wagondude wrote:[Unfortunately, buying organic is actually more likely to get you GMO. The purpose of GMO is resistance to pests and disease reducing the need for pesticides and the like. Many of the foods available today, no matter how they are grown, have little of the original DNA or nutritional value they had even 50 years ago. Corn would be the biggest example of this. There is no clear standard to certify organics and almost no oversight in the process.
Nope, the Organic standards specifically preclude using GMOs. (Ooh, I don't get to use "preclude" very often! But let me take my English Major hat off and put on my Farmer's Daugher cap.) The USDA may not test for GMOs, but plenty of consumer groups do. The reputable companies know they will be caught if they play fast and loose.
I don't think you understand how plant breeding works, or what they are going for. Corn may not be as nutritious as it was 50 years ago, but that is because most corn grown in the US is now grown for corn oil or ethanol production, not people food. Conventional breeding took it in the high-oil direction and the high-fermentable-carbs direction. Those are also generally the ones with the RoundUp Ready genes (which I think originally came from a RoundUp-resistant petunia strain).
Most of the sweet corns are still "conventional," non-GMO, except where pollen drift has contaminated the crop, but the contaminated corns are tough and convert from sugar to starch too fast, which is really frowned on in the sweet corn market. Corns grown for cornmeal are more likely to be contaminated, as being ground up disguises the toughness. Some may remember the short-lived scandal years ago when just that sort of contamination was discovered! Have a corn chip!
Likewise, most potatoes are conventional, carrots, radishes, lettuce, basically our green veggis are not GMO, yet. OTOH, most soybeans that are processed into other products (harvested as dry beans, ground into soy flour, processed into soy sauce, soy isolate protein, etc)
are GMO, soybean pods sold as edamame (which we love at our house) are generally
NOT GMO. GMO wheat is being tested, likewise GMO salmon. GMO rice has been around practically since the Green Revolution.
Oh, and back to the nutrition. Don't blame the GMOs. Part of it is nutrient-depleted soil, but we (Americans) also keep breeding for shorter and shorter growing seasons, not because our summers are getting shorter but because getting two or three (or more) crops out of a field in a year is more profitable than only getting one. If lettuce goes from seed to head in only 30 days, it will develop fewer nutrients than lettuce that goes from seed to head in 45 days, 50 days or even 60 days. Even in the worst soil, a longer-season variety will have more nutrients than a shorter-season variety, but those nutrients are costing the farmer more in time and effort. Follow a 30 day lettuce with a 55 day bean, maybe sneak in another lettuce crop, or early cabbage....
So, avoiding GMOs in America. Avoid all non-organic processed foods. Anything with soy or corn products in it (and that is just about
everything in the center aisles of the grocery store, they have many
many names) has GMOs in it. If you read the labels for organic breads and crackers and stuff, you
rarely find corn or soy in them for just that reason. Read labels. A bagged GMO potato variety has now been approved for sale (one company, look for J.R Simplot on the bags). Or eat red- or blue-fleshed potatoes, which are too weird for the food-modifiers to mess with. Two apples will be coming, probably in 2017, current plan is to market them as "arctic apples" because their flesh will remain snow-white when cut (no browning). Other veggies and fruits are still okay, but it may be a good idea to start eating more of the weird fruits and veggies that aren't (yet) economically valuable enough to mess with. Learn to love the odd grains, too. Quinoa is your new best friend, and pearled barley is an ancient and honored addition to many meals. Look for CANE sugar, as the stuff simply labeled "sugar" is generally from sugar beets, which are GMO. And yes, canola oil probably contains GMOs (again, it has been made "RoundUp Ready"). Try peanut oil for frying (really, you still fry stuff?), or stick to olive or sunflower oil for daily use.
Finally, why do I care? It's not so much that I think the foods are going to poison us
quickly. But no one tests this stuff, and even if they did, the tests wouldn't show us what is going to happen in the long run. Quite frankly, we Americans are the sickest of the first-world populations in the world. We are poisoning ourselves with an unhealthy diet to begin with, and now we are experimenting with food-like stuff that isn't designed to make us healthy, but rather to make corporations rich. So, in the unofficial long-term testing, I want to be in the control group, eating an old-fashioned non-GMO diet. Also, all of the "RoundUp Ready" crops that Monsanto has developed have actually increased the use of herbicides on farms, and increased the costs to the farmers. 30 years ago my dad's doctor speculated that his use of farm chemicals contributed to his terminal cancer. All of these years later, his favorite chemicals have all been declared to be "probably carcinogenic to humans" in just about every other developed country. The unofficial long-term testing confirms that we are poisoning ourselves so the corporations can make boat-loads of money.
My Representative also voted NO to the latest Monsanto Protection Act.
Catherine (gardener and non-GMO-seed-saver)