Eat Organic food?  Are you kidding me?  Isn’t that for rich people or maybe for hippies?  I am neither of those two categories of people.  I’m just a regular girl, with a regular job, and I have regular kids.  I am a mother who thinks it is kind of OK to go with the 10 second rule, if it is a really good something you dropped on the floor.  I’m pretty sure I still think that after all of my food research because a spec of dirt is nothing compared to what I have found out about how food is produced these days.

Let me take a step back and put a big caveat on this discussion.  I will be discussing how I am a big fan of organic foods.  That is true, however……….it is more important that you and your family choose to eat fruits and vegetables over highly processed food.  Start with this basic principle.  Eat 2 fruits or vegetables at every meal.  Once that is comfortable, do your research and decide if organic is the right way to go for your family.

In my search to heal my body and feed my family better food, I found a cause that I am passionate about………GMO labeling.  I believe that we have the right to choose what we put in our bodies and the only way we can do that is to have a requirement that GMOs be labeled.

GMO is short for Genetically Modified Organisms.  This is quite a controversial subject in the food world.  Big food companies threw millions of dollars at advertising so that when the California voters went to the polls to vote on labeling GMOs, they were completely confused.  Big food companies like Kellogg’s, Coke and Pepsi made sure we don’t have the right to know what we are eating.  So why is it such a big deal?  Farmers cross different foods to make new foods all of the time.  How are GMOs any different?  According to GMO Inside,

“GMOs, or “genetically modified organisms,” are plants or animals created through the gene splicing techniques of biotechnology (also called genetic engineering, or GE). This experimental technology merges DNA from different species, creating unstable combinations of plant, animal, bacterial and viral genes that cannot occur in nature or in traditional crossbreeding.”

There is actually a variety of corn that has been genetically modified so that when insects eat the corn, their little bellies explode.  I don’t know if the insects matter to you, but think what that corn could be doing to our bodies.  Now think about how much corn, corn syrup, and high fructose corn syrup you see listed on food labels.  Genetically modified corn scares the heck out of me!  Many believe that genetically modified foods are the reason we see so many more allergies and higher rates of infertility than in the past.

 

The most common genetically modified crops include alfalfa, canola, corn, cotton, papaya, soy, sugar beets, yellow summer squash and zucchini. These ingredients will be listed on your food labels simply as corn, etc even if it is genetically modified. This is one of the reasons I buy organic foods.  I can be assured that the ingredients have not been genetically modified.

I could go on and on about GMOs and GMO labeling.  I will continue to visit this subject from time to time on this blog.  I follow a lot of the GMO players on Twitter and am anxious to see the day that GMOs must be labeled so that consumers can make an informed decision about the products they purchase.  Information is power and I see technology helping to get the information out.

I would love to know if GMOs are something you are familiar with?  Do you feel that these foods are safe to feed to your family?  Do you feel that GMOs should be labeled?  Are you concerned that labeling could affect the cost of your food?  Leave me a comment and let me know how you feel.

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