Boycott Pesticide-Drenched Quaker Oats & Tell Congress to Ban Bayer’s Toxic Roundup Weed Killer

Oats are good for you, but not when they’re drenched with carcinogenic, gut-microbiome-destroying weed killers like Monsanto (now Bayer)’s glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup.

Oats aren’t “Roundup Ready” (genetically engineered to soak-up Roundup), but spraying oats with Roundup dries them out and makes them easier to harvest.

Pepsi-Co’s Quaker Oats have the highest Roundup residues.

Monsanto lobbied the Environmental Protection Agency to raise the acceptable levels of glyphosate residues on our food from 0.1 parts per million in 1993 to 30 parts per million today.

Our representatives in Congress, which Bayer spends $7.5 million lobbying every year, are asleep at the wheel. No bill to ban Roundup has ever been introduced in Congress and the only bill to address the pre-harvest spraying of Roundup hasn’t been reintroduced since it was first proposed in 2019.

TAKE ACTION: Boycott PepsiCo’s Pesticide-Drenched Quaker Oats & Tell Congress to Ban Bayer’s Toxic Roundup Weed Killer!

OATS ARE GOOD FOR YOU

“And in the breakfast corner, stepping into the ring at the prime weight of half a cup, we have oatmeal. With an impressive record of 7-9 grams of protein, 5 grams of fiber, and 175 mg of potassium—it’s oooaaat time!”

• “A Breakfast That Packs a Punch”

Oats are a “functional food,” meaning they offer health benefits beyond their nutritional profile. According to the National Academy of Sports Medicine:

• Oats are an extremely rich source of Vitamin E, folate, zinc, iron, selenium, copper, manganese, carotenoids, betaine, choline, and sulfur.
• Oats have cholesterol-lowering effects that can reduce the risk of heart disease.
• Oats contain cancer-fighting antioxidants.
• Oats have levels of B-glucan that slow the absorption of starch in the digestive tract, preventing spikes in blood sugars and releases in insulin to prevent and manage diabetes.
• The B-glucan fibers in oats boost immunity by increasing the cytokines needed to fight off infection. One study showed that mice fed oats were better able to fight off staph infections than mice on an oat-free diet.

Oats are great for gut health. EatingWell’s run-down on the health-benefits of oats explains:

• Oats are a prebiotic food, which feeds the good bacteria in your gut to benefit your body’s immune system, improve your mood and digestion, and ward off diseases.
• A 2021 systematic review published in the Journal of Nutrition found a link between eating oats and increases in beneficial gut bacteria.

Oats help with weight loss. “A Review of Health-Beneficial Properties of Oats” conducted by South Dakota State University found:

• The consumption of oats activates the gut-hypothalamic axis which increases satiety and increases stomach distention while delaying gastric emptying, which reduces hunger and inhibits food intake. In these ways, it reduces overall body weight, body fat, body mass index, and central adiposity.
• Eating oats also reduces obesity and metabolic disorders by improving the gut microbiota. Rats fed oats had increased beneficial gut microbes and decreased body weight, epididymal fat accumulation, serum glucose and serum lipid levels.

ROUNDUP-SOAKED OATS AREN’T GOOD FOR YOU

The benefits of oats are canceled out by the harms of Roundup.

Glyphosate is a cause of childhood leukemia (see studies from Brazil and France), autism, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, chronic kidney disease, and lower birth-weight babies and higher new-born intensive care unit admissions. We know this because of what’s happened to farmers, pesticide applicators and people who live where herbicides like Roundup are sprayed.

Studies on normal, low-level dietary exposure are also cause for alarm.

Disturbing health impacts have been documented in rats administered glyphosate at what the Environmental Protection Agency considers acceptable daily dietary exposure levels:

• Leukemia is unheard of in healthy laboratory rats younger than one year of age—unseen in more than 1,600 control animals—but EPA’s acceptable dietary exposure levels caused young rats to develop leukemia! (VIDEO: “Global Glyphosate Study Reveals Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Cause Leukemia in Early Life.”)
• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease can be induced in rats with glyphosate at levels considered “within toxicological limits” (doses of glyphosate classified by regulators as causing no adverse effects). 
• Toxicity to the microbiome has been observed in rats given doses of glyphosate considered safe by regulators. This study indicates that glyphosate is capable of modifying the gut microbiota in early development, particularly before the onset of puberty.

For a deep-dive into the health harms of dietary exposure to Roundup, watch “How Glyphosate Is Damaging Your Health, with Prof. Michael Antoniou.”

PEPSICO’S QUAKER OATS HAVE THE MOST GLYPHOSATE

Pepsi is the largest food company in the United States, and the second-largest in the world, just behind Nestlé, which makes it the top purveyor of pesticide-drenched genetically engineered Frankenfoods.

Pepsi’s brands regularly rank among the foods with the highest amounts of the carcinogenic weed killer glyphosate, because they’re sprayed with Monsanto’s (now Bayer’s) Roundup.

Some ingredients are genetically engineered to be impervious to the Roundup that kills natural, unmodified plants: soy, corn, cotton, canola, sugar beets and alfalfa.

Others are non-GMO crops that have Roundup sprayed on them as a “dessicant” to dry them out prior to harvest: wheat, oats and beans.

According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG):

“EWG tests have found shockingly high levels of cancer-linked glyphosate in popular PepsiCo products like Quaker Oats and Sabra Hummus.

“But PepsiCo continues to allow this dangerous chemical in their food. This is unacceptable. Consumers and parents shouldn’t have to worry about cancer-linked pesticides in food.”

EWG tested several foods where oats are the main ingredient and PepsiCo’s Quaker Oats products had much more glyphosate than the other brands:

Cinnamon Quaker Oatmeal Squares Cereal – 482.9 parts per billion (ppb)

Brown Sugar Quaker Oatmeal Squares Cereal – 445.1 ppb

Honey Nut Quaker Oatmeal Squares Cereal – 382.6 ppb

Quaker Instant Oatmeal Maple & Brown Sugar – 279.8 ppb

Quaker Old Fashioned Oats – 261.4 ppb

The next-closest glyphosate-contaminated oat cereal is General Mills Honey Nut Cheerios with 161.4 ppb.

MONSANTO LOBBIED THE EPA TO RAISE “ACCEPTABLE” LEVELS OF GLYPHOSATE RESIDUES

PepsiCo wouldn’t be able to get away with Quaker Oats’ glyphosate contamination if Monsanto hadn’t petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to raise the permissible level of glyphosate residues on oats.

The original level of 0.1 parts per million, set in 1993, equals 100 parts per billion, which all the samples of Quaker Oats are over.

The current level of 30 parts per million, set in 2008, equals 30,000 parts per billion, which all the samples of Quaker Oats are under.

The EPA also has the power to prohibit the use of glyphosate to dry out oats prior to harvest, but it would never dared defy Monsanto.

CONGRESS IS ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL

Bayer spends $7.5 million lobbying Congress every year. 

No bill to ban Roundup has ever been introduced in Congress and the only bill to address the pre-harvest spraying of Roundup hasn’t been reintroduced since it was first proposed in 2019.

In 2019, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) introduced the Keep Food Safe from Glyphosate Act to ban the practice of spraying glyphosate as a pre-harvest drying agent and require the EPA to restore the permissible level of glyphosate residues on oats to the original level of 0.1 parts per million.

That bill garnered only seven cosponsors and hasn’t been introduced since.

When was the last time you contacted your Member of Congress about glyphosate?

If it’s been a while, or you never have, please take action today.

TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress to Ban Monsanto/Bayer’s Cancer-Causing Roundup Weedkiller!

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