Top Five Ways to Avoid GMOs in Your Food

Thursday, November 20, 2008 by: Dr. Gregory Damato, Ph.D., citizen journalist

Recent polls across the world have consistently shown that, if they had a choice, 90% of people would actively seek to avoid GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in their food. The large multinational corporations of the world have gone through extensive measures to ensure the citizens of most nations have no possible way of knowing whether the food they and their children are eating contain contaminants of GMOs. The labelling of GMOs on the packaging of any foods in the US for example, is illegal. For example, if a company like Kellogs decided to include a full disclosure label on their cereal box that stated, "contains genetically modified corn" they could be sued by the manufacturer and then face possible prison time.

This is a very important issue because the democratic process of many nations has been surreptitiously supplanted by the corporatocracy of the seed company juggernauts. America has one of the highest levels of GMOs in their food chain in the western world with up to 85% of its pre-packaged and processed foods coming from genetic engineering. The people have never asked for GMOs- but got them anyway. The people then asked that they be properly labeled so they could avoid them- they were ignored. Therefore, seeing how our health freedom and well-being is consistently under attack from large multi-national corporations only seeking to increase profits at the expense of our health, what are we to do?

What we can do is simply try to avoid the GMO contaminants altogether and be extremely vigilant of how we spend our money and which companies we are choosing to support. Here are five simple and effective ways to decrease your contact with untested, toxic and dangerous GMOs.

1.) Buy Locally Produced Food

For now, GMOs are only used by large multinational corporations who buy direct from large farms. Produce from local mom and pop farmers have yet to become genetically modified. Purchasing locally grown food supports your local farmers and your health. Not to worry about GMO tomatoes and potatoes as they have all been pulled from the market.

2.) Buy Organically Grown Food

For now, the organic certification process is a relatively safe bet to ensure your food is free of GMOs, although this may not be the case in the future. Help support global sustainability by purchasing certified organically grown food.

3.) Avoid the Top Four GMO Crops of Soy, Corn, Canola and Cottonseed

This is a bit tricky as most blended oils in North America contain canola and cottonseed. Whenever you go out to dinner and receive anything fried, you are most likely consuming GMOs from the oil, not to mention transfat. A way around this would be to purchase 100% extra virgin olive oil, but be sure to avoid the term olive oil as most of it is blended with some GMO cottonseed or canola. Unless it specifically states "Non-GMO" or some derivation on the label, it most likely contains GMOs.

Likewise, any time you go you consume corn chips, tacos or soy milk, you are eating GMOs, again unless it specifically states Non-GMO or is organic.

4.) Avoid Artificial Additives and Sweeteners

Most of use are aware of the dangers behind the artificial sweetener and excitotoxin, aspartame (known as preservative E951), but may not be aware that it is created using genetic modification. Even the majority of vitamin C (asorbic Acid) and many B vitamins have been created via genetic modification. A Japanese company was forced to pull GMO L-Tryptophan off the market in 1989 after thousands of people became severely ill with many developing an extremely rare blood disorder called, Esinophilia-Myalgia Syndrome (EMS), although the FDA never publicly mentioned that GMO contamination was the true cause of the recall.

5.) Look For the Non-GMO Label

This includes all animals used for food because most are typically fed GMO feed. If it does not state Non-GMO on the label, then email the manufacturer and ask if they use GMO feed. It is best to attempt to contact all of the manufacturers of the foods you generally eat on a daily or even weekly basis and determine whether GMOs ingredients are utilized in the food. You have a fundamental right to know whether the foods you are consuming have been contaminated with GMOs. When in doubt always look for the Non-GMO label, and unfortunately assume that it has been genetically modified unless the opposite have been explicitly stated.

GMOs Create Incredibly Toxic Colons

Tuesday, June 22, 2010 by: Kim Evans, citizen journalist

Probiotic expert S.K. Dash calls the healthy bacteria in our guts our first line of immune defense, as these tiny bacteria protect us from all sorts of problems. Everything from cancer to IBS to allergies and most every disease imaginable is connected to our healthy bacteria. But there's one problem. Eating one serving of GMO foods has been found to change the genetic structure of our healthy bacteria. Literally, some GMO foods might be altering our healthy bacteria so they'll now produce concentrated pesticides in our guts for the rest of our lives.

GMOs may also be changing our healthy bacteria on a genetic level, so they'll continually produce abnormal proteins inside us. Because our ever-working DNA runs on proteins, throwing abnormal proteins into the mix can be the source of all sorts of serious and unpredictable problems. Yet, evidence from the only human GMO feeding trial ever published shows it's likely that GMOs have taken our once healthy bacteria that are designed to protect us - and turned them into a major toxicity source. In this manner, it's likely that GMOs have made our colons toxic beyond belief.

