The Briefing Room
General Category => Health/Education => Topic started by: libertybele on February 16, 2024, 09:49:10 pm
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Well, there goes my morning Cheerios or Oatmeal. They've known about this chemical, yet it continues to be allowed. **nononono*
Pesticide linked to reproductive issues found in Cheerios, Quaker Oats and other oat-based foods
A little-heard-of pesticide linked to infertility in animals is showing up in the overwhelming majority of oat-based foods sold in the United States, including popular cereal brands Quaker Oats and Cheerios.
The chemical, chlormequat, was detected in 77 of 96 urine samples taken from 2017 and 2023, with levels increasing in the most recent years, a new study by the Environmental Working Group finds.
Further, chlormequat was found in 92% of oat-based foods sold in May 2023, including Quaker Oats and Cheerios, according to the research published Thursday in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.
Some studies have shown chlormequat can damage the reproductive system and disrupt fetal growth in animals, a cause for concern as to "whether it could also harm humans," EWG stated.
Environmental Protection Agency regulations allow chlormequat to be used on ornamental plants only, not food crops, grown the U.S.
However, its use has been allowed since 2018 on imported oats and other foods sold across the country, and the EPA is now proposing to let chlormequat be used on barley, oat, triticale and wheat grown in the U.S — a plan the EWG opposes.
Organic fare is a safer bet, with just one of seven organic samples found to contain low levels of chlormequat, EWG said.
"Until the government fully protects consumers, you can reduce your exposure to chlormequat by choosing products made with organic oats, which are grown without synthetic pesticides such as chlormequat," according to the nonprofit advocacy group.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cheerios-quaker-oats-infertility-chemicals-in-cereal-ewg/
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'Feeling you oats' has a new meaning.
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a new study by the Environmental Working Group finds.
Friendly reminder: the "Environmental Working Group" is a front for the organic food lobby. A little further insight:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160713164857/http://www.forbes.com/sites/kavinsenapathy/2016/07/12/would-you-rather-buy-organic-or-poison-your-family-ewg-wants-you-to-pick-one/
https://web.archive.org/web/20181025125656/https://fortune.com/2018/10/25/glyphosate-weedkiller-kids-cereal-oats/
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'Feeling you oats' has a new meaning.
Indeed it does. This is disturbing. They've known about this since 2017. Concerned enough to do testing since then, but no general warning to the public or demanding that Quaker Oats and General Mills stop using the chemical. Now they are going to allow it on other crops??? Why??
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Friendly reminder: the "Environmental Working Group" is a front for the organic food lobby. A little further insight:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160713164857/http://www.forbes.com/sites/kavinsenapathy/2016/07/12/would-you-rather-buy-organic-or-poison-your-family-ewg-wants-you-to-pick-one/
https://web.archive.org/web/20181025125656/https://fortune.com/2018/10/25/glyphosate-weedkiller-kids-cereal-oats/
Quoting, with emphasis...
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Friendly reminder: the "Environmental Working Group" is a front for the organic food lobby. A little further insight:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160713164857/http://www.forbes.com/sites/kavinsenapathy/2016/07/12/would-you-rather-buy-organic-or-poison-your-family-ewg-wants-you-to-pick-one/
https://web.archive.org/web/20181025125656/https://fortune.com/2018/10/25/glyphosate-weedkiller-kids-cereal-oats/
So I don't exactly find any comfort in this and doesn't make me want to continue to eat Cheerios or oatmeal. :shrug: Apparently organic oats aren't immune; just that the amount of the chemical used is supposedly less.
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So I don't exactly find any comfort in this and doesn't make me want to eat Cheerios or oatmeal anymore. :shrug: Apparently organic oats aren't immuned; just that the amount of the chemical used is supposedly less.
I live in the breadbasket of the USA. I have deep farming roots. All of my neighbors and the majority of my friends are farmers.
It’s ridiculous the amount of chemical sprayed on the crops. They spray in the spring before planting, in the summer for weed/pest control and in the late summer or early fall to kill the crops so they can harvest. They spray after the harvest too.
Not coincidentally, there’s a plethora of cancer where I live. Breast cancer in the farm wives and prostate cancer in the farmers.
