Herbicides Can Alter the Nutritional Content of Food Crops

Herbicides are widely used commercially to improve crop yields and to reduce the need for hoeing and weeding. But do herbicides affect the nutritional content of food crops? Are organic foods nutritionally different from non-organic foods, and if so, are they better for you? Surprisingly, very little research has been done on this subject.

A research paper published last month in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry suggests that some common herbicides can indeed change the nutritional content of a food crop (sweet corn). The research team exposed sweet corn to four different herbicides, with or without a commonly used "safener", which helps to protect the corn from herbicide damage. All of the herbicides increased the protein content of the corn slightly, and some of them increased the content of certain minerals (phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, and iron) as well. Several of the herbicides also altered the balance of sugars (fructose/glucose/sucrose) and the amounts of fatty acids.

Whether the effects of herbicides on nutritional content are good or bad is still an open question. All that can be said at the moment is that herbicides can affect the nutritional content of food plants in a myriad of ways.

A lot is still unknown about the effects of agricultural chemicals on food crops, including whether herbicides affect the food's taste. Further research is warranted.