Like your produce with a side of pesticides? I’d imagine your answer is no thank you – but if you’re living in the US, you’re probably getting a hefty dose of glyphosate whether you like it or not.  

If you aren’t familiar, glyphosate is the most widely used pesticide in the world, with nearly 19 billion pounds sprayed onto soil and food since the 1980s[1]. It’s the star product of agrochemical giant Monsanto (since acquired by Bayer Pharmaceuticals), and in a sense, it’s a brilliant invention. Glyphosate is amazing at killing weeds and has helped increase global crop yields in the last few decades.  

Unfortunately, glyphosate is also an extraordinarily potent toxin, and the fact that it’s legal to spray it on food is, in my opinion, criminal. And quite a few judges agree: as of 2020, Bayer has paid out more than $10 billion in damages to people who have gotten cancer as a result of glyphosate exposure[2], and a 2019 study found that absorbing glyphosate on a regular basis increases your cancer risk by a staggering 41%[3].  

The trouble is that almost everyone is absorbing glyphosate on a regular basis. It’s in your food, water, and air, and its use is increasing every year. So, what can you do to counteract it? 

Here’s a look at why glyphosate is such a problem and how you can detox it to protect yourself from its damaging effects.

Why You Probably Have Glyphosate In Your System  

Glyphosate is almost everywhere in our environment. In theory, glyphosate should stay on farmland where farmers spray it on crops or drip it into soil via watering systems. As if this direct exposure to our food supply isn’t enough to raise an eyebrow, what magnifies the issue even further is that glyphosate doesn’t stay on farmland. 

Oh no, this toxin has places to go. 

Once it’s taken hold in the soil, it spreads through the air, floating onto and contaminating nearby land via a phenomenon called agricultural drift[4]. It travels down through the soil and ends up in the water table, where it gets into drinking water and groundwater[5][6]. And, not surprisingly, glyphosate residue remains on food, which you then eat[7]. 

 This is exactly why there’s a very good chance you have glyphosate in your system right now. In fact, a large-scale 2014 study from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that 80% of Americans have detectable glyphosate levels in their urine[8]. 

Of course, it could be worse: another 2022 study found that 99% of the French population has detectable glyphosate in their urine, with significantly higher values for men and younger people[9].  

 When you pair that data with the finding that glyphosate increases cancer risk in humans by 41%[10], things start to look pretty bleak. The bad news – avoiding glyphosate seems pretty much impossible. So the better question is: how can you get it out of your body and make sure it doesn’t build up in your cells? 

Humic Substance: the Best Way to Remove Glyphosate 

I’ll cut straight to the chase; taking humic substance—a concentrated mineral compound that is the result of ancient decomposed rain forests—is, surprisingly, the single best way to remove glyphosate from your body.  

 What exactly is humic substance?

As plants are broken down by bacteria and microbes, the result is a mineral rich substance called “humate”. Over millions of years, the humate builds up and concentrates together, forming an ultra-potent collection of bioactive molecules, in a black crystalline substance called “humic”.  

 Humic substance is a gentle, but powerful detoxifier—it binds to heavy metals and plasticizers like BPA[11]—and it also gently removes cellular waste, making your mitochondria (the power plants of your cells) more efficient[12].  

 However, the best case for taking humic substance is its ability to detoxify glyphosate. Glyphosate is an especially nasty toxin – it hides in your cells and causes dysfunction while avoiding the grasp of most standard detoxifiers.  

 Fortunately, humic substance is very good at detoxing glyphosate. It does so in three ways:   

• Humic substance adsorbs free glyphosate in your gut and bloodstream, binding to and deactivating it[13]. A 2014 study found that humic substance completely neutralizes glyphosate’s ability to destroy gut bacteria[14].
• Humic substance also opens up channels in cell walls and pulls out stored glyphosate. A 2015 study found that consuming humic substance dramatically decreases glyphosate levels stored in tissue[15]. 
• Finally, the humic substance falls out of the solution once it binds to glyphosate, allowing you to pass the deactivated glyphosate out of your system for good.  

Simply put, where most detoxifiers fail, humic substance succeeds, making it one of the best ways to protect yourself from glyphosate’s effects.  

