Weedkiller found in "popular" beer brands

Discussion in 'Beer News' started by MistaRyte, Mar 28, 2018.

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  1. bbtkd

    bbtkd Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,326) Sep 20, 2015 South Dakota
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    Dihydrogen monoxide kills way more people than beer or bad chemicals in it and should be banned. Call your congresscritter now. :wink:
     
  2. bluehende

    bluehende Initiate (0) Dec 10, 2010 Delaware

    Yet you put those chemicals on your lawn. If you were truly worried you would not. That sniff you took is a larger dose than a years worth of your food exposure. Also your application gives you along with your neighbors a pretty healthy exposure.
     
  3. bluehende

    bluehende Initiate (0) Dec 10, 2010 Delaware

    For your edification. I worked on studies for agricultural products. Not Monsanto but one of their competitors. The animals used are mandated by the government. No one can choose to test an animal that would not be susceptible to something. In fact we had to document where we purchased these animals. The species mandated usually is picked for 2 reasons. 1 it is highly susceptible to the effect looked for or 2 it mirrors the human process as closely as possible.

    It is especially galling that you think your example would help. There are control animals. Try sending in a study that has no background rate to compare and see how fast it is sent back to do over.

    Neither corporations or government is perfect, but I will guarantee our organization was very careful and ethical. I will also say that the reviewers I interacted were smart, thorough, and tough.
     
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  4. BeerPugz

    BeerPugz Initiate (0) Dec 4, 2016 Wisconsin

    I don't see why it's so hard to believe. Monsanto owns so many seeds it's ridiculous. Most farmers are using Monsanto seeds through no choice of their own anyways. Corn? Monsanto et al. Barley? Monsanto et al. Hops and marijuana are the last two plants, really.
     
  5. Invinciblejets

    Invinciblejets Pooh-Bah (1,636) Sep 29, 2014 South Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    To be fair all beer also has alcohol..............
     
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  6. beergoot

    beergoot Grand High Pooh-Bah (8,596) Oct 11, 2010 Colorado
    Super Mod Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    Just a fuzzy brain smeared with beer as I write this, yet it seems to me that despite a lot of increased "bad" chemical exposure over recent decades (perhaps centuries), why do human life expectencies keep increasing (and not just due to decreased child mortality factors)?

    In some ways, just because there are measurable quantities of "bad" chemicals present in our environment, that doesn't equate to harmful levels of "bad" chemicals (i.e., correlation doesn't equate to causation).

    Sure, I'd rather not be exposed to weed-killer residue residing in my beer ingredients, but personally, I doubt if they are at any level in my canned, bottled, or tapped pours that should cause any realistic health concerns.

    But, I've been wrong before. Just ask my wife...
     
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  7. spongebob2

    spongebob2 Initiate (0) Feb 8, 2018 Tennessee

    Probably in many watersheds where the run off from the fields land.
     
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  8. Ozzylizard

    Ozzylizard Grand Pooh-Bah (5,825) Oct 5, 2013 Pennsylvania
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    Thanks for the link. Some good analytical comments were made by previous posters - the best being @beergoot and @bluehende. As one "trained" in economics as well as biology and chemistry, it seems to me that several good arguments could be made for "toxic" pesticides as well as GMO (Not covered in the article but a frequent straw-man argument in this type of publication). Read Malthus - he was right on. We live longer and healthier than we did before toxic pesticides when we lived on "organic" food sources. Modern science has had it's problems (mostly because of political vs. scientific concerns), but, as a species, we live longer and healthier than ever. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
     
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  9. Zorro

    Zorro Grand Pooh-Bah (3,258) Dec 25, 2003 California
    Pooh-Bah

    Give me a gas chromatograph and I can find just about anything in anything.

    Bet you have detectable PCBs in your fat tissue and plutonium in your bones.
     
  10. jesskidden

    jesskidden Grand Pooh-Bah (3,071) Aug 10, 2005 New Jersey
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    American Malting Barley Association Opposes Post-Heading Treatments on Grains
    MILWAUKEE – April 20, 2016 – The American Malting Barley Association, Inc. (AMBA) strongly opposes the use of desiccants or herbicides such as glyphosate for post-heading treatment of malting barley, wheat, or other grains in North America being processed for malting, brewing, and distilling. The AMBA Board of Directors cites concerns expressed by the organization's Technical Committee for potential chemical residues and effects on germination from such treatments that can impact processing or the quality of the final product. Glyphosate is not labeled for post-heading application on malting barley in the United States as a pre-harvest aid to kill weeds, as a desiccant to dry down the crop, or for any other reason.

