Ever since I discovered that wheat is often sprayed with Roundup to speed up the harvesting process, I’ve been worried about my bread. Is it made with wheat that’s been sprayed with Roundup or glyphosate, the main chemical that farmers use to kill weeds?[i]
You might be asking yourself: why would they spray wheat with Roundup? Isn’t wheat safe from being sprayed because there is no “Roundup-Ready” GMO-tainted wheat anymore? Well, no. It’s true that GMO wheat has been banned in the US.[ii] But Monsanto found a way to give farmers a reason to spray wheat with Roundup even though there’s absolutely no need to do it. They’ve convinced wheat farmers that Roundup will desiccate (dry) their crop quicker, thus getting it ready for harvest sooner, and of course ready for sale sooner.
And you can’t wash the Roundup off.
If you don’t believe me that Monsanto sells Roundup to farmers for this purpose, read Monsanto’s own marketing literature: http://bit.ly/1tcn2of
So if farmers spray their wheat, and that goes to the granary and gets ground up as flour, the Roundup comes with it!
Who’s eating the Roundup-tainted flour? Who the hell knows! Maybe McDonalds is making their buns with it.
So naturally, I was worried that I’m eating Roundup-tainted bread. I called the company who makes my favorite bread. I buy Sweet Dark Prairie Bread at Sprouts. It’s made by Healthbreads Inc., dba Oasis Breads, located at 155 Mata Way #112, San Marcos, CA 92069. I called 760-747-7390 and a woman answered the phone. When I asked if they bought wheat from a supplier whose farmers spray their fields with Roundup, she asked me to wait on the line for a moment.
When she came back, she said “We’re absolutely, positively certain that it is not sprayed. We are working on getting a certificate that says that.” In other words, they know their source and the source is not spraying their fields. Whether or not the source is organic, she did not say. But my guess is that they are working on getting an organic certification, or they’re clearing the entire supply chain of all the ingredients that go into the making of this bread, so that they can verify that the bread itself is organic.
I wish you could have heard the woman who answered the phone. She was emphatic when she said that there’s absolutely no chance the wheat was sprayed! Good for them!
BTW, GMO tainted wheat was found in Montana[iii] in September 2014 and Oregon[iv] in April, 2013.[v] Watch the USDA try to assure foreign trading partners that GMO-tainted wheat found in the USA hasn’t entered our wheat export supply chain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h2ld6oHwmk
Sources:
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/2013/05/ge_wheat_detection.shtml
[i] http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/faq7206?opendocument
[ii] http://eatlocalgrown.com/article/11547-illegal-monsanto-gmo-wheat-threatens-u-s-exports.html
[iii] http://naturallysavvy.com/live/illegal-gmo-wheat-found-growing-in-montana
[iv] http://naturallysavvy.com/eat/illegal-gmo-wheat-growing-in-oregon-threatens-us-wheat-exports
[v] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/30/us-wheat-asia-idUSBRE94T0JA20130530