One serving of GM soy was all it took to see the genetic mutation of our healthy bacteria -- and you'd be a rare individual not to have had thousands of servings of GMOs in your lifetime, let alone just one. In Europe, where GM foods aren't as prevalent as in other parts of the world, the animals are most likely eating GM grain - and GM genes are found in their flesh and the dairy that people consume. This intense pollution of inside the colon may be the reason that bees living near and eating GMOs crops have died in large numbers. Autopsies of the bees showed that they died from something that looked a lot like colon cancer.

The depth that the problem presents is larger than can be conceived and it's unknown if it's even possible to completely reverse it. If so, it'll take some work because these tiny bacteria can double in number every 20 minutes and your body contains many trillions of them. So, if we didn't have enough reasons to do colon cleansing in a time when disease is rampant and often considered normal, GMOs offer yet another.

To work to reverse the problem, you'd make good mileage by doing deep and aggressive colon cleansing using enemas or professional colonics. You'll also want to reseed your healthy bacteria with untainted bacteria from raw homemade sauerkraut, which contains more strains of bacteria than store-bought probiotics. Of course, you'll also want to get really familiar with the foods and food additives that contain GMOs and never put another in your mouth.

Deep and regular colon cleansing will likely clean out stores of abnormal proteins and possibly release large amounts of pesticides that may have been created in your gut. Importantly, it'll also allow you to remove stores of now genetically mutant bacteria, while replacing them with untainted bacteria to try and correct the problem.

For most, avoiding GMOs will require some new shopping and dining habits because about 90 percent of the packaged foods in a traditional U.S. grocery store contain GMOs. You'd also be hard pressed to find a restaurant that's not serving up GM corn chips that are likely mutating your healthy bacteria to produce concentrated pesticides. And it's hard to imagine that's what you thought you were ordering for lunch.

More:
Consumer's Guide to Probiotics, S.K. Dash, Ph.D.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffr...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index....
http://www.naturalnews.com/028635_G...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora

Why and How to Avoid GMO Foods

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 by: Paul Fassa, citizen journalist

Author's Note The number 8 at the beginning of a PLU is not being used to identify GMOs. This from a recent article by Jeffrey Smith posted late Feb 2010 in Huffington Post. The 8 was proposed but never followed up on. Until Smith's recent post, all other sources used by the author were claiming the 8 tag for GMOs was in effect.

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) states, "Genetically Modified foods have not been properly tested and pose a serious health risk. There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation." The AAEM also called for a moratorium on GMO's in food and for physicians to advise their patients to avoid GM foods. Since the massive invasion of GMO's into the food supply from 1996, chronic diseases and food allergies have doubled.

Now that President Obama has appointed Michael Taylor as Food Czar to his cabinet, the struggle is destined to become more difficult unless more consumers knowingly boycott GMO products. Michael Taylor was a vice president and chief lobbyist for Monsanto prior to his cabinet selection. Did you know that the stated aim of Monsanto is to own the patents for all the food crop seeds in the world? And now they're in the White House!

Why Avoid GMO Foods?

From anti-GMO activist and best selling author Jeffrey Smith's recent News With Views Internet article, "Doctors Warn: Avoid Genetically Modified Foods," "World renowned biologist Pushpa M. Bhargava goes one step further. After reviewing more than 600 scientific journals, he concludes that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are a major contributor to the sharply deteriorating health of Americans".

"Among the population, biologist David Schubert of the Salk Institute warns that 'children are the most likely to be adversely effected by toxins and other dietary problems' related to GM foods. He says without adequate studies, the children become 'the experimental animals.'"

In addition to you and your family's personal health risks, the whole human race is endangered as Monsanto pursues it's stated goal of owning the world's food supply. Genetic engineering alters genetic codes of the DNA in organism by splicing in other genes from other forms of life, including other plant forms, insects, bacteria and even viruses. This creates mutant organisms and dangerously mutating genes, solely for sociopathic commercial demands on different forms of produce.

These commercial demands never consider the negative effects on human and animal health, nor the future of the food chain. Pollen pollution from GMO crop fields has already infected formerly pristine crops on small farms and indigenous farming groups. This pollution can cause permanent genetic mutations. And when Monsanto officials determine where these pollen drift pollutions occur, they sue the farmers of the polluted crops for patent violations! So farmers who avoid GMO planting are at risk.

