Is Your Cereal Hiding a Weedkiller? Why Lovebird Tests Glyphosate-Free

Published by Lovebird Foods | Third-Party Lab Verified

Every morning, millions of parents pour a bowl of cereal for their kids without thinking twice. But what if that cereal contained residues of one of the world's most controversial herbicides - a chemical linked to cancer by the World Health Organization?

The maker of Roundup has paid over $11 billion to settle cancer claims tied to glyphosate, its active ingredient - the same chemical independent labs have found in some of America's most popular breakfast cereals.

That's not a hypothetical. It's what years of independent testing have found in some of America's most popular breakfast cereals. And it's exactly why we test every Lovebird product for glyphosate and publish the results.

What Is Glyphosate, and How Does It End Up in Cereal?

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, the world's most widely used herbicide. It's sprayed on crops like oats, wheat, and barley - not just to kill weeds, but in a practice called pre-harvest desiccation: deliberately spraying the crop just before harvest to dry it out faster and speed up the harvest timeline.

This means glyphosate isn't just a trace contaminant from nearby field drift. In many cases, it's being applied directly to the grain that ends up in your cereal bowl, days before harvest.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a division of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen in 2015. California lists it as a chemical known to cause cancer under Proposition 65. Bayer (which acquired Monsanto, the maker of Roundup) has paid out billions in legal settlements related to glyphosate exposure.

What the Testing Found: Popular Cereals and Their Glyphosate Levels

Starting in 2018, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) began commissioning independent laboratory tests of oat-based cereals and breakfast foods. The results were striking.

In their initial testing, 43 out of 45 products made with conventionally grown oats tested positive for glyphosate. Nearly three-quarters had levels above EWG's health benchmark of 160 parts per billion (ppb) — the level the group considers the upper limit of safety for children consuming the product daily.

Some of the highest levels found in EWG testing included:

• Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch 833 ppb
• Cheerios 729 ppb
• Quaker Oatmeal Squares nearly 3,000 ppb in 2018 samples
• Back to Nature Classic Granola up to 620 ppb
• Quaker Simply Granola up to 430 ppb
• Nature Valley Granola Protein Oats 'n Honey up to 220 ppb

To put that in perspective: EWG's health benchmark for children is 160 ppb. Several of these products tested at five to eighteen times that threshold.

It's worth noting that levels have declined since 2018 due to public pressure on grain traders and food companies. But as of EWG's most recent testing in 2024, glyphosate was still detected in all conventional oat-based products sampled, and roughly 30% of products still showed levels above the health benchmark.

Even when levels have fallen, the underlying issue hasn't changed: conventional oat-based cereals are still being sprayed with glyphosate before harvest, and it's still showing up in the products your family eats.

Why Oat-Based Cereals Are the Biggest Problem

Most of the concern around glyphosate in food is concentrated in grain-based products - particularly oats. That's because oats are one of the crops most commonly treated with pre-harvest glyphosate application. The grain absorbs the chemical during this final spray, and it persists through processing and into the finished product.

This is why so many mainstream breakfast cereals - including products marketed to children - have tested positive repeatedly across multiple independent studies.

Wheat is similarly affected. Independent testing by Mamavation found whole wheat bread products containing over 1,000 ppb of glyphosate, with Village Hearth 100% Whole Wheat Bread testing at 1,150 ppb and a 365 Whole Foods brand whole wheat bread at 1,040 ppb.

Legumes are another significant and often-overlooked source. Pre-harvest desiccation is common practice in chickpea, lentil, and bean farming - glyphosate is sprayed to dry the crop before harvest, just as with oats and wheat. Independent testing has found conventional chickpeas at up to 889 ppb. This matters for consumers who eat hummus, canned chickpeas, or grain bowls regularly, since those exposures compound across multiple meals and food sources.

The pattern is consistent: if it starts with conventional oats, wheat, or legumes, it likely contains glyphosate residues.

Lovebird Is Different: Grain-Free by Design

Here's where Lovebird takes a fundamentally different approach - not just in our sourcing, but in our entire ingredient philosophy.

Lovebird cereals contain no oats. No wheat. No grains of any kind.

Our cereals are made with a short list of real, organic ingredients - cassava, coconut, and seeds - none of which are treated with pre-harvest glyphosate applications. We start from a completely different ingredient base than the cereals that have repeatedly tested positive.

But we don't ask you to take our word for it.

Third-Party Lab Results: Tested and Verified Glyphosate-Free

We send every Lovebird SKU to Light Labs, an ISO 17025-accredited third-party laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for independent glyphosate testing. Here's what they found:

Third-Party Lab Results: Tested and Verified Glyphosate-Free

We send every Lovebird SKU to Light Labs, an ISO 17025-accredited third-party laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for independent glyphosate testing. Here's what they found:

ND (Not Detected) means glyphosate and its primary breakdown metabolite, AMPA, were undetectable at or above the lab's limit of quantification — a threshold well below levels of any known health concern. 

A few things worth noting about the rigor of this testing:

• We test for AMPA, not just glyphosate itself. AMPA is glyphosate's primary metabolite and a sign of prior exposure. Many brands only test the parent compound. Testing both gives a more complete picture.
• LC-MS/MS (liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry) is the gold-standard analytical method for glyphosate detection in food — the same method used by EWG and the FDA.
• Third-party and independent Light Labs has no financial relationship with Lovebird beyond the cost of the test. We pay for the test; they report whatever they find.

Why We Test Even Though We're Already Grain-Free

Fair question. If our ingredients don't include oats or wheat, why bother testing?

Because trust should be verifiable, not just claimed.

Any brand can put "organic" on a label. Any brand can say their product is clean. What fewer brands do is publish the actual lab data - COA numbers, method details, detection limits - and let you evaluate it yourself.

We also test because organic certification, while important, doesn't guarantee zero contamination. Cross-contamination at co-packers, in shared equipment, or through contaminated water and soil is possible even in certified organic facilities. Testing is how we verify that the certification is actually working.

And we test because our customers deserve to know - not because we're required to.

What to Look for When Buying Cereal

Not all cereals are created equal when it comes to glyphosate exposure. Here's a simple framework:

Higher risk:

• Made with conventional oats or wheat
• Products containing conventional chickpeas or other legumes (pre-harvest desiccation is widespread in legume farming, independent testing has found chickpeas at up to 889 ppb)
• No third-party testing published
• Vague "natural" claims without organic certification

Lower risk:

• Certified USDA Organic (organic certification prohibits synthetic herbicides including glyphosate)
• Grain-free formulations that avoid the highest-risk ingredients
• Brands that publish third-party COAs

Lowest risk:

• Grain-free + certified organic + third-party lab verified (that's us)

The Bottom Line

Glyphosate in cereal isn't a fringe concern or a conspiracy theory. It's documented by independent labs, reported by EWG, referenced in FDA correspondence, and reflected in billions of dollars in legal settlements. The brands most affected have been household names that parents have trusted for decades.

Lovebird was built as an alternative - not just to junk cereal's sugar content, but to the entire industrial grain system that underlies it. Going grain-free wasn't just a product decision. It was a values decision.

Our kids deserve a cereal bowl that doesn't come with a side of synthetic chemical weedkiller. We test ours to prove it.

Certificate of Analysis: unsweetened honey cinnamon cocoa fruity