Farming is BIG business. Big and profitable. It wasn’t that way when I was growing up.
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So I don't exactly find any comfort in this and doesn't make me want to continue to eat Cheerios or oatmeal. :shrug: Apparently organic oats aren't immune; just that the amount of the chemical used is supposedly less.
When one is funding a study, expect that study to support your organization's views.
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I live in the breadbasket of the USA. I have deep farming roots. All of my neighbors and the majority of my friends are farmers.
It’s ridiculous the amount of chemical sprayed on the crops. They spray in the spring before planting, in the summer for weed/pest control and in the late summer or early fall to kill the crops so they can harvest. They spray after the harvest too.
Not coincidentally, there’s a plethora of cancer where I live. Breast cancer in the farm wives and prostate cancer in the farmers.
Farming is BIG business. Big and profitable. It wasn’t that way when I was growing up.
Sad. Thanks for the insight.
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When one is funding a study, expect that study to support your organization's views.
I get that. The fact still remains that the chemical is being used and I'd rather not have chemicals added to my morning cereal. :shrug:
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I get that. The fact still remains that the chemical is being used and I'd rather not have chemicals added to my morning cereal. :shrug:
Is the chemical added, or is it a natural part of oats? Might be in the article. Strikes me as odd it's only in oat cereals....
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"Have you, or a loved one ever consumed Cheerios, Quaker Oats or other oat-based foods and suffered, or died from cancer, stroke, explosive diarrhea, constipation, auto accident, or a plane crash, you maybe entitled to significant compensation. For a free consultation please contact Dewey, Cheetum, and Howe today.
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Is the chemical added, or is it a natural part of oats? Might be in the article. Strikes me as odd it's only in oat cereals....
It’s a pesticide. So it’s added.
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Well, I guess it's too late to worry about now. :shrug:
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It’s a pesticide. So it’s added.
Then they better get a better pest repellent.
(Personal note: I consumed Quaker Oats when I was a yout, but rarely ate any Oats at all after going to University in the 70's)
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Oats are a big part of our diet here.... Several times a week for breakfast for the kid... I had some this morning myself (with apples and raisins).
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Is the chemical added, or is it a natural part of oats? Might be in the article. Strikes me as odd it's only in oat cereals....
@Cyber Liberty I think I remember the article mentioning it was used to make the stalks stand up straighter to help with harvesting.
Plant Viagra...
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I live in the breadbasket of the USA. I have deep farming roots. All of my neighbors and the majority of my friends are farmers.
It’s ridiculous the amount of chemical sprayed on the crops. They spray in the spring before planting, in the summer for weed/pest control and in the late summer or early fall to kill the crops so they can harvest. They spray after the harvest too.
Not coincidentally, there’s a plethora of cancer where I live. Breast cancer in the farm wives and prostate cancer in the farmers.
Farming is BIG business. Big and profitable. It wasn’t that way when I was growing up.
On Saturday morning, I watch a program called Ag PhD, which is an agronomy show that gives tips for farmers. Aside from the hosts' nearly-sycophantic love of soil analysis tests, they regularly are plugging herbicides to eradicate their "Weed of the Week," which they manage to plug in every segment. One of the pesticides that comes up pretty much every time is Dicamba.
And I watched on the news yesterday morning that Dicamba is now banned in the U.S. because the FDA didn't do their due diligence when they initially approved it.
Naturally, the Big Ag businesses are outraged and panicked, and they released a statement saying that banning it puts farmers at risk.
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We use no chemicals on our garden... the bugs eat half of it most the time. Those stupid Tomato moth caterpillars get as big as my thumb. I squish them green guts out the whole season.
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Big Agribusiness is a very, very powerful lobby.
When my step-father and grandparents were farming, they did not use all the chemicals. Of course, they were family farms back then. Now the farmers own/rent thousands of acres of tillable land. The chemicals make it easier for them to control when to plant and harvest. It’s all about getting the most bushels per acre.
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We use no chemicals on our garden... the bugs eat half of it most the time. Those stupid Tomato moth caterpillars get as big as my thumb. I squish them green guts out the whole season.
I don't, either, except maybe once a growing season, at most, to sprinkle some powdered Sevin on the tomato plants. Have to wonder if even the big growers could get by with fewer chemicals.
