Well if this isn't the worst news I've discovered today. Can one of the most popular cereals in Iowa cause cancer?

I'd like to believe most people who buy and/or eat cereal for breakfast know that, most of the time, cereal isn't exactly healthy. It's better to eat cereal for breakfast than to eat nothing but most cereals are loaded with sugar. Not only that but they contain food dyes and other processed ingredients that aren't great for you either. According to Delish, it's better to have pizza for breakfast than a bowl of cereal.

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I'm not a big cereal eater and it's been close to a decade since the last time I had a bowl but when I was younger, I ate cereal before going to school, and this brand was my absolute favorite. According to Ranker, this is also one of the most popular cereals in the state of Iowa. Sadly, I've discovered that one of our favorite cereals contains one of the main ingredients in the weed killer, Roundup.

YIKES!

What is Glyphosate

Cheerios, as well as many other cereals, contain small amounts of glyphosate. Glyphosate is one of the main ingredients in Roundup and some health experts are wondering if it's also carcinogenic. Aka "the potential to cause cancer."

To make matters worse, you won't find glyphosate listed on the ingredients on a box of Cheerios, or any food product for that matter. Scientists have discovered this product is in this food by testing for it.

EPA Isn't Buying It

The Environmental Protection Agency doesn't feel the same way about glyphosate as the scientists. According to Healthline, "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), on the other hand, has determined that glyphosate is “unlikely to be a human carcinogen.” The FDA cited the EPA’s finding in a statement about glyphosate and noted that in the food products tested by the FDA, glyphosate levels were all within EPA standards."

It is not exactly clear whether Cheerios truly poses a cancer risk or not. According to Healthline, a 2015 study from the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans."

Most likely, foods that contain smaller amounts of glyphosate residue are safe for humans to eat. The issue is when those traces reach an unsafe level. Farmers will use herbicides on oat crops, and small amounts may remain on the grain that is processed into Cheerios.

The National Pesticide Information Center believes that "while research on glyphosate’s cancer risks has led to mixed findings when the chemical is ingested it is digested and expelled from the body in urine and stool quickly. And it does not appear that there are long-term health impacts to the immune or nervous systems either."

Can Cheerios cause cancer? There's no definitive proof at this point. I'm just not sure I'm a big fan of knowing I'm eating something that's used to kill the weeds around my house.