Impossible Foods Responds to Glyphosate Allegation

https://assets.ctfassets.net/hhv516v5f7sj/77NQsg1qDb6d9Hi4PBQA6y/93b2af7c3f12ce2e4050e03a6e0345e7/Unofficial_Correction_Moms_Across_America_05202019.pdf

by MrQuincle • 7 years ago

86 84 7 years ago

assets.ctfassets.net

jeanvaljean2463• 7 years ago

WARNING: This site redirected to a scam adloader. Consider using a mirror instead.

MrQuincle• 7 years ago

If so, warn them at https://twitter.com/Care2.

dang2• 7 years ago

We've since changed the URL.

minimaxir2• 7 years ago

Direct link to response: https://assets.ctfassets.net/hhv516v5f7sj/77NQsg1qDb6d9Hi4PB...

tptacek4• 7 years ago

If this is really interesting enough to discuss on HN, the story should link directly here, not to the blogspammed version on Care2.

The actual Impossible Foods response is savage and sort of entertaining. I'm not a fan of Impossible but my respect for them went up a notch after reading this.

ebg13• 7 years ago

I'm not a fan of Impossible

Do you have anything written up on why? I haven't heard anyone say that yet.

zymhan4• 7 years ago

At the end of dismantling the original claims:

MAA calls itself as a non-profit, but make no mistake: This outfit is a supplement-pushing e-commerce company that collects and sells consumer data. By MAA’s own admission, it gets a commission on sales of supplements from other affiliates -- and none of the bogus products it pushes have been evaluated or approved by the US Food and Drug Administration or any other governmental authority.

chrisweekly• 7 years ago

Yeah the ctfassets.net PDF should be the post's link.

Awesome response by IF. (Also, their burgers are pretty damn good; enough to make it way, way easier to do the right thing.)

dang2• 7 years ago

Thanks. We've changed the URL to that from https://www.care2.com/causes/impossible-foods-responds-to-gl... (which is a banned site on HN incidentally).

minimaxir2• 7 years ago

So it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=care2.com

Interesting.

searine• 7 years ago

"Mom's Across America" is a well known science denying hotbed who stoke fear of GMOs, chemicals, and vaccines.

They don't care whether or not glyphosate is safe or not. They care that impossible foods is getting headlines, and they want to get a piece of it by introducing FUD.

Impossible is 100% right to do a hard reply to this. These people aren't interested in honest debate or product safety and the world needs to know it.

roywiggins• 7 years ago

These people sell barely-regulated supplements such as this extremely normal "hydrogen water": https://shop.momsacrossamerica.com/collections/health-soluti...

An additional benefit is that H2 Elite generates an electron-rich potential (-ORP) in the water (you can measure it!). This rare property is uniquely found in fresh, raw living foods and juices, mothers milk and many of the world’s healing waters.

And this extremely safe "Restore". https://shop.momsacrossamerica.com/collections/health-soluti...

What's in it? "it is a carbon-rich, alkaline liquid, with lignite-derived trace organics and essential trace amino acids". Mmm, lignite-derived organics. I think this is just water.

kbutler• 7 years ago

I love that they claim completely unspecified "health benefits" of -ORP (but "not on the scale of molecular hydrogen) while deriding the previous claims of also unspecified "health benefits" from pH of water (high pH or low pH?).

And that the ingredients list in the text doesn't match the ingredients list in the image of the bottle.

UnFleshedOne• 7 years ago

What is Molecular Hydrogen, H2? Hydrogen is the first and most abundant element in the Universe!

So let us sell you some for low cost of $60!

Is this a new way of selling snow to Eskimo?

DoofusOfDeath• 7 years ago

That's a strong allegation. Why do you believe it?

banachtarski• 7 years ago

Not OP but it's not strong allegation at all. Just go to the "Moms Across America" website. They are blatantly anti-vaccine and anti-science.

JakeTheAndroid• 7 years ago

Go and read the response from Impossible Burger. They take the MAA article and highlight the sections with their direct response. It becomes clear that they do not care about the accuracy of their claims.

WillPostForFood• 7 years ago

Founder of Moms Across America:

http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2016/11/1746-zen-honeycutt...

bsmith• 7 years ago

I agree that your assessment is fact- and history-based and don't know why you are being downvoted. Their claims are groundless, and a distraction from a lot of the real health issues that actually plague society.

kelnos• 7 years ago

I'm still completely baffled by people like this. Why do they even exist? What do they have to gain by spreading misinformation about something like an alternative-meat burger? Are they just incredibly stupid? Do they value getting headlines over the health and wellbeing of people? What is it? I'm completely lost here.

zymhan4• 7 years ago

At the end of their takedown of the claims, they point out that "MAA" sells BS supplements and "health products" that likely do nothing at all.

