How to Avoid GM (Genetically Modified) Foods

Genetically modified (GM, or GMO) foods have made their way to becoming a majority in markets all across the world.

Why should anyone be concerned?

Well, for me, until I suddenly "popped up" with a food allergy along with several people I know and then looking at what's happening to people all across the world today with Autism, rare diseases, super-bugs, and all sorts of unexplained goings on, it raised a question for me.

What's going on? Is it just a coincidence that the decline in our health along with Autism and other weird food allergies have come about the same time GM foods have become mass produced?

I stumbled upon several articles about these "Genetically Modified" foods and what can happen as a results from eating them over time....There were photos of lab animals exposed to GM foods. Cows, pigs and plants that have mutated or become sick and died prematurely after digesting GM crops, rare illnesses animals have been passing to humans as a result of Genetically Modified DNA, many other gross and disturbing things I would rather not mention go on and on due to this madness of trying to "fix" one thing, yet not realizing how it's truly breaking other important factors of life.

Playing with mother nature is not good. It's as simple as that.

So how does one know what is a GM food or not? And how can we stay away from it?

1) Understand what products and derivatives are most likely to be Genetically Modified:

Soybeans - Gene taken from bacteria (Agrobacterium sp. strain CP4) and inserted into soybeans to make them more resistant to herbicides.
Corn - There are two main varieties of GE corn.
[1] has a Gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis inserted to produce the Bt toxin, which poisons Lepidoteran (moths and butterflies) pests.
[2] There are also several events which are resistant to various herbicide. Present in high fructose corn syrup and glucose/fructose which is prevalent in a wide variety of foods in America.
Rapeseed/Canola - Gene added/transferred to make crop more resistant to herbicide.
Sugar beets - Gene added/transferred to make crop more resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.
Cotton - engineered to produce Bt toxin. The seeds are pressed into cottonseed oil, which is a common ingredient in vegetable oil and margarine.
Dairy - Cows injected with GE hormone rBGH/rBST; possibly fed GM grains and hay.
Sugar. In 2012 the FDA approved GMO Beet Sugars to be allowed to be sold on the market under the name.... "SUGAR" So now, when we go to buy "All Natural" Breyer's Ice Cream, we can't even know for sure that we are actually eating regular natural cane sugar. If you see "CANE SUGAR" there's a good chance it's not GMO. This is one of the biggest frustrations with labeling, as sugar is in so many things, and we might be avoiding food that POSSIBLY has GMO sugar, but really does not.
Papayas.
Zucchini.
There's possible more out there, but this is the main list effected.

2) Stay away from boxed/ packaged / canned foods if you can

I know it's hard, and if you have to, then do it, but read the label and see if it says Non-GMO or GMO Free or Certified Organic.

3) Find the list of companies that are GMO Free. This website has a pretty good list of brands/companies verified being Non-GMO.



4) Get involved with Facebook Non-GMO information. They post the latest information about Non-GMO foods and which companies are loaded with them.

Sometimes closing our eyes and just doing what we used to do seems like the easiest choice, but ask yourself, is it worth it for yourself or your family down the road? Who knows what problems can come of this...it's just a little preparation that can make the big difference and change the way the world DECIDES to give us what it does. We are in charge of our health. Not the media. Not commercials. Not glamorous food companies. Not your neighbor or your friend. You.

What is Soybean Oil exactly?

Soybeans. What an amazing food created by nature. So many different things have been made available to us from this adaptable bean. 



I had not thought twice about soy since I've been using it as a source of protein and substitutes for foods like meat and cheese. And, the news hardly ever says anything bad about it. 

But, the other day I bought a brand of margarine that contained soybean oil. It made me wonder if this bean actually can have a trace of oil in it or not? So I researched and found this information quite interesting. The process of making soybean oil is as follows (based on this website: (http://www.soya.be/soybean-oil-production.php):

1) Cleaning of soybeans
The soybeans are first cleaned, dried and dehulled prior to oil extraction. The soybean hulls needs to be removed because they absorb oil and give a lower yield. This de-hulling is done by cracking the soybeans and a mechanical separation of the hulls and cracked soybeans. Magnets are used to separate any iron from the soybeans.  
The soybeans are also heated to about 75°C to coagulate the soy proteins to make the oil extraction easier.

2) Extraction of soybean oil
The soybeans are cut in flakes which are put in a percolation extractors and immerged with a solvent, normally hexane (Hexanes are significant constituents of gasoline. They are all colorless liquids at room temperature, with boiling points between 50 and 70 °C, with gasoline-like odor. They are widely used as cheap, relatively safe, largely nonreactive, and easily evaporated non-polar solvents). Counter flow is used as extraction system because it gives the highest yield. After removing the hexane, the extracted flakes only contain about 1% of soybean oil and is used as livestock meal or to produce food products such as soy protein. The hexane is separated from the soybean oil in evaporators. The evaporated hexane is recovered and returned to the extraction process. The hexane free crude soybean oil is then further purified.


3) Purification of soybean oil
The crude soybean oil still contains many oil-insoluble and oil-soluble impurities that needs to be removed. The oil-insoluble material are removed with filtration and the soluble materials is removed with different processes including degumming (removing of phosphatides), alkali refining (washing with alkaline solution to remove free fatty acids, colorants, insoluble matter and gums) and bleaching (with activated earth or activated carbon to remove color and other impurities.

4) Hydrogenation of soybean oil (optional)
This process will increase the stability of the soybean oil and will make it less liquid. However, this process will create more saturated fats and will reduce the favorable unsaturated fats. In addition, trans-fats are produced. Hydrogenated soybean oil is used in foods that require more solid fat such as margarine.

So basically the margarine which I had was hydrogenated. Soybean oil doesn't really seem to be much of any nutritional value whatsoever by all the processing that it goes through and the amount of chemicals used to get it to the actual "oil" we can consume.

Bottom line is, avoid it altogether.