More on GMO

So, I mentioned I would find more info on the whole GMO thing as far as who uses them & who does not. Wow. What a list! You can download a guide here to help you when you are in the store.

Then check out this stuff for some eye opening info:

Current estimates of GMO products include the following:

    91% of soybeans grown in the United States are GMOs.

    88% of cotton is genetically modified.

    75% of corn has been genetically modified.

These items are often highly processed and added to many different convenience foods in forms like:

    Canola (rapeseed) oil

    Corn oil

    Cottonseed oil

    High fructose corn syrup

    Soybean oil

    Soy protein

Because of the prevalence of these ingredients in common foods, it is estimated that 70% or more of the convenience foods contain GMOs. Currently, the USDA does not require that GMOs be labeled. Unless you are buying 100% organic items, you may never know if your food contains GMOs.

Animal Products

GMOs are used in the feed of various animals and farm raised fish. Always try to choose grass fed or wild caught meat products, certified organic, or products that are labeled non-GMO.

    Meat

    Dairy

    Fish

    Eggs

High Risk Products

There are thousands of GMO ingredients. It takes longer to list which foods have GMOs than to list those that don't. This should be considered an abbreviated list.

    Aspartame

    Baking powder

    Canola oil

    Cornmeal

    Corn oil

    Corn starch

    Corn syrup

    Cottonseed oil

    Dextrose

    Fructose

    Glucose

    Isoflavone

    Lecithin

    MSG

    Soy meal

    Soy protein isolate

    Tempeh

    Tofu

    Vegetable oil

    Vitamin B-12

    Vitamin E

    Xanthan gum

Companies That Use GMO Ingredients

Knowing which companies use GMO ingredients can help you to stay away from them. Even some "natural foods" companies make foods with genetically modified ingredients. Not surprisingly, most of the large corporations routinely use these products. Since these corporations often buy up smaller companies, you may not always recognize them. Some of the many companies that use GMOs in their products are:

    Aunt Jamima

    Beech-nut

    Betty Crocker

    Blue Sky

    Boca

    Campbells

    Coca Cola

    Crisco

    Dannon

    Duncan Hines

    Eggo

    Enfamil

    Frito Lay

    Good Start

    Hansen

    Heinz

    Hershey

    Hormel

    Hostess

    Isomil

    Keebler

    Kellogg

    Kraft

    Land o Lakes

    Libby’s

    Lifesavers

    Marie Callender

    Morning Star Farms

    Nabisco

    Nature Valley

    Nestle

    Ocean Spray

    Pepperidge Farm

    Peter Pan

    Pillsbury

    Procter and Gamble

    Progresso

    Quaker

    Similac

    Skippy

    Smuckers

    Stouffers

    Yoplait

And on the brighter side, here’s at least partial list of companies who do use GMO free ingredients (edited & alphabetized from online)…

    Amy’s Kitchen: canned soups, chilies, boxed & frozen meals.

    Annie’s Naturals: BBQ sauce, salad dressings & other condiments 

    Arrowhead Mills: baking mixes & flours found in both natural health food stores & regular supermarkets.

    Barbara’s Bakery: cookies 

    Bearitos: snack foods & dips

    Bob’s Red Mill: baking mixes and specialty flours.

    Cascadian Farms: frozen entrees, fruits & veggies, juices, yogurt, cereal, granola bars & other foods.

    Chaffin FamilyOrchards: sells an assortment of goods including olive oil.

    Clif: energy bars 

    Cultures forHealth: All starters and products sold at Cultures for Health are GMO-free.

    Earth’s Best: Baby food manufacturer uses non-GMO ingredients.

    Eden Foods: canned goods, noodles, tamari, miso, vinegar & Asian foodstuffs.

    Fantastic Foods: hummus, falafel, risotto couscous, soup & other mixes

    French MeadowBakery: bread & baked goods 

    Garden of Eatin: chips, salsas & other snack foods.

    Genisoy: Uses only certified GMO-free soybeans for their many soy products.

    Grindstone Bakery: wheat- and gluten-free bread.

    Healthy Times: Baby food manufacturer uses non-gmo ingredients.

    Imagine Foods: soy and rice milk as well as broth and other foods.

    Kettle Chips: potato and tortilla chips.

    Lundberg FamilyFarms: rice & wild rice foods including raw rice, soups & convenience foods.

    Muir Glen: canned goods & vegetable juices & other foods.