How to Get Humic into Your Diet 

There are several different options out there for taking humic substance, but the best product I’ve found comes from BEAM Minerals. Their humic comes from ancient decomposed rainforest soil and is delivered in a liquid suspension, a form that’s especially easy to absorb. It’s one of the most bioavailable humic supplements on the market.  

 In addition, BEAM’s humic substance is flavorless. It tastes like water, which is a major upgrade from most humic supplements (if you’ve ever taken humic before, you know what I mean. It usually tastes downright terrible).  

 Finally, BEAM Minerals also offers fulvic complexes, which is the counterpart to the humic substance. While humic removes toxins from your bloodstream, fulvic removes toxins from within your cells. 

And BOTH humic and fulvic offer concentrated, full-spectrum minerals that refill your mineral stores in a ratio ideal for your body—and again, in a highly absorbable liquid form.   

 I take BEAM Minerals’ humic and fulvic substances together every morning as part of my daily supplement routine. You can feel them working—your brain turns on, you get more energy, your gut feels strong, and you’re ready to start your day. 

 Whenever I find a product or service I love and use daily, I reach out to the founders about getting a special deal for my readers. BEAM Minerals has been very generous: they’re offering 20% off all their supplements—including humic and fulvic—if you use the code “DAVE2023” at checkout.  

Takeaway 

Whether you go with BEAM Minerals or another source, it’s worth adding humic substance to your daily supplements. Glyphosate is one of the biggest threats to the quality of our food and the health of our environment, and as its use increases, things are only going to get worse. In my opinion, humic substance is the single best thing you can do to get it out of your system.   

References 

1. Benbrook, Charles M. “Trends in glyphosate herbicide use in the United States and globally.” Environmental Sciences Europe 28.1 (2016): 1-15.
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/10408/
3. Zhang, Luoping, et al. “Exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides and risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma: a meta-analysis and supporting evidence.” Mutation Research/Reviews in Mutation Research 781 (2019): 186-206.
4. Cederlund, Harald. “Effects of spray drift of glyphosate on nontarget terrestrial plants—a critical review.” Environmental toxicology and chemistry 36.11 (2017): 2879-2886.
5. Rendón-von Osten, Jaime, and Ricardo Dzul-Caamal. “Glyphosate residues in groundwater, drinking water and urine of subsistence farmers from intensive agriculture localities: a survey in Hopelchén, Campeche, Mexico.” International journal of environmental research and public health 14.6 (2017): 595.
6. Noori, Jafar Safaa, et al. “Detection of glyphosate in drinking water: A fast and direct detection method without sample pretreatment.” Sensors 18.9 (2018): 2961.
7. Soares, Diogo, et al. “Glyphosate use, toxicity and occurrence in food.” Foods 10.11 (2021): 2785.
8. https://wwwn.cdc.gov/Nchs/Nhanes/2013-2014/SSGLYP_H.htm
9. Grau, Daniel, et al. “Quantifiable urine glyphosate levels detected in 99% of the French population, with higher values in men, in younger people, and in farmers.” Environmental Science and Pollution Research (2022): 1-12.
10. Zhang, Luoping, et al. “Exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides and risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma: a meta-analysis and supporting evidence.” Mutation Research/Reviews in Mutation Research 781 (2019): 186-206.
11. Sun, Kai, et al. “New insights into humic acid-boosted conversion of bisphenol A by laccase-activated co-polyreaction: kinetics, products, and phytotoxicity.” Journal of Hazardous Materials 436 (2022): 129269.
12. Visser, S. A. “Effect of humic substances on mitochondrial respiration and oxidative phosphorylation.” Science of the Total Environment 62 (1987): 347-354.
13. Guo, Fayang, et al. “Glyphosate adsorption onto kaolinite and kaolinite-humic acid composites: Experimental and molecular dynamics studies.” Chemosphere 263 (2021): 127979.
14. Shehata, Awad A., et al. “Neutralization of the antimicrobial effect of glyphosate by humic acid in vitro.” Chemosphere 104 (2014): 258-261.
15. Samsel, Anthony, and Stephanie Seneff. “Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases III: Manganese, neurological diseases, and associated pathologies.” Surgical neurology international 6 (2015).