Next time you’re in the grocery store buying some food for yourself or your family, you better strap a bazooka to your back or tie that machete sitting in your garage onto your leg. As it turns out, the FDA doesn’t have our back’s ( Just for the record they were started as a consumer protection agency to help keep consumers safe). For many years the FDA has bestowed its “GRAS” status (which stands for General Recognized As Safe) to thousands upon thousands of supermarket products. The GRAS status was considered a benchmark goal by the FDA to ensure that consumers can confidently buy products at the grocery store or supermarket and trust that the ingredients contained within them would overall be safe. 

This is where it gets interesting!  There seems to be a growing list of products each year that contain ingredients proven to have adverse health effects on the people who consume them. Yet the FDA continues to support the “GRAS” status of a particular food, even though it has been repeatedly shown to cause a plethora of health problems. Hmm, I smell money here…. A perfect example of this is took place in 1992 when the Food and Drug Administration claimed that Genetically Modified Foods ( foods that have had foreign genes forced into their DNA) were no different from conventionally grown foods. It is for this reason that GM foods were given “GRAS” status in the first place. Ironically, the FDA official in charge of creating this policy was Michael Taylor, the former attorney and later vice president of Monsanto, which is one of the worlds largest biotech companies in the US.  Hmmm, I smell money….

But the truth about GM foods paints a very different picture. For years, FDA scientists themselves have repeatedly warned that GM foods can cause or intensify allergies, toxins, new diseases and nutritional deficiencies. In fact, the scientists hired to test GM foods have made it very clear that further testing needs to be done to validate the safety of such foods. However, their requests have largely been ignored.  Big time agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) have gone on official record stating that GM foods may cause serious health implications including infertility, immune problems, insulin disruption, accelerated aging, gastrointestinal complications, and severe problems to most of the major organs.

Your probably thinking right about now that you will simply avoid GM foods. Well, let me fill you in on a little secret. Avoiding GM food crops is easier said than done!  That would be comparable to saying you’re going to avoid “air” for a day….

The five major varieties of GM foods include SOY, CORN, CANOLA, COTTON, and SUGAR BEETS. Shockingly,  most conventionally grown foods contain one or more GM ingredients. If a packaged supermarket food contains anything from the above list, or byproducts made from them, without it explicitly saying it’s Organic, than there is a strong chance that one or more of its ingredients is a GM byproduct.

The only way to AVOID GM foods is to buy products labeled 100 % ORGANIC……….

Invisible GM Ingredients lurking in most processed supermarket foods are as follows:

1. Aspartame
2. Baking Powder
3. Canola Oil
4. Caramel Color
5. Cellulose
6. Citric Acid
7. Cobalamin
8. Colorose
9. Condensed Milk
10. Confectioners
11. Sugar
12. Corn Flour
13. Corn Masa
14. Corn Oil
15. Corn Sugar
16. Corn Syrup
17. Cornstarch
18. Cottonseed Oil
19. Cyclodextrin
20. Cystein
21. Dextrin
22. Dextrose
23. Diacetyl
24. Diglyceride
25.  Erythritol
26. Equal
27. Food Starch
28. Fructose
29. Glucose
30. Glutamate
31. Glutamic Acid
32. Gluten
33. Glycerides
34. Glycerin
35. Glycerol
36. Glycine
37. Hemicellulose
38. High Fructose Corn Syrup
39. Hydrogenated Starch
40. Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein
41. Inositol
42. Inverse Syrup
43. Invert Sugar
44. Inversol
45. Isoflavones
46. Lactic Acid
47. Lecithin
48. Leucine
49. Lysine
50. Malitol
51. Malt
52. Malt Syrup
53. Malt Extract
54. Malodextrin
55. Maltose
56. Manitol 
57. Methylceullulose
58. Milk Powder
59. Milo Starch
60. Modified Food Starch
61. Modified Starch
62. MSG
63. Nutrasweet
64. Oleic Acid
65. Phenylalanine
66. Phytic Acid
67. Protein Isolate
68. Shoyu
69. Sorbitol
70. Soy flour
71. Soy Isolates
72. Soy Lecithin
73. Soy Milk
74. Soy Oil
75. Soy Protein
76. Soy Protein Isolate
77. Soy Sauce
78. Starch
79. Stearic Acid
80. Sugar
81. Tamari
82. Tempeh
83. Teriyaki Marinade
84. Tectured Vegetable Protein
85. Threonine
86. Tocopherols
87. Tofu
88. Trehalose
89. Vegetable Fat
90. Vegetable Oil
91. Vitamin B12
92. Vitamin E
93. Whey
94. Whey Powder
95. Xanthum Gum

Just to name a few. This list is adapted from The Institute for Responsible Technology. Reach them at www.responsibletechnology.org or 641.209.1765

Good Luck Avoiding GM foods. They are pretty much dominating the American food supply.

Your Safest Bet: BUY ORGANIC!