Category Archives: Book

Agriculture Minister – ban glyphosate in BC

Posted on by

The province of British Columbia, Canada, now has a new government, a coalition between the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Green Party. This is a first in Canada where the environmentally conscious Green Party holds the balance of power.

New Ag-Minister BC – Lana Popham

The new agriculture minister, Ms Lana Popham, of NDP, had been a promoter of clean organic food and supporter of pushing back at GMO and herbicides in agriculture. I have met and known her from the time when she was an MLA in the opposition bench under the liberal government for two terms.

A new petition is hereby being created, asking her to consider ways by which the province of British Columbia can push back and ultimately ban the use of Glyphosate in British Columbian agriculture, and perhaps even impose restrictions on import of foods with considerable glyphosate content, and thus get the ball rolling and lead by example for the rest of Canada.

This petition is not aimed solely at residents of British Columbia. Since this beautiful western province is a major tourist destination for people within Canada as well as from the United States and the wider world, we are asking everybody everywhere, to chip in, sign the petition, and also write individually to the agriculture minister (AGR.Minister@gov.bc.ca) that you wish to have clean, glyphosate-free food when you next visit this beautiful land.

I read out the letter to the new Agriculture Minister in the video that goes with the petition.

===============================================================
I started asking my elected representatives (politicians from my riding in Ottawa, Canada, in Victoria, BC and in Municipality of Delta, BC), asking them to support this petition. The body of the message is also given here as an example for other citizens that might like to write similar letters to their own representatives, to support the petition, to write to the Agriculture Minister and to create a broad based support for her to lead the way for the other provinces to follow.

To: Carla Qualtrough, MP, Delta, BC, Minister of Sports
Ravi Kahlon, MLA, Delta, BC
Lois Jackson, Mayor, Delta, BC
Dated: Friday, September 1, 2017
Subject: Petition on Banning Glyphosate in British Columbian Agriculture.
Ms Carla Qualtrough, MP
Mr. Ravi Kahlon, MLA
Ms Lois Jackson, Mayor
I write to you about my petition on banning glyphosate from this province.
It is the active ingredient in the popular weedkiller brand ‘Roundup’. It is the most used herbicide in Canadian agriculture. Ottawa has never disclosed safety data and documents based on which it considered glyphosate to be safe for agriculture. In my judgment it is illegal to allow the use of a product while withholding its safety data. Our federal government is therefore breaking its own law in allowing glyphosate to be used in Canada for the last 35 years.
Ms Qualtrough knows something about it when I personally handed her over 23,000 signatures demanding that Health Canada releases all hitherto hidden safety documents on glyphosate. She should have first hand experience on how Ottawa continues to drag its feet on this issue.
Mr. Kahlon met me personally at my home for an hour prior to the last provincial election, and had promised to do something about getting Ottawa to release the hidden documents should he get elected. Now that he is elected, I remind him of his promise, and shall wait to see what he is prepared to do.
Mayor Jackson has not had any communication from me about glyphosate per se, although I have written to her in the past about pushing back at GMO from Delta agriculture lands. Anyhow I expect she knows about glyphosate. I am also requesting the mayor to share this letter with the rest of the Delta Municipal Councillors.

For reference you may consider reading my 400 page book, ‘Poison Foods of North America’ as an analysis on near 8,000 food samples tested by CFIA, that shows Canadian and US grown seed based foods to be the most toxic in the entire world with glyphosate contamination. I had a role to play in getting our federal government to set up labs that could test food for glyphosate and then for it to order massive tests of all foods available in Canada, locally grown and imported, and finally demanding that I be given a copy of all the test results. This body of data is the largest and most comprehensive in the entire world, and paints a very grim picture of Canadian and US agriculture. 

