Are Girl Scout cookies ‘toxic’? No, experts say study’s findings are misleading

Concerns about Girl Scout cookies containing toxic substances have been swirling online, but don’t throw away those Thin Mints just yet.

Conservative podcaster Joe Rogan warned in a Feb. 22 episode of his eponymous show that Girl Scout cookies are "toxic," citing a flawed study that found tested cookies "contained levels of glyphosate and heavy metals above (Environmental Protection Agency) water safety limits."

Moms Across America and GMOScience, two groups that challenge food safety standards and oppose genetically modifying foods, commissioned the December 2024 study, "Danger in the Dough: Unveiling the Toxic Contaminants in Girl Scout Cookies." It has not been peer reviewed. Moms Across America’s website lists Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a former adviser.

Multiple social media users shared Rogan’s comments and the study’s findings on Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok, warning that Girl Scout cookies are "extremely toxic" and "contain harmful chemicals."

The Facebook and Instagram posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

A New York woman filed March 10 a proposed class action lawsuit against Girl Scouts of the USA and its cookie manufacturers, Ferrero USA’s Little Brownie Bakers and Interbake Foods, aka ABC Bakers, alleging Girl Scout cookies contain heavy metals and pesticides. The lawsuit cites this study.

But public health and toxicology experts said the study is misleading and its findings do not show toxic levels of glyphosate and heavy metals in Girl Scout cookies. The Food and Drug Administration has not issued any recalls or safety alerts about the cookies.

Moms Across America founder and executive director Zen Honeycutt told PolitiFact that her organization reported its findings to the FDA but had not received a response. The FDA also did not respond to PolitiFact’s request for information.

In response to the study, Girl Scouts of the USA posted Feb. 6 on its website that Girl Scout cookies are "safe to consume." Girl Scouts said its products are made with ingredients that adhere to food safety standards and regulations set by the FDA, the EPA and other public health authorities.

The study tested 25 samples of Girl Scout cookies from three states, California, Iowa and Louisiana, because states source their ingredients locally. The samples included all but one type of Girl Scout cookie.

Norbert Kaminski, a Michigan State University pharmacology and toxicology professor, said this sample size is too small to draw conclusions about Girl Scout cookies nationwide.

The study said 100% of the cookies tested showed "very elevated levels" of glyphosate, a common herbicide. Health Research Institute, an Iowa-based nonprofit research laboratory, conducted the tests, which showed glyphosate levels ranging from 4.05 to 111.07 nanograms per gram.

To put this in perspective, 1 nanogram per gram (ng/g) is equal to 0.001 parts per million (ppm), the measurement unit the EPA uses. And 0.001 ppm would be equal to putting one drop of water into a 10,000-gallon swimming pool.

So, the largest amount of glyphosate detected in the tested cookies, 111.07 ng/g, equates to 0.11 ppm. That’s within the 0.1 to 400 ppm range, depending on the food product, that the EPA and FDA consider safe for human consumption.

Dr. Jessica Steier, a public health expert and CEO of the science communication organization Unbiased Science, addressed the study’s findings in a Feb. 11 Substack post. She wrote that a 66-pound child would need to eat more than 9,000 Girl Scout cookies in a day to reach an unsafe amount of glyphosate.

Trace amounts of glyphosate may be found in food or drink products because the herbicide is widely used, the EPA said. If foods have an unsafe level of glyphosate, they are subject to government seizure, the agency said.

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The study also said 22 of the 25 cookie samples tested positive for five heavy metals: arsenic, aluminum, cadmium, lead and mercury. That count is off; the test results, conducted by the FDA-registered New Jersey Laboratories, showed 19 samples had detectable levels of all five elements. (Honeycutt said "human error" caused data discrepancies and that the study would be corrected.)

After converting the test results from parts per billion to parts per million (the EPA’s measurement unit), the amounts detected in the tested cookies ranged from:

• Arsenic: 0.0006 to 0.03 ppm

• Aluminum: 7.23 to 27.5 ppm

• Cadmium: 0.007 ppm to 0.04 ppm

• Lead: 0.001 to 0.02 ppm

• Mercury: 0.000007 to 0.005 ppm

The study’s comparison of the highest detected amounts with the EPA’s safety limits on heavy metals in water causes unnecessary alarm, experts said.

"Water consumption is vastly different from food consumption," Kaminski said. "People drink liters of water daily, whereas foods like cookies are eaten in much smaller quantities and at less consistent intervals."

Also, detecting a substance does not mean it poses harm, Kaminski said, because "modern testing methods are incredibly sensitive and capable of detecting substances at parts per trillion (ppt) or smaller concentrations."

Steier wrote on Substack that regulatory agencies recognize it’s technically impossible to eliminate heavy metals from all foods, "which is why the FDA sets practical, science-based action levels rather than requiring absolute zero."

The FDA said environmental contaminants, including arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury, can be found in food products because they are in the soil, water or air where foods are grown, raised or processed.

Many foods, including organic foods, can also contain trace amounts of arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury. From 2018 to 2020, the FDA tested more than 3,200 food samples, and about one-third had detectable levels of heavy metals. The highest amounts reported vastly exceeded the heavy metal levels detected in these Girl Scout cookie samples.

Social media posts claimed Girl Scout cookies are "toxic" because a study showed they contain glyphosate and heavy metals.

Public health and toxicology experts said the study’s sample size was too small to draw conclusions about Girl Scout cookies nationwide. The presence of glyphosate and heavy metals does not mean the cookies pose harm; the levels detected are within or below FDA safety standards.

Trace amounts of glyphosate may be found in food or drink products because the herbicide is widely used. If foods have an unsafe level of glyphosate, the EPA said they are subject to government seizure.

The study also misleadingly compared the cookies’ heavy metal levels to safety limits for water. Experts said people drink much larger quantities of water each day and in consistent intervals, compared with foods such as cookies.

We rate this claim Mostly False.