    Natural ChoiceFoods:  frozen dessert products.

    Nature’s Path: cereals & snack bars 

    Pamela’s Products: gluten-free baking mixes sources non-GMO ingredients.

    Pure Indian Foods: grass-fed ghee.

    Purity Foods: spelt-based noodles, snacks & other goodies. 

    Que Pasa: tortilla chips & other Mexican foods  

    Rapunzel: chocolate company.  They also sell specialty oils.

    Spectrum Oils: specialty oils, cooking oils, salad oils & natural shortening.

    San J: soy sauce, shoyu and tamari.

    Thai Kitchen: coconut milks & Asian ingredients.

    To Your Health: sprouted breads & sprouted flours.

    Tradition Miso: miso pastes 

    US Wellness Meats: pasture- and grass-fed meats free of GMO supplemental feed.

    Vitasoy: soy-based foods 

    Walkers: shortbread cookies & other sweet treats.

    White Wave: soy products including tofu & tempeh

    Whole Foods StoreBrands: Whole foods has made the commitment to sourcing its ingredients from GMO-free sources.

    Wisconsin HealthyGrown Potatoes: potatoes.

    Zukay: live cultured condiments & salsa

Life Without ... soda

Wow... soda... I am not ready to let go of this treat from my life completely, yet. Awhile back I did a post about Mountain Dew Throwback. I have not had any, probably since I wrote that. Well, maybe one or two since its been a year. But still, after one, I feel like crap inside. My body definitely lets me know nowadays when it doesn't like what I'm giving it.


I still drink soda. Almost everyday. Never more than approximately 12 ounces. But, I drink it.

My soda of choice these days is mostly Blue Sky. And of the ones they offer that we can find here, the Jamaican Ginger Ale is my favorite. Mostly that is because my body tolerates it just fine.
Room temperature... and sometimes even flat! Mostly the flat part is because it takes me awhile to drink it. 

I loved Natural Brew Outrageous Ginger Ale, but my body didn't like as much as I did, so I switched. I also tried Hansens, but they only offered the ginger ale in diet. Yuck. I gave up diet sodas a long long time ago!

I remember when I used to drink 2 or 3 regular sodas a day & thought nothing of it. All that HFCS in my system & no clue. I now know soda is not really good for me at all. Not even this stuff. There is tons of info out there on the why's. Why not to drink it. How bad it is. How bad the containers even are. So why can't I let go?

I'll tell you why. I love the fizz. Yup, the carbonation. Sometimes I can go days without one. Even weeks. But then I get this ... need for the taste of the sweetness & the fizz. Just one can. Or one bottle.

As I continue to learn more about commercial sodas, I kind of want them less but I still want the fizz. Perhaps, just as people who love beer, & wine, learn to make their own, I too can learn to make my own ... soda?

Are you like me? Do you love soda even tho you know how bad it is? Have you given up soda? How do you cope? I'd love to hear from you....

HFCS in Mountain Dew

This past summer Mt Dew came out with a Throwback Dew that was made with real sugar instead of the HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup). The taste was fantastic & the more my daughter brought home & we bought, the more we were hooked. Well, when it was gone, I drank no more Dew. I was kinda sad since I had really enjoyed the new formula & back in the day I enjoyed the Dew too.

The other day when the kids & I went out, I grabbed a Mt Dew. Yeah ... with the old HFCS. After just a few swigs, I had a icky feeling in my tummy. I enjoyed the taste ... but only kind of. It just wasn't the same as the Throwback formula. It took me 2 days to finish it.

Why is it so hard to just go natural & use real sugar? I found out that in Canada they wont accept HFCS in their ketchup so Heinz makes it for them with sugar. Why not make it that way all over? The only ketchup I can find without it is Organic.

In many ways, we have gone natural & dont think twice about it & will not switch back. I wish people would demand more of it so more companies would have to make it that way.

Maybe one day ....

Just a general update

So life is life here in the valley of Washington state. Life is finding us with a tight pocketbook these days as well. I still work to keep my food & all purchasing choices as good as possible.

As any of you who read this know, I strive to remove all HFCS from my diet. I'd love to also remove corn syrup in general but that is quite a bit harder to do than just removing the high fructose corn syrup. I am encouraged tho, that as of late I am seeing more labels telling us consumers that their products are now made without HFCS. Makes me smile!!

Bull's Eye BBQ sauce is now HFCS free. This is fantastic since all the other labels I checked of the big brands have the HFCS as either the first ingredient or pretty close to it.

