A friend of mine brought to my attention that my article 7 GMO Products I Bet You Are Still Using sounded scarey enough she didn’t want to read it. It made me realize that while the No GMO challenge is very informative it’s also pretty scary/overwelming sounding. It’s not just enough to make people aware of what’s wrong. There needs to be a path that shows how to fix it. Instead of saying “This is why GMO’s are evil / impossible to avoid” (aka, Look you are stuck in the path of an oncoming train) we need to remember to temper that with “This is what you can do about it” (aka, Here’s how to unwedge your foot from the train track.)
In the spirit of unwedging your foot for this week here are:
17 Ways to Avoid GMO Food
- Shop at your local farmers market. Ask about the food.
- Make your own bread. A Panasonic SD-YD250 Automatic Bread Maker
makes it so easy you don’t even have to know how to cook.
- Pick restaurants that buy local food. You can search using http://www.localharvest.org .
- Menu plan so you aren’t hungry and eyeing McD’s at 6pm.
- Learn to cook. Check out my How to Cook series or buy a copy of The Art of Simple Food
- Each week find a GMO free alternative for one food you eat.
- Try growing a garden. All New Square Foot Gardening
is a great book for beginners.
- Contact your representatives and request mandatory GMO labeling.
- Keep up with your dishes. It’s easier to cook in a clean kitchen.
- Move to France, or any where else in the European Union that has mandatory labeling rules.
- Make snacks with your kids. They’ll like healthy food more if they helped make it.
- Buy Organic
- “Buy nothing your great grandma would not recognize as food” – In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
(That includes ingredients)
- Print out and read the No GMO Shopping Guide (pdf)
- Read the small print. (For example the bag of oranges my husband requested while sick says in itsy bitsy print “Treated with imazalil, thianendazole. Coated with food grade vegetable wax”.
- Make your own cookies
- Remember that mountains are moved one pebble at at time. The smallest changes can add up over time to the biggest.
What changes have you made or plan to make to avoid more GMO’s? Leave a comment below and let us know.
For more posts about GMOs check out this weeks No GMO Blog Carnival.
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Hi! I just wanted to mention that I would love to find a good bread machine that is made with stainless steel, not aluminum. If you know of one, please let me know. I have never made bread but I intend to ask for a bread machine for Christmas. I also plan to buy my own mill and learn to grow my own wheat and mill my own heirloom corn for cornmeal. I was surprised to learn that the grocery stores I’ve checked with do not sell organic corn meal. I found this odd, they have all sorts of other organic items, just not cornmeal. I also wanted to mention that I have found ketchup (Hunts) without High Frutose Corn Syrup. It will be interesting to read the label to find any other objectionable ingredients. Good for them, for at least making the attempt to provide a healthier ketchup.
I enjoyed reading your blog, I was a little concerned at the mention of your daughter’s “medicine” as if Tylenol was a part of your daily routine. I hope it is not. Tylenol and NSAIDs can be very dangerous and this is something that most people are unaware of. Even vaccinated children get measles, mumps and chickenpox. These, as well as flu can be worsened by the use of Tylenol and NSAID’s. Most doctors are unaware of this too. If you want to learn more, the key phrase is “cytokine storm”. BTW, I’m not one of these weirdo’s who refuse Tylenol or antibiotics…I use them, but NEVER again will I use Tylenol and Motrin for fever. I use only herbs now and reserve the Tylenol and Motrin for pain – not fever. Just because the FDA says a product is safe, doesn’t mean squat. Fever is your friend, it has a purpose.
Dana, Thank you for visiting my blog.
I’m sorry I don’t know of a stainless steel bread machine. I just started switching most of my things away from aluminum but still have a lot of bake ware. However I recommend the book “Artisian bread in 5 minutes a day”. It’s not a bread machine but almost as fast as one and you may have better luck finding pans.
You might try checking amazon for organic corn meal. I’m not sure if they have it but I’ve had luck finding other things there. My youngest is now allergic to corn as well so there will be no need for corn meal in this house for a long time!
Thank you for the warning. Don’t worry. Tylenol is NOT a daily dose in our house. It was a daily dose during severe teething pain, ear infection or other events that cause lots of discomfort but only for the time it was needed. I don’t even use it any more for light fever since I think that’s part of the bodies way of fighting the fever. My pediatrician recently told me to NOT use it after vaccines because some studies are starting to say it may lower the effectiveness of the vaccine.