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Tips for Avoiding GMOs

Center for Food Safety

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.

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