A recent front-page article, “Spicing up breakfast,” [Gazette, Jan. 23] explained how Smith College Dining Services is attempting to make 50% of breakfast and brunch offerings plant-based. While this effort is to be applauded, there is a downside to conventionally grown plant-based ingredients: many of these non-GMO crops are sprayed with a glyphosate-based herbicides like Roundup just before harvest, to desiccate (ripen, dry and kill) the crop.

This practice results in high glyphosate residues in the harvested crops. Affected crops include grains (e.g. wheat, oats), dried/canned beans and peas (e.g., chickpeas, lentils, peanuts, yellow field peas, mung beans), dried seeds (e,g, sesame, sunflower, non-GM soybeans, non-GMO canola) and many other crops.

Glyphosate has been linked to several diseases including different forms of cancer, reducing beneficial gut bacteria, endocrine and reproductive disorders, and genetic damage (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8618927/). This use of glyphosate as a pre-harvest desiccant is likely the primary way that glyphosate enters the American diet. This may explain why in 2022 the NIH reported that 80% of Americans have glyphosate in their urine.

The best way to avoid glyphosate-contaminated ingredients like chickpeas is to make sure that they are organic (www.ewg.org/research/glyphosate-hummus). As this and other Environmental Working Group articles make clear, however, even some organic ingredients like chickpeas can also be contaminated with glyphosate due to spraying drift, contaminated water, or through intentional fraud where conventionally grown crops are sold as organic.

If in doubt, contact the supplier and ask if they test their ingredients for glyphosate contamination. If they don’t, don’t buy their products.

Grant Ingle

Conway