Are There Traces Of Weed Killer In Your Cereal?

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Could popular cereals and snacks contain unsafe levels of a chemical found in weed killer?

Depends on who you ask.

An advocacy organization called the Environmental Working Group looked at 21 products made by General Mills, like Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios.

The EWG checked for glyphosate, a compound that interferes with plant enzymes, causing vegetation to shrivel up and die.

"They spray the crops right before harvest, so they're all killed at once, and dries out the crop to harvest it," explains Dr. David Agus of CBS This Morning.

The group says the cereals contain up to five times what it believes is safe.

"The crops are processed, and it's in our foods," Dr. Agus continues.

By Environmental Protection Agency standards, though, the products are safe. The EPS has classified glyphosate as "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans."

"So glyphosate came about in the 60s. It was meant to clean pipes originally," says Dr. Agus.

In contrast, the World Health Organization classifies the chemical as probably cancer causing.

But in its 2016 report, the WHO says the use of glyphosate does not necessarily constitute a health risk.

Glyphosate is structurally similar to a naturally occurring amino acid, a building block of protein.

Mammals, that includes humans, do not have the enzyme system glyphosate targets. But bacteria do.

"It affects the bacteria in our gi tract, it affects our hormone levels, and it affects many of the cells in our body."

"How it affects disease, we're not going to know for another ten years because the real usage was in the last decade," Dr. Agus says.