Report: Monsanto’s Glyphosate Found in Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Quaker Oats and Other Popular Breakfast Foods

While it’s not printed anywhere on their ingredients list, some of America’s most popular breakfast foods contain pesticides. On Wednesday, the Environmental Working Group published a report from a commissioned laboratory test of 45 products made with oats, finding glyphosate, an herbicide that has been linked to cancer, in nearly all of them. 

Glyphosate is the most-widely used herbicide in the U.S., Alexis Temkin, EWG’s toxicologist, said in a phone interview. The tested products — which include popular brands like Cheerios, Lucky Charms and Quaker — do not violate the legal limit of glyphosate set by Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has its own regulations for the amount of the herbicide it says is safe to consume, but there’s a lot of controversy here: California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment proposes a glyphosate exposure level that is more than 60 times lower than the level set by the EPA.