The average diet (excluding the consumed residues of glyphosate) is probably far worse via the "gut flora" influence than a healthier diet with average glyphosate residues, though this is just a guess.

Coca-cola sells a product which causes immense harm directly (diabetes) and indirectly (raising cost healthcare insurance), though this is probably disputed. Gut flora might actually have a big role to play in our inability to act against what harms us, even though we may intellectually understand what harms us.

What is good for the gut is good for the body. What is bad for the gut is bad for the body. But what is good for the gut?

What is good for the mind is good for the body. What is bad for the mind is bad for the body.
But what is good for the mind?

Somewhere and everywhere we end up making trade-offs. What is good for the mind is bad for the body. Oh well... But if it is bad for the body, is it not also bad for the mind?

If there were an evil empire it would be Monsanto. They are audaciously corrupt paying off scientists and ignoring EU parliamentary hearings.

Their product has been linked to cancer by one expert WHO panel.

Forget Monsanto.

So the philosophical/ethical question is, whether or not harming an organism which lives within the human being, in a beneficial symbiotic relationship, constitute harming the human body. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're use of the term "beneficial" makes moot the preliminary paragraph. If the poison I give you sickens you, it is immoral to give it, regardless of whether it damages your gut flora, your kidneys, or whether it just irritates your throat. If it benefits you, it's not.

Ecologies are all connected from the bottom to the top. It's all enormously complicated.

Gut flora is an ecological system. Humans and agriculture are a part of many different ecological systems. Harming one part of ecological systems can harm other parts whose connection is not obvious.

Roundup (glyphosate) isn't known to harm monarch butterflies. I haven't read anything to that effect. But glyphosate kills many grasses and broad-leaf plants, one of which is the collection of milkweeds. Mono cropping and the widespread use of glyphosate has greatly reduced the number of milkweed plants that are found in and around fields.

Populations of Monarch butterflies have been greatly reduced because the one plant that their larvae feed on -- the milkweed -- have been largely killed off. Similarly, many different kinds of bees -- including the European honey bee -- need a variety of wild flowers to feed on. They can't survive just on orange blossoms. Again, glyphosate has eliminated many of the species that produce wild blossoms.

Glyphosate has more general effects than the Neonicotinoids, developed by Bayer, which kills off many insects (including bees, butterflies, and most other things that fly, creep, or crawl). Neonicotinoids are nerve poisons.

Most of our fruits and vegetables depend on pollinators. No pollinators, no fruits and vegetables. Unless you want to spend your days with a small brush moving pollen from blossom to blossom, doing the work that bees gladly do, don't spray nerve gas on your peach trees.

Are you on Monsanto's payola?

Report by Wiley 5/17/17

An analysis of data in Illinois has found a link between higher county-level use of an herbicide called glyphosate and reduced abundance of adult monarch butterflies, especially in areas with concentrated agriculture.

Good thing Bayer is purchasing them, no bugs will remain. Or perhaps not...

Are you on Monsanto's payola?

Report by Wiley 5/17/17
An analysis of data in Illinois has found a link between higher county-level use of an herbicide called glyphosate and reduced abundance of adult monarch butterflies, especially in areas with concentrated agriculture. — Cavacava

As I explained:

Populations of Monarch butterflies have been greatly reduced because the one plant that their larvae feed on -- the milkweed -- have been largely killed off. — Bitter Crank

Roundup is used on crops because the crops are GMO-immune to the herbicide. ("glyphosate inhibits a key enzyme found only in plants and bacteria – EPSP synthase".) Milkweed, and most other weeds are not -- and they die off rather quickly (except for the weeds that are developing natural immunity to Roundup -- but milkweed isn't one of those plants).

The monarchs aren't being poisoned, they're being starved out of existence, at least as far as glyphosate (Roundup) is concerned.

Adult monarch butterflies don't eat plants -- they don't have mouth-parts for chewing. The adults are nectar feeders. They lay eggs on the milkweed plants, and when the eggs hatch, the larvae (caterpillars) chew up the plant. When they have eaten enough, they spin a cocoon and emerge as adults after maturing in the chrysalis. Monarchs caterpillars are dependent on ONE plant -- the various variety of milkweeds. They don't and they won't eat other plants. No milkweeds, no monarchs. Got that?

If adult monarchs are being killed, it is most likely not from herbicides. Much more likely adult monarchs would be killed by pesticides, which are used against insects (insects--broadly speaking). The usual chemical in pesticides is some sort of nerve-toxic agent that kills the animal. That's what the neonicotinoids do. Neonicotinoids are related to nicotine, which in concentration is quite toxic to animals.

Nicotine of course comes from tobacco. Tobacco is part of the nightshade family that includes tobacco, tomatoes, potatoes, ground cherries, peppers, eggplant, chinese lanterns, and petunias.

Roundup has been listed by the State of California as a carcinogen.

Generally speaking, I don't approve of heavy use of any herbicide, pesticide, or fertilizer.

That's a totally disgusting video.

