Organic Food Is Better Than Non Gmo Food

The distinctions between GMOs, non-GMOs and organic food labels are essential to understand. There are more agricultural products on the market as 'non-GMOs' and many of us may not even know the difference. You may have wonder why non-GMO foods are not the same as organic foods? Does it really make a difference or are we fooled into buying more expensive products because they have a label? I learned that there is a big difference between the two types of food by changing what I eat on a regular basis.

USDA organic regulations prohibit any genetically modified (GMO) ingredients in a certified organic product. At all costs I stop GMOs, and organic farming is one of the best ways to achieve that. The USDA Organic label certifies that 95%-100% of the ingredients are organic, so there is a slight chance that (up to 5%) of non-organic ingredients are in the product–however they are not supposed to be GMO. There are still some tricky loopholes, so that's why you need to look for “100% certified organic” or a “Non-GMO Project” verified label to ensure it's GMO-free. I learned this the hard way. I was just looking for organic foods and I thought I was eating better than average. I wasn’t eating better. The produce manager at Costco educated me.

Organic laws ban the use of certain toxic pesticides on crops, but for non-GMO crops there are no specific limitations. Non-GMO crops can therefore be grown the same as other conventional cultures and can still be loaded with toxic pesticide residues, including lymphoma, and leukemia-based organophosphates. Residues from up to 35 different pesticides used on conventional potatoes may contain a bag of non-GMO potato-chips, several of which are known carcinogens, suspected disruptors of hormones, neurotoxins, and toxins. Non-GMO, foods (like strawberries and celery) are the most tainted with pesticides in the EWG's Dirty Dozen Guide. While natural pesticides are allowed in organic crops, organic produce has been shown to have very lower pesticide residue levels than conventional crops, and by eating organic-products, your exposure to pesticide residues can be significantly reduced.

Glyphosate can pre-harvest non-GMO crops, such as wheat. This herbicide is a poison that you are exposed to and can grow in your body. It was linked with renal disease, breast cancer and certain birth defects. Glyphosate is mainly responsible for the growing occurrence of autoimmune, and other neurological disorders, according to Dr Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at MIT. There are many non-GMO products on the market which contain wheat and appear to be safe-but glyphosate can be laced. For example, whole-wheat breads and non-GMO cereal products which are not organic (such as grape nuts) that contain residues of glyphosate.

Some traditional oils (canola, soya, corn), and some traces have been shown to exist, are extracted with neurotoxin hexane. Hexane is also used for the manufacturing of many soy foods, such as soy protein and the textured vegetable protein, and traces have been detected in some of these ingredients in the research by the Cornucopia Institute. 'There are no epidemiological or case study reports investigating human health consequences or the ongoing laboratory research evaluating the potential effects of animal health following oral exposure to n-hexanes.' All of the vegetarian soy products contain n-hexanes. Why doesn't anyone research how 'healthy' this neurotoxin is to be in our food? That’s because the industrial exposure to brain tumors and nervous damage was related. The FDA does not set a maximum residue standard for hexane and no one knows exactly how much residue the public absorbs. Nothing is forbidden for non-GMO foods, but hexane-processed ingredients are banned from products containing a USDA Organic Seal.

At Oakwood Farms we grow clean non-GMO foods. We only use mild pesticides that wash off our plants with only water and mild abrasions with your hands. The greens we grow taste lighter than conventional greens because the heavy metal pesticides are not present. The University farm also do not use hexane to process our produce when we render it from the field.

Conventional non-GMO crops can be contaminated with 'biosolids,' basically waste that is spilled in the toilet, and waste in hospitals and industry. This waste can be contaminated with heavy metals, bacteria, narcotics, pesticides and dioxins–it's essentially a toxic chemical soup. Some of these pollutants have been shown to be absorbed into the crops we consume. Such compounds have proved lethal for livestock that have grazed on biosolid-fertilized crops and this should certainly not be consumed. I saw a documentary about biosolids fertilizer from New York City. They are the largest producers of biosolids for fertilizers in the U.S.

Everyone can essentially say that its food is non-GMO, as the FDA has not set standards to control its use on a label. It cannot be mistaken with the Non-GMO Project mark because they have a method to check whether foods are non-GMOs. The employees of Whole Foods told me that they mark products as non-GMOs only if they bear the certification label or are certified organic. Many food producers have, however, been found with unregulated statements on their products claiming they're 'non-GMO' when they aren't necessarily. Because there is no need for impartial third-party verification to validate their claims I suspect that a lot of corruption is occurring. For example, when I purchased Xochitl tortilla chips I checked in consumer reports I found GMO corn in them. Because most of these unverified products have not been tested by third parties and there no government regulation existing, it is not a reliable label claim.

I have learned that we must arm ourselves with the truth and seek information about what we eat. Big food companies want us to blindly buy and consume their cheap unhealthy food so that they can profit from our misery.