Another cool thing was finding the no HFCS label on Log Cabin syrup. All the others have it so now we finally have a choice besides buying pure maple syrup which is quite pricey!

Along with the HFCS I am finding myself trying to get rid of so much MSG in my food. Wow, thats a tough one. Not only is there all kinds of salt in so many foods, but the MSG on top of it all.

I was really bummed to see the MSG on all the sausage & keilbasa labels. The fancy funky flavored ones are made with all sorts of good stuff but sometimes i just want plain old sausage or keilbasa. Today I found one that was MSG free. Yes! Ask & you shall receive.

With summer coming I am starting to look at salad dressing labels. Amazing how many of them have the HFCS. Why? Ugh! It just gets so irritating. But, there are a few brands that are free of it.

I'm working on making a "safe list". Mostly for my own benefit, but I will gladly share it here as well. I plan to list products that are HFCS free & MSG free. Granted it will be tailored to what we eat, but it may help out some of you as well. It'll be a work in progress for awhile, but when it's done I'll make an entry for it.

On the non food front ... I'm going to have to do some more looking on laundry cleaners soon. My last bottle of Era is less than half full. Currently, I'm using the smallest amount of that along with baking soda, vinegar & hydrogen peroxide in my loads. I'm pretty happy with the way the hydrogen peroxide works in place of bleach. The vinegar works as a decent softener & along with the baking soda, they remove odors pretty well.

I'm happy with the Dr. Bronner's Sal Suds for my hand dishwashing needs. adding a little vinegar helps cut heavy grease too so thats cool. Baking soda works good as a non abrasive scrub too. I'm not sure what I plan to do to replace my dishwasher tabs tho. I currently use Electrsol 3 in 1. We'll see what I can find to replace that.

A solution of vinegar & water in a spray bottle has worked great on my stove top cooktop as well as on windows & mirrors for cleaning. And all we use is a clean microfiber cloth. No paper towels!

Guess that's it for the moment. Just wanted to get an update on here of real life. As always, all your comments are most welcome!

Fructose

I've been reading about High Fructose Corn Syrup & other sugars/refined sugars/sweeteners lately. Anyone who knows me, knows this. I've had a tab open in my browser for sometime now about Fructose. The title reads ... "Is Fructose Dangerous?"

After reading this page a few times, I think this will be on my list of sugar type things to remove from my home. It wont be as easy as removing the HFCS tho, it seems. Ideally, removing sugars in general is the best way to go. But I'm not ready to just let go of all sugars. I will continue to eat real sugar. But if I can remove some or all of the other forms of it, that would be way cool.

Here is the page .... Fructose

Here is a bit from the page ....

***If you consider fructose a safe, natural sugar, think again. You've been had by one of the biggest nutritional bait-and-switch ploys in years.

Fructose & high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) have been aggressively promoted as natural sugars. After all, we've been taught since childhood that fructose is fruit sugar.

The truth is that fructose & HFCS, as large-scale commercial sweeteners, didn't exist 20 years ago. Now, they're almost as common as sucrose-plain old white sugar. HFCS is routinely added to processed foods & beverages including Coca-Cola, Snapple, & many health food products.

"Fructose is not from fruit. It's a commercial, refined sugar," asserted Robin Rogosin, a buyer and research coordinator at Mrs. Gooch's Natural Foods Market in Beverly Hills, Calif.***

That is how the article begins. I encourage you all to take a few minutes to read the page. It's good info to have stored in your brain.

Update time

Thought I would do a little update on a few of the changes I have made. Right now I am working on just a few ingredients at a time. The ones that are being omitted from my & my family’s diets are artificial sweeteners, MSG & High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). As we read labels if there are other questionable ingredients in the label they tend to not get purchased either. It is taking more time to shop but it has been an eye opening experience to what is in our food. So what have I changed?

Ketchup. I’ve looked at store brands & name brands. They all contain HFCS. My options? Buy organic or make my own. For the time being I have bought one bottle of organic until I see just how expensive making my own will be. My dad’s wife (Neva) has a recipe so I know they are pretty easy to come by.

Mayo. Well, the switch was actually to mayo, from Miracle Whip. That was simple & saves me money since I can get mayo cheaper a lot of the time. I’ll admit the true test will be when I make my potato salad this summer. Or any pasta type salad I was using MW in. But on a sandwich or toast with cheese, it’s no big deal.