    Dr. Michael P. Davis, AMBA President, notes that “our members will not knowingly buy malting barley, wheat or other grains, regardless of the grain’s origin, that are treated after heading with these chemicals and residue testing is being performed.”
     
  11. IPAExpert69

    IPAExpert69 Savant (1,065) Aug 2, 2017 Pennsylvania

    I literally don't have a yard it was a hypothetical......
     
  12. jmdrpi

    jmdrpi Grand High Pooh-Bah (8,245) Dec 11, 2008 Pennsylvania
    Pooh-Bah Society

    The GMO issue is particularly frustrating for someone who supports both the scientific process but also environmentalsim. Because it has become a buzzword and treated like a black/white issue to be for or against. When the reality is there is a lot of nuance.

    You can be for the use of GMOs to speed up the traditional crossbreeding practices that humans have done for thousands of years. To develop better barley for beer or more altruistically, a more nutritional variety of rice to feed the deveoping world. And then still be against the practice of developing Roundup Ready crops and big business control over proprietary or sterile seeds.
     
  13. MNAle

    MNAle Initiate (0) Sep 6, 2011 Minnesota

    Like Citra?
     
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  14. bluehende

    bluehende Initiate (0) Dec 10, 2010 Delaware

    From agweb a trade paper. Unfortunately as it is a chart I cannot copy and paste

    Corn market

    dow/dupont 34.7
    monsanto 33.3


    Since Monsanto is not even number 1 hard to say that Farmers have no choice. BTW my old company (well sort of) is number one.
     
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  15. bluehende

    bluehende Initiate (0) Dec 10, 2010 Delaware

    I have been retired a few years now. When I worked in the field one of the biggest market opportunity was to replace old compounds that hung around a long time in the environment with short lived compounds that did their job and then were gone.
     
  16. bluehende

    bluehende Initiate (0) Dec 10, 2010 Delaware

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  17. Ranbot

    Ranbot Pooh-Bah (2,389) Nov 27, 2006 Pennsylvania
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Exactly. The article also didn't say if the analysis was done by an accredited laboratory which is pretty important when you're trying to make statements about a particular compound at parts per billion or parts per trillion levels like this study.
    Benzo(a)pyrene and PFAS too.

    To those concerned, Glyphosate (the main compound in Roundup) is very very soluble in water, which means it passes through our bodies rapidly and does not bioaccumulate. Remember humans are basically bags of water regularly being flushed through - water goes in at the top and out at the bottom, repeat until expiration. So, water soluble chemicals leave the body rapidly... It's the fat soluble chemicals that are typically more chronically dangerous.

    But, if you're worried about trace chemicals in beer, you should be concerned about the alcohol, which is very well known to have all sorts of bad short- and long-term effects on the body (disease, cancer, sleep disturbances, mental health, etc.)... make no mistake alcohol is bad for you.

    There's a term for that. It's Brandolini's Law or "Bullshit asymmetry principle" which states, the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it. It's far from a new concept though. In the 1700's author Jonathan Swift is credited with this quote, “falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it,” and there have been variations on it since, like Mark Twain's quote, "“a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”
     
  18. billandsuz

    billandsuz Pooh-Bah (2,023) Sep 1, 2004 New York
    Pooh-Bah Society

    We know Monsanto has proven to be a rather sinister company.
    We know EcoWatch has proven to be sensationalist when it suits their needs.
    We know scientists are driven by science and do their jobs as best as possible.
    We know our environment is loaded with numerous manufactured chemicals.
    We know our daily activities contribute to the decline of the environment and our own health.
    This is all fact and not worth too much debate.

    But we have a really difficult time determining what benefits Monsanto really brings to humanity, what environmental watch dogs really are just, what scientists really are corrupt, what chemicals really are killing us and what we need to do make things right.

    Many people just shake their heads and go on. Which is pretty much how power brokers would like it to be.

    Just my 2 cents worth. Have a beer. The sky might be falling.
     
  19. bluehende

    bluehende Initiate (0) Dec 10, 2010 Delaware

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  20. LADEDA

    LADEDA Initiate (0) Jul 29, 2014 Florida

    In my early years, products such as DDT and asbestos were widely used, but concern about their harmful effects began to surface. More recently, a friend was eat up by Agent Orange. I have become more than just a little cynical about the information provided by corporations and their paid for research. The "tree-huggers" and "environmental wackos" may have an "agenda", but it is a necessary one. Facts and truth seem to be in short supply from either side. So, excuse me while I go grill the meat of a deceased farm animal.
     
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