TIP #1: BUY ORGANIC
Certified organic products are not allowed to contain any GMOs. Therefore, when you purchase products labeled “100% organic,” “organic,” or “made with organic ingredients,” all ingredients in these products are not allowed to be produced from GE ingredients. For example, products labeled as “made with organic ingredients” only require 70% of the ingredients to be organic, but 100% must be non-GE.
TIP #2: LOOK FOR“NON-GMO” LABELS
Companies may voluntarily label products as “non-GMO.” Some labels state “non-GMO” while others spell out “Made Without Genetically Modified Ingredients.” Some products limit their claim to only one particular “At-Risk” ingredient such as soy lecithin, listing it as “non-GMO.”
TIP #3: AVOID AT-RISK INGREDIENTS
Avoid products made with any of the crops that are GE. Most GE ingredients are products made from the “Big Five:” corn, soybeans, canola, beet sugar, and cottonseed, used in processed foods. Some of the most common genetically engineered Big Five ingredients in processed foods are:
Corn: Corn flour, meal, oil, starch, gluten, and syrup. Sweeteners such as fructose, dextrose, and glucose; Modified food starch*
Beet Sugar: Sugar not specified as 100% cane sugar is likely from GE sugar beets
Soy: Soy flour, lecithin, protein, isolate, and isoflavone, Vegetable oil* and vegetable protein*
Canola: Canola oil (also called rapeseed oil)
Cotton: Cottonseed oil
*May be derived from other sources
As you will see throughout the Shoppers Guide, a major rule when recognizing and ducking GE foods is to “Beware the Big Five” and their byproducts.
