New Scientific Studies Found That GM Corn Can Cause ORGAN FAILURE

I just read an article about GM Corn. It seems to be from a Canadian perspective (refers to Canadian GM food laws, etc), but the science behind it surely applies to all of us. At least, all of us that have organs. . . Of course, the experiments were done on rats, not humans. The only experiments being done on humans are those we allow to be done on us when we -- knowingly or unknowingly -- choose to purchase GM foods.

I will be the first to admit that I've been getting lazy lately. I've been much more focused on making sure the foods I buy are preservative free and don't have any artificial colors or flavors or HFCS in them than I have been on making sure they don't have any of the GM ingredients in them, but this article is really making me rethink that.

Is it easy to buy all GM free foods? NO. Is it quick and painless? NO. But its probably easier and quicker and more painless than having your liver fail.

It boggles my mind that I live in a country that requires companies to label whether a food is made in a factory that also produces peanuts or wheat or egg products (I'm assuming to decrease the chances of people having allergic reactions and suing said companies), but does not require companies to label whether or not their ingredients are GM. What will it take for the FDA to realise that we have a right to know how the ingredients that go into our food were produced? I sincerely hope that GM foods are safe since I know I've been unknowingly eating them for years, but I think we have a right to make informed decisions and its just frustrating to me that our government doesn't seem to agree with me on this matter. I just wish I had the time, energy and ability to do something about it.

I talked to my dad about GMFs and GMOs on the way back from VA when I went to my sister's graduation. It was very late at night and a very interesting conversation. One of those where both people are tired and trying to argue to stay awake LOL. He tried to convince me that it was OK to eat GMOs and GMFs. After all, if I had cancer, wouldn't I get chemo? Well, first of all, I would have to weigh my chances of beating the cancer w/o chemo vs. the chances of me surviving the chemo. And second of all, the chemo would be a toxin thats intended to save your life and is only introduced into the body of very ill people who might otherwise die and have little or no alternative options whereas BT toxins and the pesticides used on GMFs and GMOs are not intended to save lives only to make the foods easier to grow and there are alternative (organic) options that might be more expensive, but are probably not as expensive as dealing with GMO and GMF organ failure complications. Not that I'm saying GMFs and GMOs will 100% for sure cause organ failure. Just that I don't want to be part of the general public that is involved --knowingly or unknowingly-- in the massive human testing experiment to determine what GMOs and GMFs will do to your body.

A MSG and GMO free alternative to cream of chicken soup

After seeing a thread on Diaperswappers regarding making your own cream-of- soups to replace the MSG and GMO loaded canned varieties you can find at the stores (or the much more expensive organic alternatives).

Ingredients:
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour (I use King Arthur brand because they do not use GMOs and are publically committed to a goal of not using GMO ingredients in the future as well.)
1 cup milk (or chicken broth if making cream of chicken)
1 tsp salt

optional: add 2-4 tbsp minced/pureed chicken for cream of chicken, 2-4 tbsp minced/pureed onion for cream of onion, 2-4 tbsp minced/pureed celery for cream of celery or 2-4 tbsp mushroom for cream of mushroom. You can also add 2-4 tbsp of other veggies/flavorings to make a different cream-of soup.

Directions:
melt butter over med heat
sautee veggies or chicken
wisk in flour until smoothe (no dry flour or lumps)
wisk in broth/milk
stir until comes to a simmer and thickens
turn heat down and simmer 1 minute to ensure that the flour is cooked and flavors are able to blend together nicely.


Since cream of celery soup has been one of my hold-outs from the GMO, preservative free, and artificial flavorings/colorants free lifestyle I desire, this recipe will definately be used a lot here. Thank you to The Pioneer Woman for posting her recipe online. My kids and husband appreciate it as well (even if they won't actually know the difference LOL).

Adventures in Shopping -- avoiding GMOs and GMFs

Since we've already discussed the dangers of GMOs and GMFs, I would like to pass on some tips on how to avoid them.

Since the United States does not require GMOs and GMFs to be labeled, labeling for non GMO foods is strictly voluntary at the moment; however, 100% organic foods are not permitted to be GM or have any GM byproducts in them. The standards specifically prevent the use of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, antibiotics, growth hormones, sewage sludge, artificial fertilizers, GMOs and irradiation in any products marked "100% organic".

There is a great shopping guide here including a printable shopping guide in a PDF file that is only 2 pages long that is great for taking with you to the grocery store. I printed it out and took it with me last week.

Here are a couple other general tips:

1. If it is not marked as GMO free or organic, avoid corn, canola, cottonseed, and soy products as these are likely to be GM. This means avoiding most vegetable oils. Pure olive, coconut, sesame, sunflower, safflower, almond, grapeseed, and peanut oils are GM free, but make sure its pure, not a combination of a gmo free oil with "vegetable oil" or any of the GM oils.

2. Avoid sugar if it is not listed as 100% cane sugar, evaporated cane joice or organic sugar. Sugar beets genetically modified to produce the BT toxin are now being used to produced sugar. Aspertame, aka Nutrasweet and Equal, is also derived from GM microorganisms. And not only is high fructose corn syrup made from GM corn, studies show that it can also contain mercury. Fructose, dextrose and glucose are made from corn and should also be avoided. I mostly stick with honey these days. Though I do realise that pollen from GM crops can be used to produce honey, I prefer raw wildflower honey to sugar. There are also several new products with stevia on the market. I can't recommend these, myself, as I haven't done enough research on them yet to decide to try it and honestly I'm a little intimidated by a sweetener that's up to 300 times as sweet as sugar, but one of these days I'll try it and let you guys know what I think.

