Testing Reveals Substantial Amounts of Glyphosate in Foods
Testing Reveals Substantial Amounts of Glyphosate in Foods
As food has become increasingly adulterated, contaminated and genetically engineered, the need for laboratory testing has grown
HRI Labs is often hired to test foods claiming to be non-GMO, “all natural” and/or organic. Testing often reveals such claims to be untrue. Several Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavors were recently found to contain glyphosate
Grains, legumes and beans typically have the highest levels of glyphosate contamination due to the routine practice of desiccation, where glyphosate is sprayed on the crop shortly before harvest to improve yield
HRI Labs has created two glyphosate tests for the public — a water test and an environmental exposure test. The latter will tell you how much glyphosate you have in your system, giving you an indication of the purity of your diet
Seventy-six percent of people tested have glyphosate in their system. People who regularly eat nonorganic oats have double the glyphosate of those who don't. People who regularly eat organic food have glyphosate levels 80 percent lower than those who rarely eat organic
There are several types of tests that can be done on a GMO food. Antigens are one type of test. DNA testing is another. Since DNA is far more stable than proteins, genetically engineered foods, even when highly processed, can be easily identified with DNA testing. A test commonly used to check DNA is the polymerase chain reaction or PCR test. Because it amplifies the DNA signal, it can detect even a single genetically engineered corn kernel in a bag containing 10,000 or more corn kernels.
The chromatograph linked to a mass spectrometer is another central piece of equipment that HRI uses. It allows you to test for a wide variety of things at very high sensitivity. Unfortunately, the cost and complexity involved prevents many labs from having this tool.
"Liquid chromatography is capable of taking a sample of food … or whatever you're interested in, and fractionating it into hundreds of compounds, separating them out. That is then fed into a mass spectrometer; a machine that measures, ultimately, molecular weight of whatever it's looking at.
Detecting at extremely low levels and identify very specifically — almost any natural or unnatural compound … down to the parts per trillion in many cases. To give a sense of what that means, 40 parts per trillion, which is [the limit of] detection that we have for some materials, is like if you were to take a single drop of that chemical and dilute it into 20 Olympic swimming pools full of water.
That's the extent of dilution required to achieve 40 parts per trillion. This is extreme sensitivity. These [instruments] are like the TeslaS of analytical chemistry.
[Liquid chromatography linked to a mass spectrometer] is what we use for measuring glyphosate. Because these machines are very expensive, many of the analytical labs out there don't have access to them. Also, because it is very specialized equipment, you need somebody with a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry, or equivalent, to do this kind of testing. What we're doing is … unique in that way."
Assist.Prof. B.Alazawi
