What are GMOs and Why Should I Avoid Them?

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Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are organisms bearing the genetic traits of other species such as bacteria and spliced into the DNA of our food. The litany of how unsafe these completely foreign, food-like products are for humans is being constantly expanded upon. Of course, since we left it to our bureaucrats to protect us, it’s all too little, too late. Our food supply is totally infiltrated with GMOs and makers of these “foods” are doing all they can to stop you from finding out that you are eating them.

 

Last year, Monsanto spent more than $42 million just to prevent Californians from making it mandatory to label foods with GMO ingredients. Monsanto and other GMO companies keep spending massive dollar amounts to fight initiatives like California’s all over the country. What are they trying to hide? Why don’t they want you to know? If you knew, you would not eat GMO-containing products.

 

The evidence is mounting that this “Frankenfood” could have devastating effects on our health that may be irreversible. This is the big picture. The worst culprit is the herbicide Roundup.  It has been spliced into the cells of primarily corn, soy and canola. This may not seem big until you realize that one or all of these products, in any of their many forms, are in more than 75% of our processed food and that the average child eats 90% of his/her diet as processed food.

 

So where’s the harm? Glyphosate, the active chemical in Roundup, kills the essential life-sustaining bacteria in our gut. Research is continually implicating disrupted gut flora in almost every disease, directly or indirectly. How this can happen is really very simple. These billions of good bacteria make our digestion possible. If you can’t digest your food, eventually you will not have the building blocks to make more new “you” cells that are made from the foods you eat.

 

A healthy person regenerates new cells at the rate of about one million new cells per minute. It’s more accurate to say that you are what you digest and assimilate than just what you eat. Therefore, disrupting you digestion as glyphosate does can devastate any system in your body. Then your body has to deal with all this undigested debris which putrefies, goes rancid and ferments in our guts. Often, severe inflammatory reactions result all over the body. Symptoms may manifest differently, depending on each person’s weak link.

 

One of the newest theories of possible causes of autism, for instance, is called GAPS. It stands for “The gut and psychology syndrome.” When Dr. Andrew Wakefield made this connection, more that 15 years ago. with the gut health and autism as it related to vaccine damage he was discredited, all his research grants and medical licenses revoked. He has since been vindicated as his findings keep getting more substantiated. His medical license was recently reinstated.

 

So how does this apply to you and yours? There are ever-increasing rates of autism, now one in 50 children compared to one in 20,000 when I was a child. One in six children now has some form of “mental developmental disorder” (that classification use to be called “retarded” before it became politically incorrect), as well as 50% of our children under 17 already being classified with at least one “chronic degenerative disease” (a term reserved for the elderly when I was in school) – we don’t have the luxury to ignore this.

 

How it affects us as adults can manifest in any inflammatory disease, arthritis, Alzheimers, dementia, heart disease, cancer and, of course, all the alphabet soup of bowel and digestive problems for which everybody is taking tons of drugs with no real cure.

 

So what do you do now? Unless a processed food is specifically labeled as non-GMO or organic, (organic food cannot have GMO’s), if corn, soy or canola appear anywhere on that label, you can assume that those ingredients are GMO. Don’t eat that food. The marketplace is constantly changing and more and more GMO ingredients are in the pipeline, so you have to be vigilant to protect yourself. Of course, you can keep it simple by following the other nutritional advice that I’ve been giving in this column over the years. Eat real food that is not processed and preferably organic. That circumvents most of the problem, right there.

 

You still have to make choices when you dine out regarding what foods to avoid. Most restaurants use corn starch as a filler in their sauces. Again, if it is not an organic restaurant. you can assume that GMO corn starch in the sauce.

 

The next kicker is that the feed your food eats also translates into GMO damage to your gut. Most commercially-raised meats and poultry are fed GMO corn (subsidized by your tax dollars, I might add). Organic or free range meats are your answer. Impossible on my budget, you say. Here’s the good news. Places like Chipotle are now serving free range beef, chicken and pork and locally grown vegetables for very good prices. Unless marked organic or non-GMO, you still have to stay away from the corn, but it’s a small sacrifice to stay healthy. Dressings and sauces are also a big hiding place for GMO canola oil, so ask about the oil or avoid them.

 

If you suspect that the damage has already been done, you can start healing by reinstating the friendly organisms in your gut in the form of a good probiotic. My favorite is Pro-symbiotic from StandardProcess.com. It not only contains the organisms that your gut health needs, but also contains the right ecology for the organisms to flourish. Digestive enzymes are important for anyone over 35 in the best of scenarios, but, under these circumstances, they are a must. Zypan and Multizyme are the ones that I use. These actions are a great start to keeping healthy. Please support local efforts for GMO labeling so that “you won’t get fooled again.”

 

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