3. Avoid salt with iodine. Cornstarch is used to bind the iodine to the salt crystals, so unless you are able to by organic iodized salt, find another source for iodine in your diet, such as seafood, kelp, dairy, and plants grown in iodine-rich soil.

4. Check out the labels of the foods you buy and make sure there aren't any of these invisible ingredients listed in your foods.

5. Know what is in your foods and where your foods come from. If you can grow your own fruits and veggies, grow them from heirloom seeds. If you can't, try buying from local farmers whenever possible and make sure they are not grown from GM seeds. Know what's in your foods. Avoid prepackage and premade foods. Make your own foods wherever possible and get the best ingredients you can. Its often much cheaper to make your own food than to buy premade food and when you make your own food, you know what is in it and what is not.

Being on a budget, I realise that organic foods are not always affordable and even though the organic market is expanding and offering more organic options, there isn't always an organic alternative. This is in no way meant to push organic foods. It is intended to be a tool you can use to make informed decisions about what products to buy, eat, and feed your family. Happy shopping, everyone!

The Truth About Genetically Modified Organisms

This is what really prompted me to start this blog. I am a member of Diaper Swappers, an online cloth diapering community with tons of forums. When I'm bored, I like to browse it and check the most recent post. One day, I saw a thread about someone who made over $1300 in one month with her blog. In this thread, there was a mention of GMOs. I asked what they were and read the blog that brought up the topic of GMOs and what I learned just made me want to research it more. Since then, I have researched it at least once a day and I keep wanting to learn more. Then I got to thinking, its a shame more people don't know about GMOs. It would be a shame if I did all this research and I was the only one who learned about them. So I started this blog.

A big part of my journey to supermomdom is going to be eliminating GMOs from my kitchen. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I mean, I'm sure you'd like to know what a GMO is before you get tips on how to avoid them.

GMOs are organisms that have been genetically modified by inserting or deleting genes to change the original organism. For the purpose of this post, when I talk about GMOs, I am referring to genetically modified plants, specifically edible plants that are used to make food, or GMFs (genetically modified foods), as there are other genetically modified organisms out there that are not plants. Some plants are modified by inserting a gene present in other species of the same type of plant such as when a tomato is modified by adding a different type of tomato gene so that it can ripen early but won't bruise easily. Other plants are modified by inserting genes not naturally present in other species of the same plant, such as plants that are "roundup ready", which are genetically modified so that they are unaffected by pesticides. Which makes growing them easier as you can just douse the entire field with roundup and it will only kill the weeds, not the plants. Another example would be BT corn which modified the corn so that the plant itself produces a toxin that kills insects. There are also plants that are modified with fish genes to produce omega3s and plants that are modified with genes from other plants such as rice plants that are modified with daffodil genes.

Now, I'm sure many of you are thinking "wow, that's weird and all, but scientists playing with plants in a lab can't possibly affect me, so what's the big deal?" Well, to me the big deal is that the US does not require labeling for GM foods. And GM foods have been in the US since 1990. We have been eating them for 20 years and I don't know about you, but I had no idea when my mom said high fructose corn syrup was bad that that was due to the fact that the corn was genetically modified. And neither did she.

In the US, by 2006 89% of the planted area of soybeans, 83% of cotton, and 61% corn were genetically modified. Today, the top 4 genetically modified plants are soybeans, corn, rapeseed/canola, and cotton/cottonseed. Other genetically modified plants include sugar beets, rice, zucchini, squash, and potatoes. These are used to create many ingredients in prepackaged foods, oils, canned foods and drinks, most notably being high fructose corn syrup. You still may think this isn't a big deal and it is certainly your right to decide what is a big deal to you, but it is a big deal to me. I do not want to feed my children plants or plant products engineered to produce toxins or engineered to be able to withstand being doused with pesticides and I don't want to eat it myself. I don't know if its unhealthy for humans, but there have been studies that indicate that GM foods cause intestinal issues and cancer, among other issues, in animals. And I can't imagine anything that has been doused in pesticides or engineered to produce toxins that are lethal to bug larvae to be healthy for humans. Some GM foods have antibiotic resistent "markers". To verify that the GM was successful, all a scientist would have to do is douse the organism with antibiotics and if it survives, the GM was successful. But will that make those antibiotics less effective to someone that consumes GM foods with antibiotic resistant markers? Unfortunately, big name companies who find it cheaper and easier to use GMOs and the FDA don't think its important to conduct more in depth testing because it would be expensive and I think they are worried about the results. So, in effect, everyone who buys GMFs is participating in a huge, uncontrolled test.

For me, its all about risk assessment. I don't see the benefits of GM outweighing the risks. And frankly, the idea of fish genes or bacteria genes in my fruits and veggies is just weird and gross to me. And definately not worth the risk.

I expect the topic of genetic modification and how to avoid genetically modified foods to be a frequent topic in this blog. I will address the best ways to avoid GMFs in my next post about GMOs.