When you buy food labeled “natural,” you probably assume it doesn’t contain “unnatural” ingredients—like agrochemicals known to cause cancer.
But as we’ve found with some other so-called “natural” products, that’s not always true.
The latest “natural” product to test positive for Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller? Florida’s Natural orange juice.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Florida’s Natural: Orange Juice with Roundup Weedkiller Isn’t ‘Natural’
After you sign our letter to Florida’s Natural, please also do this:
• Call Florida’s Natural: 1-888-657-6600
• Post on Florida’s Natural’s Facebook!
In 2017, Moms Across America tested Florida’s Natural orange juice, plus the five top-selling orange juice brands—Tropicana, Minute Maid, Starter Bros, Signature Farms and Kirkland—for glyphosate.
All six brands tested positive for the chemical, best known for being the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup. Glyphosate levels ranged from 4.33 parts per billion (ppb) to an alarming 26.05 ppb.
Recently, Moms Across America ran the same tests again. Again, all six brands tested positive—including Florida’s Natural, which tested positive for 17.16 ppb.
We don’t think glyphosate-contaminated O.J. is natural. Neither does Alexandra Axon, a Brooklyn woman who filed a class action lawsuit against Florida’s Natural in August this year. Richman Law Group filed the suit on behalf of Axon in August (2018), accusing Florida’s Natural Growers, Inc. and its parent company, Citrus World, Inc., of deceptive labeling and marketing.
According to the lawsuit:
Glyphosate is not necessary for successful planting, growing, or harvesting oranges; and is not a ‘Natural’ method of growing or harvesting oranges. Over the past several years, consumers have become increasingly conscious of the detrimental effects that glyphosate may have on human health and the environment. Reasonable consumers do not expect glyphosate to be found in truly natural orange juice.
How does glyphosate get into orange juice? Citrus growers use the chemical to get rid of weeds between the trees. So not only does the glyphosate get into the orange juice, it also gets into the surrounding soil, air and water.
Growing evidence of glyphosate’s health risks
Florida’s Natural makes the same claim that Ben & Jerry’s made, when glyphosate was detected in multiple flavors of the popular ice cream. Both companies claim that the amounts of weedkiller detected in their products are too small to matter.
Not so, according to the latest science. A peer-reviewed study published in 2009, in the journal Toxicology, found that doses of glyphosate at 800 times lower than the level authorized in some food or feed can cause endocrine disruption, putting children and teens at risk for cancer, obesity, infertility, and neurological disorders.
According to a more recent study, published in 2017 in Nature, ultra-low doses of glyphosate disrupted the functions of numerous genes, which resulted in changes consistent with multiple kidney and liver disease problems.
And then there’s the matter of accumulation. If you or your child drink glyphosate with your morning O.J., what happens when you add glyphosate-contaminated oatmeal and toast to your breakfast? Or, God forbid, Cheerios? And then, as the day wears on, you eat corn chips, hummus or pasta—all standard fare in the western diet? And all found to be contaminated with glyphosate?
It all adds up.
Consumers seek out products that are labeled “natural,” because they believe those products are pesticide-free. And companies like Florida’s Natural use the word “natural” because they know consumers look for it—and will pay a premium for it.
In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, determined that glyphosate is a “probable human carcinogen.” On August 10, a U.S. jury of 12 found that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup weedkiller caused a school groundskeeper to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
It’s time to let Florida’s Natural know that consumers don’t like being deceived.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Florida’s Natural: Glyphosate-contaminated orange juice isn’t “natural!”