Moms Across America is grateful to the team at the Environmental Working Group (EWG) for testing glyphosate in hummus and chickpea products. Hummus and pita bread are staples at college dorm room gatherings, backyard barbecues, office parties, and vegan and vegetarian lunches across the country. Millions believe that eating hummus and chickpea products like falafel wraps and chickpea pasta is a healthy way to nourish the body.

Unfortunately, eating a consistent diet of wheat (especially whole wheat) pita bread and hummus can mean subjecting yourself to some of the highest levels of glyphosate, otherwise known as Monsanto/Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller, that one could possibly consume. Glyphosate is often sprayed as a drying agent, or a pre-harvest weed killer, just before harvest and it does not wash dry or cook-off. Glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide, is a known carcinogen, endocrine disruptor, and neurotoxin, and causes reproductive, liver, kidney, and organ damage. Glyphosate has been shown to contribute to autism symptoms, increased miscarriages and birth defects, damages sperm, and androgenizes baby girls. Studies found on MomsAcrossAmerica.org/data.

Moms Across America recently found the highest level of glyphosate ever detected in human foods (by the lab we commissioned) in chickpea pasta brand Banza. No consumer should be concerned about unknowingly consuming such high levels of glyphosate, or any glyphosate at all. And no brand should be concerned about their products being contaminated with glyphosate. We assert that glyphosate should be banned for use on food and feed crops immediately, especially as a desiccant.

The EWG reports:

The health-food staple hummus and the chickpeas it is made from can be contaminated with high levels of glyphosate, a weedkilling chemical linked to cancer, according to independent laboratory tests commissioned by EWG. The tests also found glyphosate in other kinds of dry and canned beans, dry lentils and garbanzo flour.

Of the 37 conventional, or non-organic, chickpea and chickpea-based samples tested, nearly 90 percent had detectable levels of glyphosate. One-third of the 27 conventional hummus samples exceeded EWG’s health-based benchmark for daily consumption, based on a 60-gram serving of hummus (about four tablespoons). One sample of hummus had nearly 15 times as much glyphosate as EWG’s benchmark, and one of two tests from a sample of conventional dry chickpeas exceeded even the Environmental Protection Agency’s too-permissive legal standard.

EWG also tested 12 samples of organic hummus and six samples of organic chickpeas. Most contained glyphosate, but at much lower levels than their conventional counterparts: All but two were below our scientists’ health-based benchmark, although one dry chickpea sample had the highest average level of all our samples. Glyphosate use is not permitted on organic crops, so these samples may have been contaminated by the chemical drifting from nearby conventional crop fields, where it was likely sprayed as a pre-harvest drying agent.

The Three Most Contaminated with Glyphosate Hummus Brands Tested

1. Whole Foods - Original hummus - 2379 ppb
2. Harris Teeter - Traditional hummus - 1618 ppb
3. Sabra original - Classic hummus - 743 ppb

The Three Least Contaminated for Glyphosate Hummus Brands Tested

1. Asmar’s - Hummus Original
2. O Organics - Traditional
3. The Perfect Pita - Traditional

Harris Teeter had the highest levels of glyphosate on their dry chickpeas (all three samples tested were the highest) , up to 21,454 pppb

Three brands of canned chickpeas all had no detectable levels of glyphosate

1. Goya
2. Hanover
3. Simple Truth

Read the full article on EWG.org here.

We urge the public to contact their representatives and senators and tell them that glyphosate and other agrochemicals must be disallowed as desiccants.