Soda. Oh the stuff that’s on some of the labels. . . I was buying whatever was on sale for the hubby to take to work each day. I was buying generic ginger ale for me. I have switched to Natural Brew Outrageous Ginger Ale. More expensive but the taste alone is enough to keep me buying it. I started when it was on sale & fell in love with it. IT worked because I continue to buy it at regular price now. For hubby & daughter, they have discovered making their own soda with seltzer water & DaVinci flavors. The flavors are not totally natural, but contain less crap than regular soda … & no HFCS. Cost? Probably about the same as name brand soda.

OJ. I was buying the half gallons from the refrigerated section. Until I read the label. Now I buy the frozen concentrate. The taste is better & the cost is less at regular prices. If the ½ gallons go on sale, they are cheaper. But I wont buy them.

Granola Bars. All I had to do was switch brands. With all the coupons I get, it doesn’t cost me much more at all. I stock up when they go on sale & it’s all good. The Kashi TLC bars & the Quaker Simple Harvest All Natural are what we buy right now.

Salad Dressings. Wow, this was amazing. I couldn’t believe how many brands & flavors have HFCS. But you can’t go by brand alone. You have to look at the flavors. Not a tough switch to make, just a bit more reading of labels. There are plenty out there that don’t have as much added stuff.

Spaghetti Sauces. The cheaper brands I was buying all have HFCS. Prego & Ragu don’t. Several of the better brands don’t either. So switching here is just a matter of watching for different brands to go on sale & saving coupons for them. I was buying Hunts & Del Monte in the cans which didn’t have coupons much anyways. The house brand can sauces are also off the list.

Cookies. Well, good bye cheap cookies. For the most part. My switch? I just make them from scratch at home or read some of the cookie dough labels & packaged cookie labels. Not a big deal except for the money. But it’s a price hubby & I are willing to pay. So far, we’ve just eaten a lot less cookies.

So there is a sampling of some of the items I’ve changed. I will continue to go thru everything we eat by reading labels. Once we have omitted these things, we’ll look into what all the other ingredients really are & work on omitting more.

Now I need to say something that might sound odd. I’m beginning to feel different. Is it in my head? I guess it could be. But I choose to believe. One of the side effects of the HFCS is that when it is consumed, the body does not know when it is full, & therefore when to stop eating. Well, it’s been out of probably 98% of my diet for over a month now. I don’t seem to be eating as much. I’m full at dinner without going back for seconds. And no, I’m not having bigger portions. I still snack, but they are good snacks now. I drink better juices, herbs, natural soda & water. Are my baby steps beginning to show? I’d like to think so. It makes me happy to have omitted some artificial things from my diet. I’m happy eating better food. I think I like these changes.

High fructose corn syrup

For me, going natural is more than removing chemicals from cleaning products & toiletries. It is about removing the crap from the food I eat too. It is amazing how much added stuff is in food these days. I’ve been reading ingredient labels lately. I know, bad thing, cuz you’ll never want to eat anything again once you know what that stuff really is. Well, not completely so. It is happening more tho. Making small decisions & changes to work towards a better me. A better us. I look at labels between brands. Less ingredients is better. And if I cannot pronounce them, I don’t buy it. If high fructose corn syrup is on one label but not another, I buy the one without it. Simple things like that.

But doing this comes with a new mindset too. You have to want it. Really. Kind of like walking the walk when you talk the talk. Like over the weekend the hubby & I went to Costco. I had a couple things I wanted to get. Well, one main one got left there. I made a discovery by comparing labels. I had wanted to get some Kraft Miracle Whip from there since I figured it was cheaper to buy the big container vs. the smaller ones in the stores. That part was fine. I put it in the cart. Hubby picked it up & looked at the label. High Fructose Corn Syrup. In MY Mayo!! No way! It couldn’t be. So I walked over to look at the 2 other mayos on the shelves. One was a local brand & one was regular Kraft mayo. No HFCS in either one. Dammit. That ingredient is what kept me buying their product. And oftentimes paying more. I was addicted to the taste.

It took a bit of talking to myself but I put it back. I could make a change. I know I can’t just give up mayo right now. I like it. hubby likes it. I use it for pasta salads, for tuna, & on sandwiches. But I could make a switch to something without the HFCS. It’s no huge thing. It’s a baby step. This journey is full of baby steps. I feel so good tho, each time I take a step.