If you start your morning with a bowl of oatmeal, a granola bar, or a cereal that markets itself as wholesome and natural, there’s something important you should know: a cancer-linked herbicide may be in your food — and at levels that might surprise you.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) recently tested dozens of popular food products and published their findings in a guide on avoiding glyphosate in food. The results are a wake-up call for anyone paying attention to what goes into their body.
What Is Glyphosate?
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, the most widely used pesticide in the United States. It’s classified as a probable human carcinogen by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. Despite growing concerns, it continues to be used extensively in industrial agriculture — including a practice called pre-harvest desiccation, where crops are sprayed with glyphosate just before they’re harvested to dry them out more quickly. This practice leads to particularly high residue levels in the foods we eat.
What EWG Found
EWG scientists tested conventional and organic versions of four common food categories, and the numbers are striking:
Oat breakfast cereals showed the most dramatic difference. Conventional oat cereals averaged 711 parts per billion (ppb) of glyphosate, while organic cereals had none detected — nearly 700 times less.
Snack bars made from oats averaged 318 ppb in conventional products, compared to none detected in their organic counterparts — about 320 times more.
Granola told a similar story: conventional versions averaged 298 ppb, while organic granola had none detected — roughly 300 times the exposure.
Hummus also tested positive, with conventional hummus averaging 296 ppb compared to 65 ppb for organic — nearly 5 times more.
Should You Be Concerned?
Glyphosate accumulates in the food supply through repeated exposure, and many of the foods tested — cereals, granola, snack bars — are products people eat every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Children, who eat proportionally more food relative to their body weight, may be especially vulnerable to ongoing exposure.
What You Can Do
The most straightforward step you can take is to choose organic, especially for oat-based foods. EWG’s testing found that organic products consistently had far lower — or undetectable — levels of glyphosate. While no food system is perfect (some organic samples showed trace levels, likely from chemical drift from neighboring conventional fields), the difference is substantial.
Here are a few practical tips:
- Swap conventional oat cereals, granola, and snack bars for certified organic versions.
- Choose organic hummus and chickpea-based products when possible.
- Look for the USDA Certified Organic seal when shopping.
- When in doubt, check EWG’s full database at ewg.org.
The Bigger Picture
The presence of glyphosate in our food supply isn’t just an individual health issue — it’s a systemic one. EWG is calling on food companies to eliminate glyphosate from their products and advocating for a ban on all pre-harvest uses of the chemical. Until that change comes, the choices we make at the grocery store are one of the most powerful tools we have.
At Steiner Health, we believe that what you eat is foundational to how you feel. Small, informed choices — like reaching for the organic granola instead of the conventional one — add up. Your food should nourish you, not expose you to unnecessary risk.
Source: EWG’s Guide to Avoiding Glyphosate in Food. Testing conducted by Anresco and Eurofins Central Analytical Laboratories. All glyphosate levels reported in parts per billion.