Could this buzz kill?
Traces of a toxic herbicide that has been shown to cause cancer have been found in Germany’s most popular beers.
The Munich Environmental Institute revealed on Thursday that small amounts of glyphosate, the world’s most-used weed killer, were in all 14 brews it tested.
Glyphosate was declared a probable human carcinogen last year by a World Health Organization agency.
The amounts of glyphosate ranged from .46 micrograms found in a liter of Bavarian Augustiner beer to 29.74 microgram in a liter of Hasseröder — which is nearly 300 times the maximum amount of the herbicide allowed in drinking water.
Brands that Americans are more familiar with also showed traces of glyphosate. Beck’s Pils had .5 micrograms per liter, Paulaner Weissbier had .66 micrograms and Erdinger Weissbier had 2.92.
The German Brewer’s Association called the study “not credible,” and argued that the herbicide is so widely used that it “is now found virtually everywhere after decades of use in agriculture.”
An industry group said the levels of glyphosate weren’t a risk.
“An adult would have to drink around 1,000 liters of beer a day to ingest enough quantities to be harmful for health,” the Brauer-Bund beer association said in a statement.
Whatever the truth, the environmental group’s findings call into question the very purity for which the German beer industry is known.
This year, the country celebrates the 500th anniversary of its Reinheitsgebot German purity law, which is one of the globe’s oldest food safety laws. It rules that beer must be made only using malt, hops, yeast and water.
Germany is Europe’s biggest beer producer, and the European Union is reviewing whether to renew approval for glyphosate.
With with news wire services