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"You got protection?"
"It's OK baby I ate my Cheerios..."
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We use no chemicals on our garden... the bugs eat half of it most the time. Those stupid Tomato moth caterpillars get as big as my thumb. I squish them green guts out the whole season.
Grow using low-tunnel technology. Brasicas get it up in here. But you can grow them low-tunnel style, with a bug netting over the plants till after the beetles go through their cycle, with very little damage to the plants. Maters are a different thing, as they grow too high and too vigorously... But there are ways.
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I live in the breadbasket of the USA. I have deep farming roots. All of my neighbors and the majority of my friends are farmers.
It’s ridiculous the amount of chemical sprayed on the crops. They spray in the spring before planting, in the summer for weed/pest control and in the late summer or early fall to kill the crops so they can harvest. They spray after the harvest too.
Not coincidentally, there’s a plethora of cancer where I live. Breast cancer in the farm wives and prostate cancer in the farmers.
Farming is BIG business. Big and profitable. It wasn’t that way when I was growing up.
Farming has to be big business, when the equipment needed to have an economically viable farm can easily run well over a million dollars. Support structures (shop, grain bins. equipment storage, etc. are an add-on).
It's hard, with the exception of a few niche crops, to make a decent living and maintain/replace the means of production on a mere 160 acres...which is why so many farmers out this way (Northern Plains) measure the size of their farm in square miles ('sections', 640 acres +/-).
It isn't like tobacco farming was where I grew up, when 50 acres was considered a huge tobacco farm, and kids had their college paid for and families were supported by 10 acre or smaller spreads.
That said, GPS systems are reducing the amount of chemicals applied, by reducing double application along the fringes of a pass with that same equipment.
It also enters my mind that some things have been widely distributed in the general population which may well lead to infertility also, (a claimed possible side effect of the jabs), and this may be a well coordinated squirrel to place the blame on the farmers and the pesticides used on widely consumed crops as a cover for that effect. Soy comes to mind also, as it has been put in virtually everything, and has known pseudoestrogenic properties.
As for added pesticides, I also have to ask if anyone recalls Starlink? That was a GMO corn variety, which was included in some crops by accident, products were made and released to market, and my mother had a severe reaction to taco shells made with it. Has the GMO industry produced oat varieties with similar attributes, that make their own pesticides?
I also question how much was detected, and where that falls in the spectrum of 'safe' or 'allowable' limits, and how much oat based food one would have to eat to surpass those limits.
Finally, the greatest hazard I see with handling chemicals, wherever you are, is that if you are handling them in the same area, they will accumulate in that area (in the soil) over time. That includes getting into the water table, and most farms are getting their water from wells. It may be the wells are carrying the seeds of destruction that lead to cancer, and those accumulations may go back decades.
If you aren't wearing the correct PPE, or even sometimes if you are in the windy plains, it's entirely possible that clothing is becoming contaminated, and most farm wives will be the ones washing those clothes after their husbands have been wearing them all day. Where does that water go, if not a septic system which will eventually release those chemicals into the soil in the subsurface?
Just a fine mist, over years of exposure might account for the apparently higher incidence of cancer. Residues on machinery might have the same vector for contaminating people and causing ill effects.
Decades of observing Derrick Hands on oil Rigs, who mix the drilling mud components, come out of the hopper house coated with fine dust (often nothing more vicious than starch or ground barite) tells me that even working in enclosures is not enough to prevent all exposure, and pesticides and herbicides are a problem at much smaller levels than drilling mud components, especially if they are not inhaled (prolonged skin contact).
I'm not denying that this may be a problem as simple as you state, and even suspect that is often the case, but just pointing out the various possible vectors for problems that might not otherwise be present or obvious to most folks.
For consumers, far from the farm, unless you are eating massive quantities of oats, or critters that are, chances are you are so removed from primary contamination sources your dosage is off-the-charts minimal, and likely well below harmful thresholds.
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Big Agribusiness is a very, very powerful lobby.
When my step-father and grandparents were farming, they did not use all the chemicals. Of course, they were family farms back then. Now the farmers own/rent thousands of acres of tillable land. The chemicals make it easier for them to control when to plant and harvest. It’s all about getting the most bushels per acre.
