by Melissa Diane Smith

Both are good ways to avoid GMOs yet they have definable distinctions.

The natural foods industry has always been based on the idea of pure unadulterated whole food, so it isn’t surprising that there’s a big movement afoot among natural food shoppers to avoid laboratory-created genetically modified organisms (GMOs) hidden in many foods. Newfangled GMOs are made when genetic engineers insert genes from one living thing (say, a bacteria) into the DNA of a completely unrelated living thing (say, corn) – a process that is anything but “natural.”

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by Melissa Diane Smith

(Opinion) – The food industry is trying countless ways to keep people from knowing what’s really in their food, especially regarding the presence of unnatural genetically modified organisms (GMOs).  On February 17, 2014, Dr. Oz ran a short segment on this topic entitled “No to GMOs: The Global Conspiracy to Keep You from Knowing the Truth about Your Food.” It featured Scott Faber, Vice President of Government Affairs for the Environmental Working Group, a consumer watchdog organization, who explained that the food industry doesn’t want mandatory labeling but is trying to get “voluntary” labeling of GM foods, and it’s asking the FDA to label GM foods as “natural” foods. Both are crazy ideas that would keep the public misinformed and deny the public our right to know what’s really in our food. Like several segments Dr. Oz has done about GMOs, this segment still is not yet archived on his show’s website, but if and when it gets put onto the site, it should be at this link.

A good summary to turn to for a quick rundown on the food industry spin and propaganda versus the truth about genetically modified foods is the recent article Warning: Industry Spin May Be Hazardous to Your Health; Learn the Truth about GE Foods by Elizabeth Kucinich, Policy Director for the Center for Food Safety. Kucinich points out:

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