And out of this toxic mix, foods collected in Western Canada, which includes the mega farms of the prairies west of Ontario, proved to be more toxic than foods found anywhere else. We are at the epicentre of poisonous foods in the entire planet. We are also the sickest in the entire industrial world, in spite of spending the most on healthcare.
I write this letter to you three for the following reasons:
1) I request you to sign the petition asking the newly appointed agriculture minister of British Columbia, Ms Lana Popham, to find ways to push back at the use of glyphosate in British Columbian agriculture, despite the fact that its use has been, illegally in my opinion, approved by Ottawa.
I further request you to write individually to Minister Popham about above and also encourage her to find ways to restrict or impose tax on any imported food that contain measurable amounts of glyphosate.
I have met Ms Popham on a number of occasions when she was an MLA in the opposition bench, and know her to be a promoter of organic food and against the use of GM crops and glyphosate. Now that she is the Agriculture Minister, I expect she might be facing commercial pressure to compromise on her original views, and as a counter, she perhaps needs broad based public support. Your letters would therefore help.
2) I understand that in a functioning democracy, people aught to be the masters and the elected officials their public servants. However, the roles often get diffused and the public as well as politicians sometimes forget who is the master and who is the servant.
This letter therefore serves the second purpose where I, a citizen voter, am telling you, my representatives in Government, what my wishes are, with regard to demanding clean, glyphosate-free food in my province.
3) I also use these letters as an example for other citizens of Canada to let their own politicians to know of their wish.  this is the essence of building large body of public support for Minister Popham on banning glyphosate.
Therefore, these letters are designed to also be circulated through blogs and social media and forwarded email, to lead by example and encourage other voters to join up and work to take back the controls of democracy in this country, a control that appears to be slipping out of hands of its citizens.
In closing, I shall be delighted to receive a positive response from you or an invitation to speak face to face on this. I am willing to lead a delegation to see any of you should you wish. But even a negative response, or a non-response from you, will be used to encourage ordinary people to get involved.
I would however caution you not to use select science, or quote Health Canada or any other government institution, in telling me that glyphosate is safe. You do not have the right to make that decision. People have that right. The only thing Ottawa needs to do about glyphosate, is to stop parroting about its safety, and place all hidden safety documents in public domain.
Thanking you,
Tony Mitra

10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E 3L7, Canada
605-649 7535

Tony with Lana – 2013 April

Back in 2013 when I first met her, she was an MLA and a promoter of clean organic foods.

Today, she is the Agriculture Minister of BC.

I do not know if my knowing her earns me any currency today, but if it does, I intend to spend every last cent of it in trying to convince and help her in finding new ways to push back at Ottawa and cleanse our province from this toxic soup of glyphosate.

Stephanie Seneff on glyphosate-autism link

Posted on by

Part 1 of the interview

Had a half hour long talk with US based scientist Stephanie Seneff on Aug 28, regarding possible link between glyphosate getting into our body and the apparent epidemic of autism that newborns and children are apparently experiencing these days, especially in North America.

Dr. Stephanie Seneff

According to Dr. Seneff, if glyphosate comes to us through food, it all usually starts at the gut. Directly and indirectly, glyphosate ends up disrupting the gut barrier, causing the leaky gut syndrome, where molecules that should not be able to get out of the gut intestine, does get out.

Next step is for them to cause various degree of harm depending on where these rogue molecules end up. In the brain, it can trigger the brain immune system to also disrupting the brain barrier, triggering damage to the insulation of the nerve system in the brain and impairing the communication system of the brain, and slowing it down. Many of the symptoms suffered by autistic children are common to gut related problems. What I write here is not exactly what Dr. Seneff said, but more in line with what I understood from her talks.

Dr. Stephanie Seneff is a Senior Research Scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. She has a BS degree from MIT in biology and MS, EE and PhD degrees from MIT in electrical engineering and computer science. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals and conference proceedings.

Her recent interests have focused on the role of toxic chemicals and micronutrient deficiencies in health and disease, with a special emphasis on the pervasive herbicide, Roundup, and the mineral, sulfur.

She has authored over thirty peer-reviewed journal papers over the past few years on these topics, and has delivered numerous slide presentations around the world.

Of note are a series of six peer reviewed papers that Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff wrote about glyphosate being the pathway to various modern diseases, covered by me earlier on this blog.

The long talk was broken down into smaller segments. This particular blog covers the first part, showing link between glyphosate in the gut leading to to autism in the brain.

Other parts of the talk will cover glyphosate that can also come to us through vaccines, and in particular, the MMR vaccine.

Here is part 2 of the interview.

Letter to Mayor of Moncton

Posted on by

In support of her effort to stop spraying of Glyphosate in eco-sensitive areas near her town in New Brunswick, Canada.

