A Simple Guide to the Only Healthy Food in the Grocery Store

Never has it been so hard to buy healthy food. Almost everything in the grocery store is bad for you. Advertising makes us believe that if a food item is high in "omega-3" or has "no trans-fat" it is healthy. After reading Michael Pollen's simple rules for eating in his book In Defense of Food, I realized these are just catch phrases to disguise food that is actually bad for you as food that is healthy.

One of Michael Pollen's rules is not to buy any food with an ingredient your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize in it. I checked the container of milk in my fridge. "asorbic acid" was listed as an ingredient. Asorbic acid is added Vitamin C, I found out. Vitamin C is good for you, right? Wrong. Asorbic acid is just one of a dizzying amount of products that are genetically modified.

Unless foods are marked organic or non-GM, they are likely genetically modified. Genetically modified foods are food mutants made through genetic engineering. I used to think , "so what if a food substance is scientifically created by combining its genes with those of insects or viruses?". Then I read much convincing research that genetically modified foods are linked to allergic reactions, organ damage and death in lab tests. Unless the food item is labeled organic or non-GM, I could seriously be endangering my family's health.

The foods listed below aren't genetically modified but may contain ingredients that are. Also, the products made from these ingredients (such as breads) often contain genetically modified ingredients as well. A grocery list of non-GM brands of processed foods, including a list of ingredients that have hidden genetically modified ingredients can be found here.

Of special interest to me as a new mother is that many of the foods I gave my child, including his infant formula and breakfast cereals are made from genetically modified ingredients.

Organic dairy products like milk and cheese are rbGH-free and do not use GM grains as feed. Products with a label that indicates "cows free of rbGH or rbST" just means the cows weren't injected and may still come from cows fed genetically modified feed.

Baking ingredients such as wheat flour, rice, and oats.

100-percent wheat pasta, couscous, rice, quinoa, oats, barley, sorghum, and dried beans (except soybeans).

Popcorn

Fruits & Vegetables with 9 as the first digit on the PLU number. (8 indicates genetically modified and sprayed with pesticides).

Wild Fish

100% Grass Fed Meats

100% Juice (except if it contains papaya as 50% of papayas from Hawaii are genetically modified)

100% cane sugar, evaporated cane juice or organic sugar

100% extra virgin olive oil

http://www.naturalnews.com/024865_GMO_GMOs_food.html

Top Five Ways to Avoid GMOs in Your Food

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

Campaign for Healthier Eating in America

http://www.responsibletechnology.org/GMFree/Home/index.cfm

[http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com/documentFiles/209.pdf

Why and How to Avoid GMO Foods

http://www.naturalnews.com/027226_food_GMO_foods.html

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