July, 25 2017, 12:45pm EDT
Organic Consumers Association: Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Tests Positive for Roundup Herbicide Ingredient, Glyphosate
Organic Consumers Association Calls on Iconic Ice Cream Brand to Go Organic, or Face Boycott
WASHINGTON
The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) today reported that 10 of 11 samples of Ben & Jerry's ice cream tested positive for glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, or AMPA, glyphosate's main metabolite, or both.
The results originated from independent lab testing of these flavors: Peanut Butter Cup, Peanut Butter Cookie, Vanilla (2 samples), Cherry Garcia, Phish Food, The Tonight Dough, Half Baked, Chocolate Fudge Brownie, Americone Dream and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Cherry Garcia was the only flavor that tested negative for glyphosate and/or AMPA.
OCA is calling for Ben & Jerry's, a Vermont-based subsidiary of Unilever, to begin an immediate transition to using only organic ingredients, including milk, in its products or face a national and international consumer boycott.
The groups also call on natural and organic food stores to drop the Ben & Jerry's brand unless the company commits to transitioning to organic.
OCA International Director Ronnie Cummins said: "Ben & Jerry's falsely advertises its products as 'natural' and its brand as 'sustainable' and 'socially responsible.' Nothing could be further from the truth.
"Ben & Jerry's profits are built on the back of an industrial dairy system that poisons the environment and produces pesticide-contaminated food products. Ben & Jerry's sales, driven in large part by its deceitful claims, damage the organic industry by cutting into the sales of authentic natural, grass-fed and organic producers."
In March 2015, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as a "probable carcinogen." On July 7, California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) added glyphosate to its Prop 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer.
A report published January 2017, in the journal Nature, linked low doses of glyphosate to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, suggesting that there is no "safe" level of glyphosate despite otherwise indicated by regulatory agencies.
Available by request:
Summary of test results
About Organic Consumers Association
The Organic Consumers Association is an online and grassroots non-profit 501(c)3 public-interest organization advocating on behalf of more than two million U.S. consumers for health, justice, and regeneration. For more information, please visit www.organicconsumers.org. @OCA_Press.
The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is an online and grassroots 501(c)3 nonprofit public interest organization, and the only organization in the U.S. focused exclusively on promoting the views and interests of the nation's estimated 50 million consumers of organically and socially responsibly produced food and other products. OCA educates and advocates on behalf of organic consumers, engages consumers in marketplace pressure campaigns, and works to advance sound food and farming policy through grassroots lobbying. We address crucial issues around food safety, industrial agriculture, genetic engineering, children's health, corporate accountability, Fair Trade, environmental sustainability, including pesticide use, and other food- and agriculture-related topics.
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