Essentially they want you to buy in to the idea that no one else can be trusted besides them.

crimsonalucard• 7 years ago

I wouldn't discount glyphosate just because Moms Across America is a radical or delusional organization.

I don't care about teams or taking sides. All I care about is my health. If Glyphosate is safe, there needs to be a lot of experimental evidence supporting that conclusion.

Junk_Collector• 7 years ago

Glyphosate has been in use since the mid 70s, or just under 50 years, and it has been studied by nearly every health organization in the world. There is ample evidence that it is safe.

spilk• 7 years ago

This sounds like when that mommy blogger raised a completely misguided stink about "yoga mat chemical" being present in Subway bread.

ceejayoz2• 7 years ago

Yup. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vani_Hari

hannob• 7 years ago

This isn't helpful. I don't like use of pesticides and I think there's a reasonable controversy to be had about the dangers of Glyphosate.

But the environmental impact of meat production is so enormous desastrous, we should welcome every possible alternative. Whatever the Glyphosate (and GMO) concerns are, they are tiny in comparison.

goda90• 7 years ago

Kind of like the conspiracy theory that some conspiracy theories are made up by governments to make theorists look ridiculous, sometimes I wonder if science-blind anti-GMO sentiment was manufactured by these big agriculture companies to draw legitimate attention away from truly studying the pesticides we're using.

caust1c2• 7 years ago

That was the first thought I had when I saw the title of the organization "Moms Across America". Sounds like it was named by a corporate team of lawyers, PR and Marketing professionals for politically charged yet monetarily motivated attacks against "ankle biter" companies.

happytoexplain• 7 years ago

This comment really struck me. I've personally always found the anti-GMO crowd to be nonexistent by every metric I have available to me, but I've always assumed I'm just not seeing it wherever it is. The most extreme opinions I ever encounter on the subject are the occasional individual merely wondering out loud if GMOs are bad for you.

Spooky232• 7 years ago

I feel the same way.

If I were pushing the implication soy, potato and coconut oil as a healthy alternative to anything, I would make sure to have good opposition PR in place to cast people who question the product as crazy.

Impossible is very careful to emphasize the environmental mumbo-jumbo and avoid any mention of health beyond the standard nutritional data on their website, while implying that it's better. It's similar to supermarkets that package chicken in white and green trays, empathize "hormone free" and merchandise it next to the organic chicken.

bad_user• 7 years ago

> "the environmental impact of meat production is so enormous desastrous"

Reference, please.

In case you haven't seen what industrial plants agriculture looks like nowadays:

https://www.ecowatch.com/europes-dirty-little-secret-morocca...

The anti-meat propaganda is getting obnoxious. The most sustainable agriculture is one in which the soil is fertilised with manure and rotated livestock, because grazing animals keep the soil healthy and meat keeps us healthy, because we are omnivores.

We might need to discourage CAFOs by cutting the corn subsidies and by raising their environmental taxes, which will raise the price of meat, but we also need to use less pesticides and artificial fertilisers, because we are heavily polluting the soil, the water supply and killing the bees, which should drive up the cost of fruits and vegetables too.

And from ecological, to health and ethical considerations, most pro-vegan arguments (not all) are bullshit. The next time you're happy about not killing animals and being eco-friendly, see this:

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/songbirds-death-to...

SmellyGeekBoy• 7 years ago

I'm just glad I got to read this comment before r/vegan showed up and downvoted it into oblivion. Such is the current state of discourse around this subject on HN.

We need to eat less meat, we need to look after animals better and we need to do it in a much more eco-friendly and sustainable manner. We don't all need to go vegan. Going from one extreme to another is never the answer.

bscphil• 7 years ago

Kind of funny you have zero citations of your own other than a single story (not a study) about how some plants are grown somewhere.

And from ecological, to health and ethical considerations, most pro-vegan arguments (not all) are bullshit.

As an expert in one of these three fields, I can say with certainty that you're just making up these claims from whole cloth to fit your narrative.