To: Ms Dawn Arnold, Mayor, Moncton, New Brunswick,

Date: Saturday, August 26, 2017

Subject: Your effort to stop spraying of glyphosate in eco-sensitive areas of Moncton.

Dear Ms Arnold,

I am a Canadian citizen that writes to you in support of your effort to get the provincial government to put a stop to the practice of spraying glyphosate near the Turtle Creek reservoir. I came to learn of this through news outlets on internet.

I am a resident of British Columbia and have been to your province some years ago along with scientist Thierry Vrain, talking to people about dangers of glyphosate. I had an influence in getting our government to test thousands of food samples collected in Canada for presence of glyphosate. I obtained a copy of the results from Health Canada and was shocked to find north American foods to be the most toxic in the world, with regard to glyphosate contamination. I published my analysis in a 400 page book on Amazon titled “Poison Foods of North America”.

Mayor Dawn Arnold

I write this not just to show my support in your endeavour get the government to put a stop to spraying glyphosate in areas where it can cause maximum damage, but also to seek ways to spread this message to the rest of Canada, since you are considered to be a role model that many other Mayors could learn from.

If you agree, I would like to give you a call over the phone, for say a five minute talk where you can speak in your own voice about the issue. I would like to record it and have it converted into a short video with still images related to the subject, and promote it through blogs and social media across Canada and the world. My blog gets around 2,000 hits a day and I have talks with scientists such as Anthony Samsel of Stephanie Seneff from the US that are investigating all the different ways glyphosate can hurt the living planet. One can key in “glyphosate” or “Samsel” in the search field of my blog and read the resulting entries including talks of the scientists themselves.

I also have a three year old running case through Access To Information application for the government to release all safety test documents based on which it approved the use of glyphosate. In my understanding of the law, it is illegal for the government to release a product while withholding its safety data. The government has indirectly agreed to my view and accepts that I have the right to see the documents and yet it drags its feet. It has been dragging its feet for 35 years now.

If  you agree to our talk, please revert a telephone number and a suitable date and time when I might call you.

Either way, please take this letter as a note of appreciation from a citizen activist that supports your efforts. It is our view that citizen activism is a critical component that enables the government to relate to views of the civil society, which in itself is a critical element for a functioning democracy.

Thanking you

Tony Mitra
10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E 3L7
Canada

Reference : “POISON FOODS OF NORTH AMERICA”

Reference : Talks with Scientist Anthony Samsel on my blog:

Response received:

This is a good example of citizens taking it upon themselves to lend mass support to a few politicians that are out there willing to fight back at this avalanche of chemical attack that we are subjected to. This entire blog is geared to encourage more people to do the same. Politicians need mass support for doing the right thing.

Preservation of BC forests eco-system

Posted on by

To: Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development
doug.donaldson.mla@leg.bc.ca

cc: Tim Sheldan, Deputy Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, also chair of Forestry Innovation Investment, with branch offices in Vancouver, China and India.
tim.Sheldan@gov.bc.ca

cc: Andrew Weaver, MLA, Green Party
andrew.weaver.mla@leg.bc.ca

cc: Ravi Kahlon, MLA from Delta North (my constituency)
ravi.kahlon.MLA@leg.bc.ca

cc: Lana Popham, Minister of Agriculture
lana.popham.mla@leg.bc.ca, AGR.Minister@gov.bc.ca

Subject: Preservation of BC forests eco-system.

Honourable Mr. Donaldson, Mr. Sheldan, Mr. Weaver, Mr. Kahlon, Ms Popham,

I start this letter by congratulating in being able to jointly form a government replacing the last Liberal Government. I hope this partnership survives full term and produces tangible results towards long term betterment of the province.

I write this letter out of serious concern regarding the future of BC forests, as well as survivability of our biodiversity as well as general health.

Doug Donaldson

I know currently we are having a serious wildfire across much of the state and the cumulative dust particles in the air is making the sun a hazy orange blob in late evening sky. But my concern goes further than the immediate fire.

Tim Sheldan

I draw you attention to the fact that aerial spray of glyphosate (Roundup Herbicide) over our forests, has been approved by the provincial government and usually administered by private logging corporations for many years going into decades without proof that the practice is safe. Further, I draw your attention to the fact that there is absence of evidence that sufficient research has been done and observed by the BC Government on any long term effect of it on our environment, forest health, biodiversity, or trickle down effect on human health.

