada need to follow, support and learn from it.

A fresh blog may appear on this.  Link to such a blog will appear here.

Stay tuned. My email: Tony.mitra@gmail.com