On Thursday, August 13, 2015, at 11 a.m. Eastern time (8 a.m. Pacific), catch the live interview with me, Melissa Diane Smith, on the Family Food Kitchen radio program on RadioMD:  http://www.radiomd.com/show/family-food-kitchen. You can also listen over the phone by calling 844-305-7800.

In two 10-minute segments, hosts Ellen Briggs and Carolina Jantac will ask me to fill you in on the latest about genetically modified (GM) foods, frightening and disturbing news about the weed killer used on most of them, and what you need to know about GM potatoes and apples. If you can’t listen to the broadcast live, go to RadioMD a day or two after the interview, get the podcasts of the two segments, and listen to them at your convenience.

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by Melissa Diane Smith

Could eating unlabeled genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in foods be an overlooked and perhaps key factor in the exploding incidence of gluten-related disorders the past decade and a half? That’s what numerous practitioners familiar with both the adverse health effects of gluten and the adverse health effects of GM foods, such as myself, have been wondering and suspecting.

Now a new report compiled by leading non-GMO advocate Jeffrey M. Smith pulls together what is known about gluten-related symptoms with what is known about  the health effects of GMOs to theorize that GMOs may contribute to gluten-related symptoms in five different ways.

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by Melissa Diane Smith

(Opinion) – It’s rare for a mainstream magazine to run a feature article even mentioning genetically modified (GM) foods, much less covering an in-depth look at a specific type of health risk – allergies – from one type of GM food, corn. But that’s exactly what Elle magazine, a large fashion magazine with a paid circulation of more than one million people in the United States, did in a story in its August 2013 issue.

What’s especially interesting to me about the article, “The Bad Seed: The Health Risks of Genetically Modified Corn,” is that the author’s experience recovering her health by staying away from GM corn mirrors one of my client’s experiences recovering her health by avoiding GM foods. Plus, both of them had high levels of a type of white blood cell called eosinophils, levels that normalized after cutting the GM food or foods from their diet – a result that seems to be quite significant.

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by Melissa Diane Smith

I covered my client Marcia’s dramatic changes in her health after going grain free and avoiding genetically modified foods last year in Nutrition News & Notes. I knew Marcia had wide-ranging improvements across the board in her health but I didn’t think much about how much money she was saving by not needing to see doctors nearly as much as she previously did before working with me. Recently during a coaching session over the phone, Marcia told me that she saved more than $7,000 last year in medical expenses, and together with her husband with whom I also work, they saved $12,000 in medical expenses last year!

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by Melissa Diane Smith

How to avoid genetically modified organisms when you also avoid gluten.

When Marcia Popp, a 50-year-old graphic artist, began a nutrition coaching program with me last year, she had numerous health problems, including multiple food and environmental allergies. She also had been diagnosed in 1990 with a systemic immune condition known as eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome (EMS), which she developed after taking tryptophan supplements that were later found to be tainted.

Marcia had already cut gluten out of her diet nine years earlier, so I advised some different dietary changes to cater to her other food intolerances. I knew that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were implicated in allergies – and that the tryptophan that was linked to EMS had been produced using genetically modified bacteria – so I also recommended that she avoid the eight major genetically modified (GM) foods to see if it made a difference in her condition.

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Not sure what changing your diet can do for you? My client Marcia who wrote the following testimonial wasn’t sure at the beginning either but she has been completely won over by what my individualized nutrition coaching program is doing for her. So are her doctors, including one who wrote me, congratulated me on the wonderful results she has had, and said “Way to go!”

I am so grateful that I am able to help people like Marcia in this way! Keep in mind that this is a person who was eating gluten free to begin with, but still needed some fine-tuning to her diet. Here’s Marcia’s story:

I originally contacted Melissa about how and what to eat because of multiple food sensitivities I was recently diagnosed with (I have been gluten-free for almost 9 years). Working with Melissa has taught me to eat properly for me. She set me up with a personalized diet for my sensitivities, symptoms and conditions. I definitely eat against the grain! In addition to grains, I avoid dairy, eggs, beans, processed foods and all GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Eliminating the GMOs has made the most impact for me.

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