Would this affect produce in a grocery store? I thought the pesticide was supposed to be mostly gone by the time the product is harvested. I mean there are stories of farmers blasting it on crops later in the cycle but those seem to be an exception.
Pesticide residue is absolutely not a concern. If you're still terrified of it, just rinse your fruit and vegetables off first, and that will eliminate it.
Glyphosate itself really isn't a problem unless you're dealing with 55-gallon drums of it on a regular basis (and even then, the evidence is less than compelling). But such is chemophobia that we can't treat repercussions in an industrial settings with solely OSHA-style rules but must freak out about it even in situations where it's clearly not an issue.
Oh, I meant the labeling requirements. How much glyphosate is allowed to be on the produce before they have to label it? Or once the food has been touched, is it tainted forever (legally speaking)?
As far as I can tell from Proposition 65... any amount is sufficient to necessitate a label.
The current law states:
[the requirements to not expose anyone to such a chemical are waived for] an exposure for which the person responsible can show that the exposure poses no significant risk assuming lifetime exposure at the level in question for substances known to the state to cause cancer, and that the exposure will have no observable effect assuming exposure at one thousand (1000) times the level in question for substances known to the state to cause reproductive toxicity, based on evidence and standards of comparable scientific validity to the evidence and standards which form the scientific basis for the listing of such chemical pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 25249.8. In any action brought to enforce Section 25249.6, the burden of showing that an exposure meets the criteria of this subdivision shall be on the defendant.
So basically, the minimum amount you need to label is the minimum amount you'd be unable to convince a jury that exposure to is safe.
