Avoiding GMOs this Holiday Season

Of all the traditions celebrated during the holiday season, the tastes and smells enjoyed at this time of year create true memories. Often healthy foods take a back seat to make way for many traditional flavors, but there are some simple things you can do to make your family favorites a bit healthier. You can give your family the best gift of the season by learning how to avoid foods made with unhealthy chemicals and transgenic or genetically modified organisms (GMOs) with this new non-GMO shopping guide created by the Institute for Responsible Technology. There are now thousands of food products on grocery store shelves that contain GMO ingredients. A few Thanksgiving favorites include:

• GMO Turkey
  • GM animal feed
• GMO Cranberry Dishes
  • High fructose corn syrup
  • Soy lecithin
• GMO Pies
  • Vegetable oil (soy, corn, cotton or canola)
  • Aspartame
• GMO Green Bean Casserole
  • Soy protein concentrate in cream soups

Genetic engineering or genetic modification of food involves the laboratory process of artificially inserting genes into the DNA of food crops or animals. Unlike traditional hybrids where different types, of say corn, are combined to create a better crop, GMOs can be engineered with genes from bacteria, viruses, insects, animals or even humans. In nature, corn would never cross-pollinate or "mate" with a virus or insect. Because there has been little safety testing of the long term health effects of GMO consumption, it is best to avoid all of the them. For a few good books on the lack of risk assessment of GMOs, check out Denise Caruso's Intervention or Jeffrey M. Smith's Seeds of Deception in our Caren Must Read's section.

Three simple tips for buying Non-GMO food staples are:
Oils - Replace oils from the four major GM oil crops, corn, cotton, canola and soy, with other readily available oils such as olive, safflower, grape seed or peanut.
Dairy - Avoid buying products from cows fed with GM corn and soybeans or injected with the (rBST or rBGH) bovine growth hormone.
Sweeteners - Avoid corn sweeteners made from GM corn like high fructose corn syrup and beet sugar that will be in hundreds of your favorite products starting with the 2008 crop. Buy cane sugar products instead. A petition against GM sugar can be found on the Institute for Responsible Technology website.

Organic products are another way to avoid GMOs.The Institute for Responsible Technology's Campaign for Healthier Eating in America works with citizens, organizations, businesses, and the media, to achieve the tipping point of consumer rejection of genetically modified foods. The Institute educates people about the documented health risks of GMOs and provides them with healthier non-GMO product choices and informs policy makers and the public around the world about the impacts of GMOs on health, environment, the economy, and agriculture, and the problems associated with current research, regulation, corporate practices, and reporting. For more information, check out their website at www.responsibletechnology.org.