Edit: I want to edit this to make clear I'm not just making a claim to authority and saying everyone should believe me. This response was mainly out of frustration at outright nonsense like "meat keeps us healthy" that no health organization in the world is going to subscribe to. I hope people in general are aware enough of some of these issues to detect the problems in the post I replied to and look into some of these questions for themselves.

jdc• 7 years ago

Here's your reference: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode

valec• 7 years ago

your link doesn’t mention meat once.

ethical

right. because growing billions of animals in inhuman conditions and slaughtering them is humane

health

don’t feel like linking a source right now but higher red meat and sausage consumption are linked to colon cancer. this is a bit of a weaker point than the others

ecological

wrong again. 7% of total emissions come just from gasses released by livestock. and about 60% of total ice free land is used to house the livestock and grow feed. [1] meat is just inefficient. 80% of arable land is used on meat and feeding that meat for only 20% of the worlds calories. [2] that just isn’t sustainable if the population keeps growing.

eating meat is fine (arguably) but don’t try and justify it with bullshit. just say you like meat.

[1] http://www.fao.org/3/ar591e/ar591e.pdf

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets

lm28469• 7 years ago

In case you haven't seen what industrial plants agriculture looks like nowadays:

It "looks" bad but do we care about looks more than pollution ? Look at any large scale animal farm, it looks much worse. Any solutions to feed 8b people will be far from perfect, but some solutions have less of an impact

Reducing (not stopping) meat consumption is a very easy way to reduce your carbon footprint, and you can still get all the animal protein you need from dairy, eggs, &c.

The most sustainable agriculture is one in which the soil is fertilised with manure and rotated livestock, because grazing animals keep the soil healthy

It's true, but the current meat industry is far from that. I'm all for sustainable farms and eating animals that have been reasonably grown and treated. The problem is that so many people eat meat every day, multiple time a day that the industry will never be able to provide sustainable meat. Look at the chicken industry, they grow them so fast that they die of organ failures and other growth related diseases and deformations. There is no soil fertilization coming from the millions of animals that have never been on a field. https://www.aspca.org/sites/default/files/chix_white_paper_n...

meat keeps us healthy, because we are omnivores.

Omnivore doesn't especially mean meat eater, just animal derived products. People live without meat just fine, the abuse of meat and the consumption of low quality/processed meat has been linked to many health issues on the other hand.

Nowadays I only eat meat when I go out and can spend good money on a quality steak, asian bbq or the like. Your body doesn't _need_ that daily ultra processed bacon, that $1.5/kg chicken or any of the fast food low quality burgers. The current western diets really are a metaphors for humanity; long term self destruction for short term pleasure & convenience.

http://www.greeneatz.com/foods-carbon-footprint.html

http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet

derefr2• 7 years ago

I don't like use of pesticides and I think there's a reasonable controversy to be had about the dangers of Glyphosate.

There's an important economic perspective to pesticide use: farmers are going to be doing whatever they can to kill enough pests to protect their crops and get a satisfactory yield/ROI.

That means that, the more effective a pesticide is, the less of it they need to use; and the less effective a pesticide is, the more of it they need to use. Since the dangers to humans/other animals come from the amount of pesticide left on something after washing, the seemingly-equivalent "less, more-powerful" pesticide is actually much less dangerous than "more, less-powerful" pesticide, because it's more likely to be completely removed from the end product.

If we ban the most effective pesticides, the alternative is using more of the less-effective pesticides to get an equivalent effect. Which means getting food that likely has more pesticide left over on it.

This also applies to "organic" food: "organic" pesticides are less effective, so they use more of them, so "organic" food ends up having more pesticide left on it than non-"organic" food.

So, if you're not a fan of pesticide in the sense that you're not a fan of eating pesticide, then you should want farmers to be equipped with as powerful a pesticide as possible.

EForEndeavour4• 7 years ago

This assumes that all pesticides have the same effects at the same dosages in humans, which would be surprising if true.

Sure, the more potent the pesticide, the less growers need to use, and the less residual pesticide ends up ingested by people. But it's impossible to say anything about the relative harm of a small residual amount of potent pesticide versus a larger residual amount of less potent (and chemically different) pesticide.

intopieces2• 7 years ago

If I recall correctly, the Glyphosate cancer allegations come from farmers who inhaled it day in and day out for years - a totally different ingestion model from eating it in small amounts.

tptacek4• 7 years ago

They also came from farmers who were using glyphosate solutions that included many other chemicals, and no doubt came into contact with a variety of other pesticides. A direct link between glyphosate and actual illness has not been established.

sauwan3• 7 years ago

has not been established

Then why are lawsuits that claim those links have been established winning regularly in courts now?

pacala• 7 years ago

Not so different than eating it in small amounts day in and day out for years.

zymhan4• 7 years ago

It is entirely different. The residual amount on your food is orders of magnitude smaller than what you'd encounter working with a concentrated solution containing glyphosate.

cwkoss• 7 years ago

It seems that at some dosage of glyphosate, the gut microbiome would be altered in a way that would make it more hospitable to pathogenic bacteria and less hospitable to beneficial bacteria. The real question is what is the shape of this dose curve. How much glyphosate is needed to shift the relative proportion of beneficial to harmful bacteria 1%, or 5%?