Probably my favorite thing is restorative farming, which is largely about diversification and bringing livestock back to the farm setting as the primary fertilizers. It takes a different, older way... Busting fields into fallow hay fields, cattle pastures (cattle and chicken tractors), and arable farm lands, and the rotation between them.
You may for instance, only get one cutting off the hay... Because you need to turn the cattle into the hay fields late in the summer to take the weight off the pastures, which are fainting under the summer heat. The hay fields become a buffer, and added acreage when it's needed... And in return, the cattle fertilize the hay field much better than the chemical fertilizers ever could - So the need for second cutting is offset by the cost of fertilizers *not* used because the cattle were on it.
Add chicken tractors going along behind the cattle (mob-grazing), and they'll spread out the cow patties looking for the maggots laid in them, thus taking down the fly pressure AND spreading the fertilizer, AND adding their own fertilizer, hot as it is....
It's different thinking. Older thinking. But I find it to be a charm.
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We use no chemicals on our garden... the bugs eat half of it most the time. Those stupid Tomato moth caterpillars get as big as my thumb. I squish them green guts out the whole season.
For me, the birds get the bugs, and the few years I have had trouble with slugs eating the tomatoes, I made beer traps* for the slugs, and eliminated most of that.
*Apparently, slugs can't resist free beer (hooda thunkit?). slugs will go to the beer and drown in it. I set two nested plastic cups below ground level (about even with the surface) and put beer in them, about 1/2 inch below soil level. If you use two cups, nested, it's easier--just remove the inside cup after a week or so, dump the slugs and flat beer, replenish the beer supply in the cup and put it back in the one still in the ground. The slugs will be distracted from your crops. In a bad year, before using this, I had to toss between half a bushel to a bushel (from 122 plants) due to slug damage.
The only time I regret not using a pesticide was when my garden got invaded by cucumber beetles. They left bacteria in the soil and I still cannot grow cucumbers, melons, or squash over 20 years later. Had I known the damage they would do, I would have sprayed the little bastards.
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Probably my favorite thing is restorative farming, which is largely about diversification and bringing livestock back to the farm setting as the primary fertilizers. It takes a different, older way... Busting fields into fallow hay fields, cattle pastures (cattle and chicken tractors), and arable farm lands, and the rotation between them.
You may for instance, only get one cutting off the hay... Because you need to turn the cattle into the hay fields late in the summer to take the weight off the pastures, which are fainting under the summer heat. The hay fields become a buffer, and added acreage when it's needed... And in return, the cattle fertilize the hay field much better than the chemical fertilizers ever could - So the need for second cutting is offset by the cost of fertilizers *not* used because the cattle were on it.
Add chicken tractors going along behind the cattle (mob-grazing), and they'll spread out the cow patties looking for the maggots laid in them, thus taking down the fly pressure AND spreading the fertilizer, AND adding their own fertilizer, hot as it is....
It's different thinking. Older thinking. But I find it to be a charm.
Old school, but developed because it was effective. My Grandfather and his brother farmed that way.
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Old school, but developed because it was effective. My Grandfather and his brother farmed that way.
More than that, the restorative aspect... Putting it back. I watch a feller on youtube over in SC (I think) who bought a 160 acre farm. It was a wore out and abandoned tobacco farm from back in the day... All grown to brambles and forest, with only a half inch of top soil left above the clay.
I dunno, maybe 5 years in now... He has thirty head or so of angus on it now. Been mowing it and mowing it for the first couple years... now the cattle... Mob grazing, hay bombing, rolling out bales so the cattle will stomp a third of it (and its seed) into the ground...
He don't spray. He handles weeds by cutting behind the cattle, and never letting the weeds top out to seed. Other than organics, the only additive I saw him lay was lime.
and it's working. He's gaining topsoil at an inch a year. That's brilliant. That's the right way.
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More than that, the restorative aspect... Putting it back. I watch a feller on youtube over in SC (I think) who bought a 160 acre farm. It was a wore out and abandoned tobacco farm from back in the day... All grown to brambles and forest, with only a half inch of top soil left above the clay.