Andrew Weaver

I have in the past tried to get information from the BC ministry any proof that it has seen evidence that glyphosate has no adverse effect on forests before approving its use. Sadly, I have not been shown any evidence of it by the previous BC ministry. I have reason to believe the BC Government has never seen any proof that glyphosate spraying on our forest is at all safe, and yet has been approving it out of a continued bad habit, year upon year.

Further, I have, through freedom of information act of the BC government, requested for data on the actual quantity of glyphosate used over BC forests, year upon year, from the first year of application till date. Regretfully, I have not gotten what I asked for, but got only a very small part of the answer comprising of a few localized hand application of glyphosate over small bushes. The reason I did not get the larger use data of aerial application is, I was told, the BC government does not know how much has been used, and may need to contact logging corporations to find the answer, hoping they keep the record.

Ravi Kahlon

I was asked if I would be willing to cough up a thousand odd dollars to pay for the man hour costs of the previous BC Government that would be needed to try to collect the information from the private corporations. I declined to pay that money and have been thoroughly disappointed in the shabby manner in which our ministry takes care of forest health.

I believe it is quite possible that forests that are weakened by excess use of herbicides can get vulnerable to not just to fire damage, but also many other maladies leading to continuous decline. I believe we may be converting our diverse forests into mono-culture plantation for the purpose of profit making by selling wood, rather than ensuring that a healthy forest remains to support a healthy environment and what biodiversity still remains in Canada.

Lana Popham

I believe the government may need to seriously start looking into long term health of the entire British Columbian eco-system, and separate that from short term money making schemes and false projection of economic boom or job creation that seems to concentrate on simply exploiting natural resources till what is left is neither natural nor resourceful.

I also draw your attention to the fact that Canada has overtaken Brazil as the fastest destroyer of forests and eliminator of the earth’s carbon sink on this planet. I have a serious question for all of you – what are you prepared to do about it?

I am copying Mr. Weaver since I expect the green party to be more aware on environment protection and hope to hear his views on this.

I am copying this also to Mr. Kahlon, my constitutional representative, since I have had a pre-election talk with him on glyphosate and its excessive presence in our food system, which makes Canadian food to be about the most toxic on earth, as explained in the e-book I authored named “Poison Foods of North America”.

I am copying this also to Ms Lana Popham, minister of Agriculture, who I have met long ago when she was an opposition MLA, because she is currently the minister of Agriculture, and I intend to send her a note about the need to focus on the most prevalent biocide in our food (glyphosate), the fact that Canadian food is the most toxic on earth, and the need to reverse the total silence this issue gets from all levels of Government in our country.

Apart from being the author of the book already mentioned, I am am an activist that tries to raise awareness, I have multiple levels of contact and communication, appeal, petition, and other efforts ongoing with different levels of our government, and will likely use this letter too, to influence and encourage others to join hands at a grassroots level to apply pressure to our newly formed government everywhere in Canada and North America, to pay more attention to saving our forests , environment and food system, rather than focus on how fast to exploit and degrade it.

I am curious why the Deputy Minister of Forest Management, Mr. Tim Sheldan, is also a chair of Forestry Innovation Investment group with apparent partnership with China and India, and if that is geared to find ways to attract foreign funds to help destroy our forests even faster and sell what is left to those countries, or if there is another reason for his involvement in that organization.

In summary, I ask the following

1) Show the people what evidence the government has, that application of glyphosate is not harmful to the total forest eco-system.

2) If the Government has not seen any such evidence, then immediately restrict the use of glyphosate, or any other kind of biocide, till a complete, and thorough investigation can be undertaken by entities that cannot be influenced by either politicians, governments or industry and will be unbiased and neutral. Share all information with the public.

3) Canada overtaking Brazil as the worlds worst de-forester – what are you prepared to do about it?

4) Explain why the Deputy Minster of Forest is the chair of Forestry Innovation Investment and what is the purpose of this groups existence and what involvement China or India has in it.

Please take this letter as a public interest issue that will be shared with the public, including any response I get, or do not get, from our new BC Government.