As a matter of fact, there are several documents recovered from lawsuits and from the Freedom of Information Act that show FDA scientists had even urged long term studies before releasing GMO products. This was back in the early 1990's when the genome biotechnology industry was coming out of the closet. So how were they over ruled?

Along came Michael Taylor from Monsanto, you know, the current Food Czar guy, taking a key position in the FDA to create policy regarding GMO foods. The policy he instated essentially decrees that it's all food; there is no difference from any other food, and if the biotech company that created the GM foods say they're safe that's good enough! That FDA policy for GM food remains the same to this day.

Recovered documents from the biotech companies and independent testing prove that the GMO firms not only do very little testing, but they also often test improperly, cheat on the testing, and lie about the results! This junk science and PR lying is what gets to the mainstream media and press, via the FDA or even from biotechnology press releases. Meanwhile, research that prove GMO dangers is suppressed.

How To Avoid GMO Foods

Avoid the big four, which has become five now: The highly genetically engineered crops are soy, corn, canola and cottonseed. Add sugar beets, which are now becoming GMO.

Most blended oils in North America contain canola and cottonseed oils. Use extra virgin olive oil instead. Avoid all soy products and oils as well. The healthy alternative is usually not so healthy after all, since most soy is GMO unless it is specifically labeled non-GMO.

Most corn is GMO. Items like corn flakes and corn chips are from GM corn. Corn based products, corn starch, corn oil, corn syrup, and high fructose corn syrup appear on the ingredients labels of many processed foods. Corn in various forms is prevalent in the vast fast food supply that dominates our culture.

GMO corn is fed to cattle and other livestock. If you eat beef, pork or fowl, you are probably a second hand consumer of GM corn. So dig a little deeper and buy grass or alfalfa fed or free range livestock meats only.

Sugar beets are added to the big four to make it five. Now more and more sugar beets are GMO. Sugar from sugar beets is less expensive than cane sugar for refined sugar; therefore, it is popular with food processing groups. So if you haven't stopped using sugar or products with refined sugar, you might want to reconsider now.

A handy guide for consumers are PLU codes that are labeled or stamped onto fruits and vegetables. PLU stands for Price Look Up. The PLU codes are for input into electronic cash registers to determine prices for bulk items, such as apples and cabbage. The codes identify exactly what the item is with its current pricing, while giving the consumer a handy tag for identifying GMO produce.

Each PLU code has five digits. If the first digit is a 9, the item is organic. If it is an 8, it is GMO! Conventionally grown produce has a 0 for the first digit, but usually the 0 is dropped. So most conventionally grown produce will actually have only 4 digits on the PLU tag if you don't see a 0 at the beginning. The 8 gives you the worst of two worlds, GMO and heavy chemical spraying!

Those are your three main categories. PLU codes do not usually appear on packaged produce or items such as string beans that are too small to label or stamp.

Obviously, buying organic and from local farmers is ideal. Forget convenience. Buy bulk and eschew packaged foods. So what if you have to soak legumes the night before cooking them. If you buy locally, through a local health food store or at a farmers' market, you can determine by direct communication how the crops were raised.

Need more details? You can download a free, very detailed Non GMO Shopping Guide (pdf) created by The Center for Food Safety here: http://www.responsibletechnology.or...

The Genesis of GMO Madness

[The following passage is excerpted from "Commentary on Dangers of Genetically Modified Foods", By Edem Srem Sept. 2, 2009 GBC News]

The history of controlling the food industry in the world by the then American Government in 1973 under President Nixon started by introducing the "Food for Peace" programme which was led by Henry Kissinger, Nixon's Secretary of State and National Security Adviser.*

According to the New African Magazine, Kissinger controlled absolutely the US foreign policy and summarized his activities as "Control oil and you control nations, control food and you control the people". His idea of capturing the worldwide food industry started with the introduction of what was termed as the gene revolution. [End of article excerpt]

That gene revolution evolved to the biotechnology industry in food. Under Bush senior, biotechnology was given the deregulation green light possibly more than any other industry. Connect all these dots to Michael Taylor's revolving door passages from corporate (Monsanto) to government (FDA) and back again to Monsanto then tapped as Food Czar.

The picture becomes apparent: the thrust to completely control food world wide is being pursued by an alliance of USA government policy and multi-national agribusiness and food processing corporation ambition. Don't expect government to come to the rescue!

