Are There Cancer-Causing Pesticides in Your Quaker Oatmeal? Lawsuit Says Yes

By Christina Sarich

Is any big-brand food safe for consumption? How about some glyphosate in your breakfast cereal? It obviously isn’t something you want to wake up to first thing in the morning, but after declaring themselves, ‘100% Natural,’ Quaker Oats, a sub-brand of Pepsi-Co, a long-time supporter of genetically-modified ingredients, has been accused of being ‘misleading and deceptive’ due to the herbicide showing up in one of their best selling foods.

A group of consumers from multiple states has launched a class-action lawsuit, claiming Quaker Oats’ can’t have a carcinogenic weed killer — glyphosate was designated a probable human carcinogen by the World Health Organization last year — in their oatmeal and still call it ‘all natural.’

The complaint states that glyphosate made its way into Quaker Oats, allegedly, not simply because it is used as an agricultural weed killer, but because it is sprayed on the oats as a drying agent shortly before they are harvested. The company knowingly uses glyphosate-riddled oats in their Quaker Oats products.

The plaintiffs of the suit want Pepsi-Co to refund them, not because they used glyphosate, but because they claimed their product was ‘100% natural.’

“Quaker knows that consumers seek out and wish to purchase whole, natural foods that do not contain chemicals, and that consumers will pay more for foods that they believe to be natural,” the court document states.

A similar lawsuit launched against Pepsi-Co over Naked Juices was settled out of court for $9 million. Naked Juices were being advertised as ‘all natural,’ but also as ‘100% juice’ and ‘non-GMO,’ when their products contained genetically-modified soy and other artificial ingredients. Back then, the company promised not to use the ‘all natural’ phrase to advertise their goods in the future, seemingly because they had learned their lesson. But the new Quaker Oats case proves they were likely just appeasing consumers long enough to move on to their next Bernaysian plan to unload toxic goods on an unwitting public.

Quaker advertises its whole grain oats for their “wholesome goodness.” However, as the complaint states:

“No reasonable consumer, seeing these representations, would expect Quaker Oats to contain anything unnatural, or anything other than whole, rolled oats. Quaker Oats, despite their labels, do contain something other than whole, rolled oats; namely, Quaker Oats contain glyphosate. Glyphosate is not ‘Natural’ or ‘100 Percent Natural.’ Glyphosate is a synthetic biocide and probable human carcinogen, with additional health dangers rapidly becoming known.”

We can keep fighting Big Food in court, but we can also, perhaps more effectively, fight them by ‘voting’ with our dollars. Stop purchasing food from Pepsi-Co, General Mills (GM), and other large food manufacturers who have gone on record to deceive the public about the contents of their food products. GM may have reluctantly decided to label their foods as genetically-modified, but they still deceive their customers regularly. Pepsi-Co has done the same, with not one but two lawsuits now over the exact same premise.

There are hundreds of more trustworthy, organic, and non-GMO companies from which to purchase your food — or even better — get your goods straight from a small, local farm that you can verify grew their crops without pesticides.

One thing is for certain, the Quaker Oats sold to your great grandmother in the 1870s surely didn’t contain Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide, glyphosate. And even more certain, no Quaker was exposed to thousands of pounds of pesticides and herbicides at every meal. It’s time to ditch big-brand foods. Their ‘all natural’ claims have worn thin.

This article (Are There Cancer-Causing Pesticides in Your Quaker Oatmeal? Lawsuit Says Yes) is an opinion editorial (OP-ED). The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of Underground Reporter. This article is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Christina Sarichand UndergroundReporter.org. If you spot a typo, please email the error and the name of the article to [email protected]. Image credit: YouTube/Wisenheimerr