# Is it the gluten or the weed killer?



## taxlady (Mar 24, 2014)

Interesting article. Makes me glad we buy organic bread and flour.

Ultraculture | Enlightening Stuff for an Evolving Planet


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## bakechef (Mar 24, 2014)

Interesting.

I think that we are just hitting the tip of the ice burg when it comes to roundup.


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## GotGarlic (Mar 24, 2014)

That article makes no sense to real scientists, neither of the authors is a biologist, and they did no research. Apparently they're both anti-GM activists, though. 

http://www.glyphosate.eu/news/response-glyphosate-task-force-study-published-journal-entropy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tamar-haspel/condemning-monsanto-with-_b_3162694.html

http://www.examiner.com/article/bogus-paper-on-roundup-saturates-the-internet


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## Roll_Bones (Mar 24, 2014)

I could not have a garden and a yard without Glyphosate (Roundup).

I physically could not do, what Roundup can do.

I don't like the idea of ingesting it though.  But can see the commercial reasoning behind its use.


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## taxlady (Mar 24, 2014)

GotGarlic said:


> That article makes no sense to real scientists, neither of the authors is a biologist, and they did no research. Apparently they're both anti-GM activists, though.
> 
> Glyphosate | Response of the Glyphosate Task Force to the study published in the journal Entropy
> 
> ...


Thank you for catching that.

Too bad they didn't understand, as someone at _Huffington Post_ put it, "Condemning Monsanto With Bad Science Is Dumb".

However, and I don't claim any kind of evidence or proof, I don't think it can be good to be getting all that Round Up (weed killer) in our food.


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## GotGarlic (Mar 24, 2014)

taxlady said:


> Thank you for catching that.
> 
> Too bad they didn't understand, as someone at _Huffington Post_ put it, "Condemning Monsanto With Bad Science Is Dumb".
> 
> However, and I don't claim any kind of evidence or proof, I don't think it can be good to be getting all that Round Up (weed killer) in our food.



I learned some interesting things in Master Gardener classes last year. One was that herbicides and pesticides affect plant and bug physiology in ways that don't affect people, because we don't have the same physiology.

From How does the herbicide Roundup work?



> Glyphosate-based herbicides all work on the same biochemical principle -- they inhibit a specific enzyme that plants need in order to grow. The specific enzyme is called EPSP synthase. Without that enzyme, plants are unable to produce other proteins essential to growth, so they yellow and die over the course of several days or weeks. A majority of plants use this same enzyme, so almost all plants succumb to Roundup.
> 
> If you have read the HowStuffWorks article How Cells Work, you know a good bit about DNA and how it produces enzymes. In the same way that many antibiotics gum up enzyme production to kill bacteria, glyphosate gums up enzymes in plants to kill them. Glyphosate kills plants like antibiotics kill bacteria.
> ...
> Given the amount of glyphosate sprayed on the planet every day, it is probably safe to say that glyphosate is not violently toxic to people or animals. People do not have the same enzymes in their cells that plants do, just like human cells and bacteria differ enough that antibiotics kill bacteria cells but not human cells.


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## taxlady (Mar 24, 2014)

Yeah, I know that herbicides don't affect animals in the same way as they affect plants. 
I would be happier with proof that there are no adverse effects on humans from Round Up. I still don't want it in my food. I won't even get into all the ecological arguments.


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