Grass Roots Activism Too Shut Down GMO Foods

The agenda for controlling the world food supply through patented GMO seeds has hit a few glitches, thanks to the word getting out and food consumer boycotts. Monsanto's target for accomplishing this was up years ago! But of course, they haven't given up.

Monsanto is a multi-national company that created PCB's, Agent Orange, Aspartame, rBGH, Terminator Seeds and Round Up weed killer, for which GMO crops were created to withstand its heavy spraying, creating more toxic chemical residue to the GM crops than even conventionally grown crops. Would they care about anything but their food fascism control agenda? With Food Czar Monsanto Mike in the White House, they have their point man in position.

What Jeffrey M. Smith, Director of the Institute for Responsible Technology and author of Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette proposes is that enough people get educated and boycott GMO products to diminish market demand. This can create a tipping point, where the balance of supply and demand shifts enough for the market place venues to drop GMO products.

He claims this has been achieved in the USA with rBGH or bovine growth hormones. And thanks to an honest scientist, Arpad Pusztai, who lost his lab funding for exposing GMO dangers in Scotland, the EU is GMO free.

The same link provided above for the GMO Shopping Guide leads to the Institute for Responsible Technology where Jeffrey Smith's powerful, live 84 minute power point presentation on the whole GMO situation is available free.

Sources:

Institute for Responsible Technology (for Non GMO Food Guide and J. Smith free video presentation)
http://www.responsibletechnology.or...

Doctors Warn: Avoid Genetically Modified Foods by Jeffrey M. Smith
http://www.newswithviews.com/Smith/...

Organic Vegetable PLU Codes
http://www.cffresh.com/trade_info/p...

GMO Free Ebook by Greg Ciola (scroll down list to find Greg's book)
http://www.thenhf.com/suggestedbook...

Commentary on Dangers of Genetically Modified Foods
http://gbcghana.com/news/27886detai...

Dirty Secrets of the Food Processing Industry By Sally Fallon

Let me tell you about two studies which were not published. The first was described by Paul Stitt who wrote about an experiment conducted by a cereal company in which four sets of rats were given special diets. One group received plain whole wheat, water and synthetic vitamins and minerals. A second group received puffed wheat (an extruded cereal), water and the same nutrient solution. A third set was given only water. A fourth set was given nothing but water and chemical nutrients. The rats that received the whole wheat lived over a year on this diet. The rats that got nothing but water and vitamins lived about two months. The animals on water alone lived about a month. But the company's own laboratory study showed that the rats given the vitamins, water and all the puffed wheat they wanted died within two weeks---they died before the rats that got no food at all. It wasn't a matter of the rats dying of malnutrition. Autopsy revealed dysfunction of the pancreas, liver and kidneys and degeneration of the nerves of the spine, all signs of insulin shock.

Results like these suggested that there was something actually very toxic in the puffed wheat itself! Proteins are very similar to certain toxins in molecular structure, and the pressure of the puffing process may produce chemical changes, which turn a nutritious grain into a poisonous substance.

Another unpublished experiment was carried out in the 1960s. Researchers at University of Michigan were given 18 laboratory rats. They were divided into three groups: one group received corn flakes and water; a second group was given the cardboard box that the corn flakes came in and water; the control group received rat chow and water. The rats in the control group remained in good health throughout the experiment. The rats eating the box became lethargic and eventually died of malnutrition. But the rats receiving the corn flakes and water died before the rats that were eating the box! (The last corn flake rat died the day the first box rat died.) But before death, the corn flake rats developed schizophrenic behavior, threw fits, bit each other and finally went into convulsions. The startling conclusion of this study is that there was more nourishment in the box than there was in the corn flakes.

This experiment was actually designed as a joke, but the results were far from funny. The results were never published and similar studies have not been conducted.

Most of America eats this kind of cereal. In fact, the USDA is gloating over the fact that children today get the vast majority of their important nutrients from the nutrients added to these boxed cereals.

Cereals sold in the health food stores are made by the same method. It may come as a shock to you, but these whole grain extruded cereals are probably more dangerous than those sold in the supermarket, because they are higher in protein and it is the proteins in these cereals that are so denatured by this type of processing.

There are no published studies on the effects of these extruded grains on animals or humans, but I did find one study in a literature search that described the microscopic effects of extrusion on the proteins. "Zeins," which comprise the majority of proteins in corn, are located in spherical organelles called protein bodies. During extrusion, these protein bodies are completely disrupted and deformed. The extrusion process breaks down the organelles, disperses the proteins and the proteins become toxic. When they are disrupted in this way, you have absolute chaos in your food, and it can result in a disruption of the nervous system.