Probably much more than found in Impossible burgers, but it would be nice to have more research on glyphosate's effects on the human gut. Does chronic ingestion of glyphosate from unwashed raw produce have any statistically significant effect on the human gut?

"The presented results evidence that the highly pathogenic bacteria as Salmonella Entritidis, Salmonella Gallinarum, Salmonella Typhimurium, Clostridium perfringens and Clostridium botulinum are highly resistant to glyphosate. However, most of beneficial bacteria as Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium, Bacillus badius, Bifidobacterium adolescentis and Lactobacillus spp. were found to be moderate to highly susceptible."

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Awad_Shehata/publicatio...

joshdance• 7 years ago

Glyphosate is commonly detected at these low levels in both organic and non-organic foods. In fact, the minuscule levels of these chemicals that were detected in both the Beyond Burger and Impossible Burger were less than 1/1000 the limit set by EPA for glyphosate residue in dried pea (8,000 ppb) and soybeans (20,000 ppb), respectively. They were even almost 100-fold lower than the glyphosate limits set by USDA for ORGANIC certification of pea protein (400 ppb) and soy protein (1,000 ppb) - ie, the glyphosate levels measured in both products would easily pass the glyphosate-residue requirements for organic certification of soybeans or peas, respectively. What does 11.3 ppb [=11.3 ug/kg] mean in terms of how much glyphosate plus AMPA would be present in one 4-oz.(113g) serving of Impossible Burger? The answer is 1.3 micrograms [11.3 ug/1000g x 113g]. This is almost 1000 times lower than the no significant risk level for glyphosate ingestion (1100 micrograms per day) set by California Prop 65. The safe daily limits for glyphosate exposure set by FAO/WHO and the EPA are much higher.

Well said.

mindfulplay2• 7 years ago

Why do they even bother answering allegations? If the other group believes whatever they believe in, any answer or evidence will only bolster their claims because they are already way into the pseudoscience camp.

I don't like the taste of it but by golly I am going to support these new fangled vegan stuff: they are doing the right thing.

Without GMOs a billion people in India will not be alive today. So let's not give these people any more attention than they deserve.

howard9412• 7 years ago

Failing to answer may be construed as a pregnant admission.

EForEndeavour4• 7 years ago

Is "pregnant admission" a typo, or a mutation from the phrase "pregnant pause"? If the latter, the metaphor is lost, as "pregnant" does not mean "tacit." https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/7/messages/348.htm...

dhimes• 7 years ago

The problem is that if those voices are the only ones talking, eventually people who don't know better are going to start believing them. They need some ammunition against such stupidogenic propaganda.

bpyne• 7 years ago

Unfortunately, reason isn't at play here. It would take just a fraction of customers for the restaurant chains, supplied by Impossible Foods, to express fear of the burger's contents to cause chains to drop them. Large corporations are notoriously risk-averse. Even if people in the companies believe it's complete nonsense they aren't going to gainsay customers' fears.

Impossible Foods isn't in a financial position to have the restaurant chains pull out. So they're trying to "take control of the narrative". It was an absolutely fantastic response. They kept it factual, with a bit of sarcasm, and turned the light on the "mom's group". Kudos to whomever thought up the strategy and wrote the response.

aldoushuxley001• 7 years ago

"Without GMOs a billion people in India will not be alive today. So let's not give these people any more attention than they deserve."

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you don't have any evidence to back up this hyperbolic claim.

It doesn't help your case by making up data especially when you're denigrating psuedoscience in the same breath.

ceejayoz2• 7 years ago

It's not just India, and not just (or even largely) GMOs, but:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug

Borlaug was often called "the father of the Green Revolution", and is credited with saving over a billion people worldwide from starvation. According to Jan Douglas, executive assistant to the president of the World Food Prize Foundation, the source of this number is Gregg Easterbrook's 1997 article "Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity." The article states that the "form of agriculture that Borlaug preaches may have prevented a billion deaths." He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 in recognition of his contributions to world peace through increasing food supply.

https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/man-who-saved-billio...

mindfulplay2• 7 years ago

I should have explained my comment. It's about a strain called IR8 that yields more rice per hectare. This saved so many lives in India and elsewhere. And yes I am thinking of Norman Borlaug.

amazingman• 7 years ago

They should just tell Moms Against America that the Impossible Burger is also a homeopathic medicine :)

Impossible Foods Responds to Glyphosate Allegation

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