Page 24 - Winter2018

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY

Glyphosate is pervasive in our environment. It’s been found in the water supply and rain, in tampons and other
cotton products, in vaccines and, especially, in the food supply. Glyphosate usage on core crops has been going up
exponentially over the past two decades, and people use it routinely in their yards to control weeds. It’s also in the air,
especially if you live near agricultural fields where it is routinely applied. It may be released into the air on highways
as well, since we now require 10 percent ethanol added to gasoline, and the ethanol is derived from either GMO
Roundup-Ready corn or sugar cane sprayed with Roundup right before harvest as a ripener. It’s likely present in cigarettes,
since tobacco is a genetically engineered glyphosate-resistant crop. Glyphosate is stable even at high temperatures.
What this means is that it is impossible to avoid glyphosate completely. However, there are simple steps you can
take to help reduce your body burden:
1. Stop using glyphosate/Roundup in your yard, and try to convince your neighbors to do the same. There are alter-
native methods to kill weeds, such as pulling them by hand or using a vinegar-soap-salt mixture.
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2. Buy organic cotton clothing, organic tampons and, if you are a smoker, organic cigarettes. I hope these options
will become more widely available in the future.
3. Test your water supply for glyphosate contamination. If necessary, install a reverse osmosis filter to remove it.
4. Choose only certified organic foods when you shop at the grocery store. This is possibly the most important thing
you can do. We are very fortunate that the certified organic label exists; one of its clear restrictions is that glypho-
sate cannot be used on organic crops. This can make a significant difference in your exposure level, because many
foods are highly contaminated with glyphosate and ingesting it means a direct hit to your gut microbiome. You
can become aware of exactly which foods are most problematic by reading Tony Mitra’s book, Poison Foods of
North America. Tony convinced the Canadian government to test over eight thousand food items for glyphosate,
and his book provides detailed tables showing the amounts detected in various foods imported into or grown
in Canada. Some surprises were the very high levels found in non-organic lentils and chick peas, as well as
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significant contamination of oat- and wheat-based products, such as oatmeal and pasta. None of these crops are
GMO, but all are often sprayed with glyphosate as a desiccant right before harvest. Mexican imports generally
had significantly lower levels of glyphosate than foods grown in the U.S. or Canada. In fact, Mexico’s levels were
more comparable to those found in European produce. So choosing produce grown in Mexico is probably a good
strategy if you can’t find a certified organic source.
5. Regularly consume fermented foods, such as kimchi, apple cider vinegar, sauerkraut, kombucha and kefir. Although
Monsanto claims that glyphosate passes through the body mostly unmodified, and that nearly all of it is excreted
either through the kidneys or the feces, the company knows that a certain percentage goes into the tissues and
accumulates there—as they have clearly shown in unpublished experiments where they used traceable radiola-
belled glyphosate. There are only a few species of microbes that can fully metabolize glyphosate, and one of them
is Acetobacter. For this reason, I recommend consuming fermented foods, which typically contain Acetobacter.
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6. Eat a lot of herbs, spices and colorful fruits and vegetables, which are rich in polyphenols and flavonoids. This
is another strategy that should help to protect from glyphosate damage. Polyphenols in honey, turmeric and
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resveratrol (found in grapes, red wine, peanuts and mulberries) have all been shown to inhibit NF-kappa-B ex-
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pression, and this may be a key factor in their beneficial effects.
7. Make a conscious effort to consume mineral-rich foods such as organic eggs and seafood. Glyphosate’s chelation
of many minerals makes them less available to the body.
8. There are now several products on the market that claim to help treat glyphosate poisoning, and these are often
based on probiotics, organic matter from the soil (humic acid and fulvic acid) and mineral supplements. A study
done on cows exposed to glyphosate showed that a combination of sauerkraut juice, activated charcoal, humic
acid and fulvic acid was beneficial for removing glyphosate and helping to ease disease symptoms. Humic acid
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was also used successfully to treat glyphosate damage in chickens.
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Two studies have revealed that glyphosate can be broken down nonenzymatically by simple highly oxidizing mol-
ecules such as ozone, chlorine dioxide and hypochlorite. 88,89 Ozone therapy and Miracle Mineral Supplement (MMS)
therapy may be successful therapeutic options in part because they help to reduce glyphosate burden in the body.
However, these should be used with caution because their oxidation properties make them damaging to tissues as well.

22 Wise Traditions WINTER 2018