I dunno, maybe 5 years in now... He has thirty head or so of angus on it now. Been mowing it and mowing it for the first couple years... now the cattle... Mob grazing, hay bombing, rolling out bales so the cattle will stomp a third of it (and its seed) into the ground...
He don't spray. He handles weeds by cutting behind the cattle, and never letting the weeds top out to seed. Other than organics, the only additive I saw him lay was lime.
and it's working. He's gaining topsoil at an inch a year. That's brilliant. That's the right way.
Absolutely. My family's farm was cultivated over 350 years (including tobacco as a cash crop) using crop rotation, reincorporating leftover material from the crops, and very minimal fertilizer or pesticide (for tobacco mosaic virus, when it popped up). Cattle and sheep (and the occasional) goat and horses grazed and trampled a lot in, and chickens seemed to roam at will. A few hogs, too, but in a restricted area. The land that was not put in timber is still being farmed today.
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We use no chemicals on our garden... the bugs eat half of it most the time. Those stupid Tomato moth caterpillars get as big as my thumb. I squish them green guts out the whole season.
Here's a link to an overview of how to control them. I've used Monterry products quite a bit and have had good luck with them.
https://www.hiddenspringshomestead.com/15-ways-to-naturally-control-tomato-hornworms/
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I had Quaker oats for breakfast today. Livin' on the edge, baby!
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More than that, the restorative aspect... Putting it back. I watch a feller on youtube over in SC (I think) who bought a 160 acre farm. It was a wore out and abandoned tobacco farm from back in the day... All grown to brambles and forest, with only a half inch of top soil left above the clay.
I dunno, maybe 5 years in now... He has thirty head or so of angus on it now. Been mowing it and mowing it for the first couple years... now the cattle... Mob grazing, hay bombing, rolling out bales so the cattle will stomp a third of it (and its seed) into the ground...
He don't spray. He handles weeds by cutting behind the cattle, and never letting the weeds top out to seed. Other than organics, the only additive I saw him lay was lime.
and it's working. He's gaining topsoil at an inch a year. That's brilliant. That's the right way.
It may or may not be the same guy, but I've watched some videos on the UTubes by a guy named Joel Saladin that used his pasture animals to take old worn out scrub land and revitalize it. Been around that stuff all my life and never have seen that. Truly fascinating to see something come from virtually nothing.
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The problem I've seen with farming is that farmers used to be some of the most innovative entrepreneurs out there. Some still are, but too many have gotten into a complacent rut. For example they cry about low prices, but seem to refuse to understand that when you grow a commodity product, you get a commodity price. Differentiate yourself and watch the income flow.
Good example is one discussed here before - selling meat direct. Almost no one does it. Thing is you can charge a buck more a pound, and the customer is still getting it cheaper per pound than the store. Any time you propose anything like that most farmers turn up their nose because they think it's too risky or too much work. The few that I've known to try it not only make great money, alot of it is cash. wink777
Don't get me started on ethanol. There are other hydrocarbons that could be made from sugars and into fuel that don't have all the problems that ethanol does. They won't even touch it. There are simple processes that are cheap and proven that will separate the fats, protein and carbs with no heat and make a superior product. Knows some local guys that tried to make it happen for years and no one would put even a modest pilot plant level investment into it. Yet, I've seen them pour everything they got into boondoggle projects that will never come to production, or stupid unproven scammy crap like the CO2 pipeline their trying to ram thru here.
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It may or may not be the same guy, but I've watched some videos on the UTubes by a guy named Joel Saladin that used his pasture animals to take old worn out scrub land and revitalize it. Been around that stuff all my life and never have seen that. Truly fascinating to see something come from virtually nothing.
Not the same guy, though I am quite familiar with Saladin... He's a GOAT in the homesteading community. Excellent source. But the guy I was talking about is Stoney Ridge Farmer, I believe.
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The problem I've seen with farming is that farmers used to be some of the most innovative entrepreneurs out there. Some still are, but too many have gotten into a complacent rut. For example they cry about low prices, but seem to refuse to understand that when you grow a commodity product, you get a commodity price. Differentiate yourself and watch the income flow.
