Do You Know What GMOs Are?

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  You may or may not have heard about them. But GMOs have become quite the hot topic over the past couple of years in regard to the food supply in the US.

  In short, GMOs are Genetically Modified Organisms. Great, so what does that mean?

  It's an organism (seed, plant, animal, you get the idea) whose genetic material has been altered from its natural state.

  It's combining DNA molecules from different sources to create a new set of genes, and essentially a new organism. It's playing God with the genetics of plants and animals. Does that sound like something that should be going on with our food?

Round-Up Ready Seeds
  The most commonly seen GMOs come in the form of agricultural crops. In the mid-1990s, a company called Monsanto first patented corn seeds and soy beans to withstand the affects of herbicides and pesticides. Essentially, they put herbicide and pesticide into the seeds. They call them 'Round-Up Ready' seeds.

  In theory, it sounds like a great idea. Why not make farmers' lives easier by helping them create a farm that doesn't need to be weeded? But here's the reality: not only is our food covered in chemicals, but now chemicals are inside our food.

  Today, 15-20 years after they were first introduced, it is becoming more and more clear that GMOs have become a very harmful monster in our world. Bringing these chemicals into our food supply has had repercussions that we never expected. The effects have harmed our health, our environment, our land, and ocean life.

  I'll dive deeper into these effects a later post.

Avoiding GMOs is a Difficult Task
  You might think: okay, so just avoid corn and soy, and there's no problem. Wrong. Unfortunately GMO corn and soy are in EVERYTHING.

  Everything that is processed, that is. Look on the ingredients on any box you pick up in the store, and I can almost guarantee that either corn or soy is listed.

Altering Animals

  A genetically modified animal is just as problematic. Everyone wants a bigger, fatter cow, right?!? So lets make that cow (or chicken, pig, etc) grow that much bigger/faster by giving them hormones.

  When it grows too quickly, or becomes too heavy for its bones (that weren't meant to support the modified, larger-version), the cow gets sick. So to prevent it from becoming sick, farm animals are given anti-biotics. Those anti-biotics (don't forget about the hormones too) are then ingested by the human that eats that farm animal.

  Now can't you see how dangerous GMOs might be?  I'm going to write more and more about GMOs, their ramifications, what we can do, and how we can avoid them in the near future.

What Foods Have GMOs in Them?
  Here are the most prevalent offenders:

       -milk (dairy products)
       -cooking oils (corn, soybean, cottonseed, and canola oils produced in North America)
       -animal products
       -sugar & artificial sweeteners
       -cereals
       -fruits & vegetables
       -crackers & chips

  Like I said, GMOs are EVERYWHERE! The only way to ensure that you're not consuming a GMO food, is to find organic alternatives.

  I'm not writing this to scare anyone, I just want to share the information I've come across in the last six months. It's made a great impact on me, and it has changed the way I eat and live my life (for the better, I believe).

  I find the whole process to be very interesting (and disturbing), and I think it is affecting us more than we know.

  Hope you'll stay tuned!

LINKS:
Rodale
Jillian Michaels Podcast - 3/25/2011 & 4/29/2011
Organic Manifesto
6 GMO Foods to Avoid