I have another, less serious request to the government – that we stop the practice of addressing elected government officials as “honourable”. It gives the impression that if one is not elected or not in politics, one is not honourable enough.

In my book, elected officials are public servants, not overlords. Therefore, elected officials should represent humility, not arrogance of power. Anyhow, this is a minor observation, not related to the main issue of glyphosate over forests and our real plan for preservation of forest eco-system.

Should you require, I shall be more than pleased to see any of you face to face about this.

Thanking you
Tony Mitra
10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E 3L7, Canada

https://www.amazon.com/POISON-FOODS-NORTH-AMERICA-navigating-ebook/dp/B06XS4Y6H2/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&me=

 

 

 

 

 

Note:

Is there anyone willing to get himself/herself videographer reading this out?
I already have myself talking into a camera enough times, and kind of tired of see my same-old face challenging our government.

We need more voices, more faces, more humans.
Anybody interested, let me know. Interested parties write to tony.mitra@gmail.com

Pesticides in Potato

Posted on by

There has been talks about possible presence of glyphosate and other pesticides in tubers such as potato.

I was informed by some that potato being grown some places in Canada might be desiccated by glyphosate prior to harvesting. But according to data received from CFIA, potato were not tested for glyphosate, and the word potato comes up sparingly in the items tested which were processed meals that contained potato. Potato might not have been the main ingredient in those products and the presence of glyphosate was not noted to be high or consistent. So I would say that the CFIA results were not conclusive that potato posed a serious threat to glyphosate poisoning to people.

Anyhow, I asked Anthony Samsel. This is what he said:

Tony,
Glyphosate causes DAMAGE to potato tubers…It is generally only used pre-plant and low levels do get into the tubers.. and cause reduced quality and yield.  The herbicides used pre-harvest to desiccate the vines are generally GLUFOSINATE, DIQUAT (Reglone) …..  
These are necrotic lesions caused by glyphosate in the soil…

necrotic lesions

(Above pictures, as well as the rest, are new to me. I have not seen such potato either in the store or in my backyard. I guess such items are removed before potatoes reach the store shelves. I might not have them because I do not use glyphosate or any industrial pesticide in my residence or garden.)

This is crippled shoot (at left) formation from the potato eyes called Cauliflower formation and is a telltale sign of glyphosate application to the field …

This is tuber cracking (at right) caused by glyphosate exposure from spray drift.

…. most potatoes have residues of herbicides and fungicides such as the fungicide Chlorothalonil… which never should have been allowed into the food supply.  This fungicide causes mammalian embryo fatalities and reductions in live fetuses…  Animal studies show that Chlorothalonil is a probable carcinogen…..
Anthony

The images and the text in blue are from scientist Anthony Samsel of USA. I have never seen such potato either but can understand why or how this might happen.

Meanwhile I did check the issue of Chlorthalonil in potato, among items tested by CFIA. There are more than 2,500 samples of potato tested by CFIA from 2008 till 2016 for presence of Chlorothalonil. Out of them all, only four samples had any chlorothalonil.

The above table shows some of the details available from the only samples that contained Chlorothalonil. For some reason, just one sample, the one on top, representing fresh potato from from the US contained over 3,700 ppb of Chlorothalonil and was in violation. The others contained less than 3 ppb, the last one was declared as organic.

The table is also the link to the full downloadable file of over 2,500 tests done on potato to find Chlorothalonil, by CFIA, between 2008 and 2016.

This is also included in the book Poison Foods of North America.

 

A book about Mother Teresa

Posted on by

One of the books I intend to read shortly, from Christopher Hitchens. This provides a counter argument to the theory of service in the name of God and about how good or questionable might have Mother Teresa of Kolkata been.

I will not buy it from Amazon, nor buy a paperback or kindle version.
I shall instead buy an audible version and “listen” to it while working on something else.
Audio books are the preferred format for me, on non-fiction issues of social significance.

Chis Hitchens is one of the original thinkers of our time, and so his opinion might be worth checking. But there is more.

I don’t completely believe this is sensationalism or pushing fake news. I come from the same town she worked all her life in – Kolkata.
My mother personally met her. That is not to say she was against Mother Teresa, but rather, was ambivalent. I have met a few nuns that worked in her organization both in India and in the US. I found them rather earthly and interested in earthly issues, not unlike you and me. I am keeping an open mind here and intend to read the book first, before passing opinion.

