From the desk of Dr. Kevin, MD
“Are you having an intimate relationship with treadmill?!?”
Hello Scalpelheads,
It’s Kevin… Alright… Strap in…. This is one of those “the internet lied to you again” newsletters.
I saw one of those viral videos.
You know the type.
“Foods I’ll NEVER eat again 😱😱😱”
Cue dramatic pause, intense eye contact, and an appeal to authority so aggressive it should come with a rented lab coat…
“As a food science major… with a MASTER’S in agriculture…”
Cool. I once watched Breaking Bad and still don’t cook meth. Credentials alone don’t mean shit if the interpretation is trash.
Anyway. Food villain of the week: Cheerios!
Because… glyphosate.
Let’s unf*ck this properly, with actual science instead of BS.
First claim: Cheerios are loaded with glyphosate because oats are GMOs.
Red flag immediately. Oats are not genetically modified. There are no commercially grown GMO oats on the market. Zero. None. This isn’t debatable.
Glyphosate isn’t used because something is GMO. It’s sometimes used as a pre-harvest desiccant to dry crops before harvest in conventional farming. That’s it. No GMO conspiracy arc required.
Second claim: If you eat GMOs, you eat glyphosate.
This is like saying “if you drink water, you drink uranium.”
Technically true… in trace amounts so small your body could not care less.
Glyphosate residues in foods like Cheerios are measured in parts per billion.
One part per billion is:
• One second in 32 years
• One drop in an Olympic-sized swimming pool
If that freaks you out, stop breathing…. oxygen literally oxidizes your cells.
Third claim: Glyphosate is a “probable carcinogen.”
Yes. According to the IARC.
So are:
• Red meat
• Hot beverages
• Working night shifts
Here’s the part influencers conveniently forget:
The cancer data comes from occupational exposure. Farm workers.
People spraying glyphosate all day, every day, for years.
Not you eating cereal in sweatpants….
Now let’s talk real data.
The largest independent study ever done on glyphosate (the Agricultural Health Study) followed over 50,000 pesticide applicators for decades. Results? No statistically significant link to overall cancer risk. No increased risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Even in the highest exposure group.
And again… this was direct, chronic exposure, not ingestion from food.
If you’re an adult weighing ~180 lbs, you’d need to eat roughly 3,000 servings of Cheerios PER DAY, for years, to even reach a debatable risk threshold.
And even then? We’re talking about a 10% relative risk increase.
Meaning if baseline risk is 2%, congrats… it’s now 2.2%.
If you’re somehow eating 3,000 bowls of Cheerios a day, glyphosate is not your problem. You have achieved a higher plane of existence and probably need an exorcist, not an oncologist.
This fear-mongering content is harmful.
It scares people away from affordable food. It fuels orthorexia disguised as “health.”
It replaces evidence with anecdotes and vibes.
Meanwhile, actual food scientists like Food Science Babe have been explaining this for years and still get accused of being “paid off” because math ruins influencer storylines.
Bottom line.
Cheerios are not poisoning you. Glyphosate residues in food are minuscule. The cancer narrative is wildly misapplied.
Eat your cereal. Touch some grass. And please, for the love of science, stop letting TikTok / Facebook / IG decide what you’re terrified of this week.
If this saved you from spiraling in the cereal aisle, forward it. If it pissed you off, also forward it.
Until next Saturday,
Dr. Kevin Cutthebull, MD
P.S. You know the deal, you can download my favorite guide of the week here. For free (no opt-in required)→ (Download Here)