Good example is one discussed here before - selling meat direct. Almost no one does it. Thing is you can charge a buck more a pound, and the customer is still getting it cheaper per pound than the store. Any time you propose anything like that most farmers turn up their nose because they think it's too risky or too much work. The few that I've known to try it not only make great money, alot of it is cash. wink777
Don't get me started on ethanol. There are other hydrocarbons that could be made from sugars and into fuel that don't have all the problems that ethanol does. They won't even touch it. There are simple processes that are cheap and proven that will separate the fats, protein and carbs with no heat and make a superior product. Knows some local guys that tried to make it happen for years and no one would put even a modest pilot plant level investment into it. Yet, I've seen them pour everything they got into boondoggle projects that will never come to production, or stupid unproven scammy crap like the CO2 pipeline their trying to ram thru here.
The problem to me is reliance on chemicals. Don't get me wrong, I see why.... Back in our father's day, maybe even back to our grandfather's, when those chemicals were a blessing, and nobody knew any better...
But in the long run, monocultural farming and chemicals have left the soil barren - those tobacco farms are a good example... Half an inch of top soil left. It's a crying shame. And the same thing is going on out on the plains, they just had feet of top soil to go through... But surely they are headed the same way.
And massively, stupidly, expensive machinery. Mortgage the farm and pour all your chips on a single machine that can't be fixed without a technician in the midst of a harvest... Sure it can do five times the work that ol Massey can do. I get that... But you can get five Masseys for a fraction of the cost, fix em yourself, and be diversified at harvest, where one machine may break down, but four others keep chuggin away.
It has to go back to the old ways. Production today is trading top soil for a momentary benefit... And the farm your sons would inherit will be less than it was in your day.
And don't even get me started on big ag. Corporate farms are a blight.
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But in the long run, monocultural farming and chemicals have left the soil barren - those tobacco farms are a good example... Half an inch of top soil left. It's a crying shame. And the same thing is going on out on the plains, they just had feet of top soil to go through... But surely they are headed the same way.
And they'll all say 'we got to feed the world' like a mantra. Except that it's a crop with no nutrients and totally imbalanced for human consumption. People that eat it do nothing but gain weight while starving for nutrition, and try to fill it with more chemicalized worthless food that eventually gives them every health problem known to man and unpayable medical bills.
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And they'll all say 'we got to feed the world' like a mantra. Except that it's a crop with no nutrients and totally imbalanced for human consumption. People that eat it do nothing but gain weight while starving for nutrition, and try to fill it with more chemicalized worthless food that eventually gives them every health problem known to man and unpayable medical bills.
That's right - The whole dang show is messed up.
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I had Quaker oats for breakfast today. Livin' on the edge, baby!
888high58888 :silly: I will probably continue to consume Quaker Oats .... whatever chemical that is in them is already entrenched in my body and any harm done I'm sure that I'm already experiencing the negative side effects. I enjoy my oats ... how many more years will it extend my life now if I don't eat Quaker oats or Cheerios? I doubt at this point it'll make a whole lot of difference.
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And they'll all say 'we got to feed the world' like a mantra. Except that it's a crop with no nutrients and totally imbalanced for human consumption. People that eat it do nothing but gain weight while starving for nutrition, and try to fill it with more chemicalized worthless food that eventually gives them every health problem known to man and unpayable medical bills.
Amen!
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888high58888 :silly: I will probably continue to consume Quaker Oats .... whatever chemical that is in them is already entrenched in my body and any harm done I'm sure that I'm already experiencing the negative side effects. I enjoy my oats ... how many more years will it extend my life now if I don't eat Quaker oats or Cheerios? I doubt at this point it'll make a whole lot of difference.
If you're of a mind, I know you can get both oats and quick oats off the Azure truck (if they come to your town).
I am partial to the Quaker packets, which I get in a monster box from Costco - But that because they are flavored already, and are a really good trail food - I can't begin to guess how many times I have had oat meal for breakfast on the trail. So it has suited me to keep that stuff around, and like everything, you need to cycle it through to keep em fresh, so those packets are part of the pantry here.
But I have made my own... mostly quick oats, with some whole oats for texture... Throw in some berries, some raisins or cranberries, a bunch of different seeds and nuts... Brown sugar, butter... you know the deal, I'm sure... Man! WAY better than them sorry little packets...
Maybe best to go back to that.