Also, strictly speaking – this is not so much news per se, as it is a book of opinion, by Chris Hitchens.

Lastly, I have another instinctive, and somewhat knee-jerk, opinion that missionaries, of any religion, do more harm than good in poor countries. This is a feeling that will not go away easily, because of the weight of evidence across the globe, going several centuries and perhaps even millennia.

Direct Democracy?

Posted on by

There is a news from Paris, where the newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed that the French Parliament be trimmed by a third because it is too top heavy and has too much bureaucracy and has gotten slow and inefficient.

The article came up here.

This is an interesting idea – to cut the French Parliament of excess fat and trim it by a third.

I believe time is ripe for not just trimming the fat, but to radically overhaul our parliament and question the very need to have Members of Parliament at all.

IN the time gone by, there was a need for representative of the people to go to the Capital, and vote on bills, representing the wish of the constituents that elected the member.

Today, two things have happened that makes the job of the Member of Parliament redundant:

1) The elected public servant no more votes according to the wish of the people. Rather, he or she votes according either to the diktat of the party boss, or whoever funds her campaign, such as lobby groups and corporations. In short, the elected official has become a traitor to the constituents.

2) In todays world of internet and instant communication, it is not too difficult to set up system where each voter can either log in from home, or in a nearby Government kiosk, and vote once a week or once a month on a number of pending issues – or decide to abstain, thus exerting “direct democracy” instead of proxy democracy through middlemen that betray the people.

There is a case for direct democracy, and cut the fat much deeper.

Think about it, Mr. Macron of France and think about it, Canadians.

Many of these observations first came from me through social media such as Facebook. But I am storing them here as I believe some day they might deserve to be  part of a book of essays.

Other pesticides in North American Foods

Posted on by

Poison Foods of North America is mostly designed to help people avoid glyphosate from their daily foods, and is for those that consider glyphosate to be singularly the worst synthetic molecule to be in their food, as a long term agent of health hazard and disease.

But I have also received data on foods tested for other biocides. I am slowly converting parts of this huge database to the public in shorter Pdf files that contain all the raw data as received.

The attached pdf file gives all the samples that tested 2,4-D positive, and excludes all that tested negative. All readings are as originally received except one column. The pesticide level was originally measured in µg/g or in ppm. I have multiplied the readings a thousand fold and expressed the same in parts per billion, or ppb.

You can click the image to go to the pdf file which can be downloaded and expanded for study.

Tony Mitra

Glyphosate in chickpea, lentil and wheat bran

Posted on by

Full set of test results from CFIA on glyphosate in chickpea, lentils and wheat bran, as well as the worst readings for any food groups, as received by self in December 2016, are placed here for reference.

Click on the images to go to the pdf file, which are free for download.

The lentil part is not too clear here since a lot of the processed food samples contained lentil but were described not as lentils but differently, such as this or that meal and snack etc. Those are not included in this list, which is purely what are described as lentils and lentil products by CFIA.

I personally believe that, as long as the Government hides safety test records and raw data involving tests on target animals under exposure to glyphosate and compared with identical animals not exposed, and their health parameters compared through the life span of the animals, its safety is unproven and therefore the people have a right to consider any level of glyphosate in food to be dangerous. The same applies to any and all safe limits (MRL) based on glyphosate.

Therefore, any glyphosate found in any food is essentially a violation of safety and aught to be removed from the stores.

I personally am not interested in discussing science behind either GMO or glyphosate, till such time the Government releases all safety test data on glyphosate for a start, and stop resorting to third party opinions on glyphosate safety. The Canadian government, just as the US and every other government, has been hiding these for over a generation now.

According to my understanding of the law, it is illegal to approve a product while hiding its safety record.

And lastly, here is a list of the worst samples as tested by CFIA where the readings showed presence of glyphosate above 1 ppm (1,000 ppb) and goes up to 12.5 ppm (12500 ppb).

Click on the image to go to the pdf file that can be downloaded and blown up.

The whole data from CFIA, totalling near 8,000 test records on foods collected in Canada and originating from 68 countries, with most samples from Canada and the US, have been analyzed, categorized, tabled, tabulated and charts made of, in detailed description in the book Poison Foods of North America. USA and Canada produces the most toxic of all foods on the planet when it comes to glyphosate contamination.

