The conventional hummus product with the highest level of glyphosate – more than 2,000 ppb in Whole Foods Market Original Hummus – was nearly 15 times the benchmark set by a US enviro group.
Independent laboratory tests commissioned by the Environmental Working Group in the United States found glyphosate, the notorious weedkiller linked to cancer, in more than 80 percent of non-organic hummus and chickpeas samples, and detected at far lower levels in several organic versions. Find out what brands are worrisome below. The take home: buy organic most of the time.
Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world. It was sold for decades by Monsanto, now Bayer AG, under the brand name Roundup. Bayer AG is a German multinational pharmaceutical and life sciences company and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.
This product Roundup was marketed for years by Scotts MiracleGro company in the United States until last year. Until Scotts understood they could no longer be implicated in peddling this poison. But Scotts is how consumers accessed RoundUp for years. Some blame Roundup celiac and stomach diseases as well.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified glyphosate a probable human carcinogen, and the state of California lists it as chemical known to cause cancer.
One third of hummus brands tested exceeded recommended amount of Roundup
One-third of the 27 conventional hummus samples exceeded EWG’s health-based benchmark of 160 parts per billion, or ppb, for daily consumption, based on a 60-gram serving of hummus (about four tablespoons).
The Environmental Protection Agency’s woefully inadequate legal limit for glyphosate in chickpeas, known as a tolerance level, is 5,000 ppb, or more than 30 times EWG’s benchmark.
The conventional hummus product with the highest level of glyphosate – more than 2,000 ppb in Whole Foods Market Original Hummus – was nearly 15 times the EWG benchmark.
Overall, 10 hummus samples exceeded EWG’s benchmark for glyphosate:
Sabra Classic Hummus
Sabra Roasted Pine Nut Hummus
Whole Foods Market Original Hummus
Whole Foods Market organic-label Original Hummus
Cava Traditional Hummus
Harris Teeter Fresh Foods Market Traditional Artisan Hummus
Glyphosate levels in organic samples were much lower
EWG also tested 12 samples of organic hummus and six samples of organic chickpeas. All but two contained detectable concentrations of glyphosate. Although glyphosate levels in organic samples were much lower than those of their conventional counterparts, one dry chickpea sample had the highest glyphosate concentration of all samples tested in the study.
“Beans, peas and lentils are a nutritious, affordable source of protein and an important part of the American diet,” said Olga V. Naidenko, Ph.D., EWG’s vice president for science investigations. “These excellent foods would be much better without glyphosate. Toxic weedkiller should never be allowed to contaminate these products, or any other foods, that millions of American families eat every day.”
The beans and bean-based products such as hummus tested in the study were purchased online or at major food retailers in the Washington, D.C., New York City, and San Francisco metropolitan areas, including Aldi, Costco, Giant, Harris Teeter, Safeway, ShopRite, Target, Trader Joes, Walmart and Whole Foods grocery stores.
Glyphosate was first brought to market in 1974, but its use exploded after 1996, when Monsanto introduced genetically modified “Roundup Ready” crops that were resistant to the herbicide. For consumers, most worrisome is use of the chemical on beans and grains as a drying agent just before harvest. This spraying can lead to high levels of glyphosate in beans, hummus, oat cereals and other foods.
By law, organic farmers are not allowed to spray Roundup or other toxic pesticides to grow and harvest crops. The detections of glyphosate on the organic samples may be due to pesticide drift from conventional crop fields or contamination at processing and packaging facilities.
Only organic
“Organic foods, including organic hummus and chickpeas, remain a better choice for consumers,” said EWG Toxicologist Alexis M. Temkin, Ph.D. “EWG testing of both conventional and organic bean products for glyphosate helps increase the transparency in the marketplace and protect the integrity of the Department of Agriculture’s organic certification.”
Hummus and chickpeas, as well as other beans, offer multiple nutritional benefits, and are an important part of a healthy diet. EWG’s findings show the need for a ban on pre-harvest uses of glyphosate, a much stricter EPA standard, and increased testing by the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration for this cancer-causing chemical in the American diet.
EWG’s research on beans and hummus builds on EWG’s tests of oats and oat-based products for glyphosate, which found the weedkiller in nearly every sample of cereal and breakfast bars tested.
Author: Karin Kloosterman
Karin Kloosterman is an award-winning journalist and publisher that founded Green Prophet to unite a prosperous Middle East. She shows through her work that positive, inspiring dialogue creates action that impacts people, business and planet. She has published in thought-leading newspapers and magazines globally, owns an IoT tech chip patent, and is part of teams that build world-changing products to make agriculture and our planet more sustainable. Reach out directly to [email protected]
Oh my gosh! Thanks for alerting me to this problem that I did not even know about. I tend to buy Sabra hummus pretty frequently so thanks for letting me know what to avoid.
I think the take home is not to avoid the brands we love but to request they source hummus beans from cleaner sources. Organic even.