All parents want what’s best for their children, and choosing foods that are safe and nutritious to eat is a top priority.
Breakfast cereals and oatmeal are nutritious and affordable staples found in many Canadian households, so when their safety was recently called into question by some alarming media headlines, it’s no wonder parents had concerns.
What’s the story?
Recently, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a pro-organic activist organization, released a self-funded study claiming to prove the harm of chlormequat, a substance used by farmers to produce plants with sturdier, thicker stalks.
The EWG study claims:
- Chlormequat was found in 92% of non-organic oat-based foods tested – listing family favourites, like Cheerios and Quaker Oats.
- Chlormequat was present in 80% of urine samples (77 out of 96) tested between 2017-2023.
- Chlormequat is linked to reproductive and developmental problems.
What is chlormequat?
Chlormequat is a plant growth regulator, which is a substance that, in low concentrations, stimulates or inhibits the growth of plants. Chlormequat acts to decrease stem height, thereby reducing the likelihood of crops bending over. This can make harvesting more efficient, reducing costs for producers, and in turn, consumers.
In Canada, chlormequat is approved for use on cereal crops. It may also be used on cereal crops in other countries that are imported into Canada.
Chlormequat safety regulations
Like all agricultural chemicals, chlormequat is regulated through Health Canada’s Pesticide Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA). The PMRA considers potential risks of agricultural products to ensure they meet standards that protect human health at all stages of life, as well as standards to protect the environment.
Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) are established as the maximum amount of residue that can remain on food, and they are in place for all domestic and imported products.
MRLs are set at very conservative levels, and factor in the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI): the amount of pesticide residue a person could eat every day without any negative health effects.
The ADI is also a conservative value. Is it set using the No Observed Adverse Effect Level (NOAL), the highest level of residue known to have no negative effects and then adding a safety margin of at least 100 times lower than the NOAEL.
How do the EWG numbers stack up?
While the EWG study was able to show chlormequat residues were detected in cereal products, it is important to compare the amount they found, with the amount Health Canada has established as having no impact on health (the ADI).
The highest amount of residue detected in one oat-based product in the EWG study (in other words, the worst-case scenario) was: 0.291 mg/kg.
Compare this to the ADI for chlormequat for a 70kg person: 3.5 mg/kg
In order to meet the ADI for chlormequat using the EWG’s worst case scenario of 0.291 mg/kg, an average person would need to eat:
12 bags (1kg) of Quaker oats – equivalent to 396 servings per day, every day, for the rest of their life.
21 boxes (570g) of Cheerios – equivalent to 420 servings per day, every day, for the rest of their life.
What about chlormequat in urine?
First, the urine samples collected were obtained through a variety of cherry-picked data sets. Even so, when looking at the EWG numbers, the trace level of residues found in the urine samples tested also fall far below the conservatively set ADI (and about 10 times lower than those found in their cereal samples).
Importantly, the presence of chemicals found in urine only tells us that our kidneys are doing a good job filtering waste. Did you know human urine can contain around 3000 detectable chemicals? Just because a chemical is detectable does not mean it has an impact on health.
Impact on fertility and development
The EWG cited only studies where animals were fed far higher doses than a person could ever reasonably encounter. In a long term rat study, rats were fed chlormequat doses that would be equivalent to 3500 kg of oats (according to the highest dose detected by the EWG). The study found no impact on fertility and development.
The bottom line:
- While the EWG showed chlormequat residues were detectable in oat-based cereals, all detected residue levels fall far below the conservative health and safety limits set by Health Canada.
- The presence of a chemical in urine tells us nothing more than our bodies’ ability to filter waste. Just because a chemical is detectable, does not mean it is dangerous.
- The EWG uses cherry-picked animal studies which look at doses of chlormequat much higher than humans would ever encounter, to irresponsibly imply a negative impact on human health.
- Alarming media headlines and social media posts about chlormequat demonstrate that it is easy to scare people about chemicals if proper context isn’t provided.
- While it’s good to be interested in ongoing research, this small-scale study is designed to raise alarm and sway consumers into making food choices based on fear rather than science.