The book also gives details of other biocides found in foods b the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, involving poisons such as Atrazine, Chlorpyrifos, 2,4-D, Chlorothalonil etc, which are also shown in the same book.

The book contains about 400 such charts and tables. A few of those are shown here.

MIT scientist Stephanie Seneff wrote the following review of the book on Amazon:

This is a first of a kind book with detailed information about glyphosate contamination levels in foods from around the world, based on more than 7,000 records that Tony Mitra obtained from the Canadian government.

It is good to see that Canada is actually testing foods for glyphosate, unlike the US, who only tested soy and only in a single year, and found it in over 90% of the samples tested. The US only did this one test at the insistence of Anthony Samsel, a researcher/chemist who is extremely concerned about the toxicity of glyphosate, and who contributes material to this book.

Tony has painstakingly analyzed the data he received from the Canadian government, and packaged it up so that you as a reader can more easily obtain valuable information to help you figure out how to shop wisely so as to avoid chronic glyphosate poisoning as much as possible.

There are some big surprises in the book such as extremely high levels of glyphosate in Canadian legumes, such as lentils and chick peas, due to the widespread practice of spraying the crop right before harvest as a desiccant.

If you believe the governments when they say that glyphosate (the active ingredient in the pervasive herbicide, Roundup) is nontoxic to humans, then you will not need to read this book. But if, like me, you are passionate about avoiding glyphosate, this book is invaluable! It may help protect you from serious health care issues down the road.
Stephanie Seneff

Comments and suggestions welcome.
Tony Mitra

Glyphosate in Organic Chickpea

Posted on by

There has been questions on chickpea and if one can get clean ones if one buys organic.

Well, there are opinions, there are speculations and there are observations from a handful of samples that were tested by CFIA to allow a partial glimpse on the subject.

It is my personal belief that there is no safe way to get hold of glyphosate free chickpea, if one lives in North America, until and unless there is a serious effort at testing locally sold foods at the county or municipal level, and disclosing all those results to the local public every month. That is the reason I had tried to kick start the globally relevant petition for pushing each municipal government to start setting up a budget and start testing local food.

Unfortunately, the world has more people willing to pontificate and less people willing to do something about it – hence petitions like that get no more than 1,400 signatures.

If one does selective testing of three or four organic chickpea grown in Canada, one can find zero glyphosate. But the problem is three fold.

First – CFIA does not disclose brand names of those samples which showed no glyphosate. This is the reason I wanted municipalities to start testing and disclosing all details including brand names and origins and stores that sell them, and for people to start banging their fists on municipal council doors till they cave in (https://www.change.org/p/let-our-government-test-food-for-glyphosate?).

Second – question has been asked, if the organic certification process only ensures that a crop is grown organically, and ignores how the crop is harvested. In other words, one can grow a crop without pesticides, get organic certification and still desiccate it with glyphosate before harvest. If this is true, then that can explain how North American organic chickpea are so extremely contaminated with glyphosate, and how organic certification means absolutely nothing, with regard to glyphosate contamination in some foods grown in North America such as chickpea.

Third – there is always this issue among the CFIA records, regarding ‘unknown’ as country of origin. I suspect some, if not most, of these may have originated in Canada or nearby sources such as the US. Therefore, there is a very high probability of organic chickpea grown anywhere in Canada or the United States will have more samples with glyphosate and less samples without. This further bolsters my belief that, for North Americans, there is no safe way unless each and every kind of food is tested for glyphosate. Someone with a shipload of cash can afford to test every spoonful of food (s)he eats for glyphosate. For the rest of us mere mortals, we either get our local governments to play ball and test the food we buy, or decide to cut chickpea off our menu, or agree to play Russian Roulette with the chickpea we eat.

For people living outside of North America – that’s a different planet, a different solar system, a different galaxy and a different constellation. Rules, observations and expectations therefore would be different for them. My findings, and subsequent writing of the book, is titled Poison Foods of North America. It deals primarily with North America, with some comparisons with foods that came from elsewhere and were sampled in Canada.

Readers will be well advised to be cautious and find their path through this nightmare crop.