You're use of the term "beneficial" makes moot the preliminary paragraph. If the poison I give you sickens you, it is immoral to give it, regardless of whether it damages your gut flora, your kidneys, or whether it just irritates your throat. If it benefits you, it's not. — Hanover

I don't see your point. It is not immoral to quit doing something which is beneficial to someone else. Consider that it is beneficial for me if my neighbour picks up my groceries at the store, and brings them to my house. It is not immoral for my neighbour to quit doing this.

I was looking for threads on Glyphosate and this is the only thing. It's huge in the Netherlands and EU currently.

The answer is a resounding; "yes". Apart from our dependency on pollinated food that is being destroyed by poisons glyphosate now also turns out to be neurotoxic. and most poison (e.g. pesticides) is not tested as part of summation tests. Farmers are urged to use several different pesticides but the regulatory agencies for poisons don't test cocktails. Meanwhile, Parkinson's disease is a fucking pandemic among farmers in the Netherlands and is a recognised occupational hazard in France. Or more general: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6311367/

Nevertheless, it was approved for another 10 years of use in the EU.

Some things we can pay attention to: if you buy plants and put them in your garden, you are killing the insects unless you go out of your way to buy biologically raised plants. See this excellent photography report:

https://marlonnekewillemsen.com/en/invisible-threat-2/the-effect-on-insects/

There are special seed mixtures available for native plants and flowers that go a long way towards creating an oasis for insects. See initiatives like this: https://arboretum.ucdavis.edu/seeds

If everybody reserves a few borders in their garden to grow wildflowers, most insects will be saved.

It also reduces temperatures by 25% in summer time compared to lawn-mowed grass, which simply makes everybody's life more comfortable.

Has to be satire, no?

We hate bugs over here.

Looks like satire to me. and effective at that.

to spray a field of wheat with Roundup, prior to harvest, because this procedure increases the efficiency of the harvest — Metaphysician Undercover

Roundup--glyphosate--isn't used on wheat. It's used on corn and soybeans, mostly. It's applied when corn is about 2 feet high, and when weeds are well-leafed out. It's a systemic herbicide, absorbed by the leaves.

Perhaps I was wrong to call it "common practise", but that was the information I was reading at the time. The degree of such usage has been debated, and there doesn't seem to be any hard statistics on it. I suppose any statistics would rely on the honesty of the farmers engaged in the activity, and negative press would influence their admissions. But, it is an approved practise. Check this:
https://extension.umn.edu/small-grains-harvest-and-storage/managing-wheat-harvest


In the following article, the representatives of wheat producers claim that use is not common, but do not deny that it is done:

https://kswheat.com/news/the-truth-about-roundup-in-wheat

"Glyphosate is typically applied with a ground rig, and a ground rig will only run the wheat down," said Brett Carver, Wheat Genetics Chair in Agriculture at Oklahoma State University. "In most U.S. wheat regions, it takes a situation of no-other-choice desperation to consider glyphosate as a harvest aid….certainly not the usual scenario."

And here's Anita Dille, Ph.D., a professor of weed ecology at Kansas State University.

"There's all sorts of research that goes on before information gets put onto a label as a legal recommendation," said Dr. Dille. "It starts with the companies. They've done the research. Then, it always goes to a contract research or university level, unbiased and independent kind of sources. Then, all that information goes together in a petition to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), before it can be put onto a label as a legal recommendation. All that is regulated. The label is a legal document that the growers have to go by."

Further:

"U.S. wheat producers do NOT routinely use Roundup®, or other formulations of glyphosate, for pre harvest applications," said Steve Joehl, Monsanto’s Industry Affairs Director for wheat. "Quite the contrary, it is the exception rather than the rule. You should be aware that Roundup has an approved label with the EPA for pre harvest use, in the event farmers desire to control perennial weeds, like Canadian thistle, prior to harvest; or for farmers in areas of short growing seasons where crop maturity can be delayed. When used according to labeled recommendations, it is a very safe application. But because Roundup is used in Roundup Ready crops of corn and soybeans, these perennial weeds infestations have been reduced and the practice has been reduced even more."

Interesting information, thanks.

I have a distant memory of swathing wheat. Back in horse-drawn and hand harvested wheat days, the swaths of wheat (oats, rye, barley...) were 'shocked' -- gathered up in loose bundles (shocks) and stacked against each other for drying before being collected and thrashed.

Roundup results in weeds drying up. So I understand how it would help wheat harvests, causing the wheat to dry up. One of the articles mentioned the difficulty of applying Roundup close to harvest -- the machinery knocking down too many plants.

In wide open flatland production, American grain fields are very large and spraying them before harvest would probably not be cost effective. That's probably true in Ukraine and Russia, too. It's one thing spraying corn months before harvest; it's quite unappetizing to spray an herbicide on wheat a week before harvest, contaminating the grain kernels.

In wide open flatland production, American grain fields are very large and spraying them before harvest would probably not be cost effective. That's probably true in Ukraine and Russia, too. — BC

The practise may be more common in northern countries (Canada for example), where the drying conditions are not as reliable:
https://mbcropalliance.ca/directory/production-resources/staging-for-pre-harvest-glyphosate-application/