Eat. Drink. Better.

Whole Foods Market made a big step in food retail this month. The corporate giant that dominates the healthfood market is leading their customers away from GMOs. The company joined the Non-GMO Project’s Product Verification Program this month. The Non-GMO Project is a consortium of people, businesses, and organizations who are committed to cutting GMO’s out of our food stream. This non-profit organization has now established the first scientifically-based, third-party system in North America for identifying if a product is GMO-free — the Product Verification Program.

The fairly new Product Verification Program is what Whole Foods has been searching since GMOs came to the US, the company says.
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If you’re a Whole Foods shopper who occasionally peruses the market’s free pamphlets and brochures, you might know a thing or two about the dangers of irradiated food–at least, that’s where I learned about it. We hear a lot of talk about harmful ingredients: dyes, preservatives, trans fats, and HFCS, for instance, but little is mentioned about this equally harmful process that can alter the molecular composition of the food you eat, damaging valuable vitamins, minerals, and enzymes, all in the name of making said food safer.

During irradiation, food is exposed to ionizing radiation in an effort to destroy microorganisms, viruses, bacteria, or insects that could be dangerous if consumed by people. In addition to sanitizing our food, irradiation can also be used to prevent sprouting, delay ripening, or increase juice yield–in other words, messing with a fruit or vegetable’s natural life process or progression. How exactly does irradiation achieve all these things? By damaging the DNA of the food in question, basically stunting any growth.

Considering how much time and effort is spent attempting to halt or reverse DNA damage to our own cells, then, it’s ironic that more attention isn’t paid to the process of food irradiation. We’re constantly told to eat more fruits and vegetables because they contain antioxidants, the things that fight free radicals (which are responsible for oxidation and thus, cell damage!) However, the vast majority of produce in this country is irradiated, therefore containing the very stuff we try so desperately to avoid!

Pretty strange, huh? Behind the jump, there’s a bunch more reasons why you should avoid irradiated food. Read the rest of this entry »

Have seasonal allergies? Just warm up some genetically modified rice for relief!

Researchers at Japan’s National Institute for Agrobiological Sciences in Tsukubahope that you think this solution sounds simply delicious. They’ve developed a rice that could help alleviate the itchiness and watery eyes associated with hayfever. And after safety tests on macaques (monkeys), researchers are excited to take the next step: humans trials.

I’d like to try this GM rice in people in the near future.

Researchers point out that the 26-week long trial on the monkeys was for safety, not efficacy. So how would this mutant rice work?

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I’m a relatively savvy Green Girl.  That said, there are still times when I can’t remember which produce should always be purchased organic (strawberries, peaches, nectarines, pears, apples, celery, sweet bell pepper, potatoes, spinach and lettuce) or which fish is more eco-friendly (Farmed Abalone, Pacific Halibut, Alaskan Wild Salmon, more).  When my (formerly) photographic brain fails me, my iPhone does not.

There’s an app for that.  Gorgeously Green Survival Guide 1.2 will run iPhone users a whopping $0.99 on iTunes and earns a five star rating in MacLife (and other Apple lover spheres). I cannot count the number of times I’ve spent staring at cosmetics, lotion and other “natural” products trying to ascertain what was really in that bottle. Now, I’ve a simple list to access which will remind me which chemicals to avoid. If I’m being mindful of recycling the packaging, there’s a list to help decode plastics. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve likely heard of Skin Deep, the cosmetic safety database which lists the toxicity of ingredients in personal care products.  But did you know there is now a similar database for food?

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There has been a lot of talk lately about how many servings of fish is too much and which fish are the best to eat. With concerns like mercury poisoning, eating farm-raised fish or wild fish, genetic engineering and over fishing, it’s important to consider certain things when choosing your next fish dinner or sushi roll.

Doctors and health professionals in general recommend fish because of the high dose of Omega 3’s fatty acids a serving supplies you with. A 6-ounce serving of fish can provide a day’s worth of high quality protein for adults. Eating fish once a week should not cause any concern for most people. For those fish eaters who partake in multiple servings of fish a week, especially children and pregnant women, the main concern can become mercury poisoning. Eating too much mercury-ridden fish can cause certain health problems including impairment in memory and behavior, tingling in the hands, feet, and lips, as well as causing possible damage to the heart and immune system. Aside from the mercury concern, we now have a number of different fish species that are soon to become extinct due to over fishing, or are being caught using environmentally destructive methods. There are some very simple rules to follow to be certain you are not getting a side dish of mercury or hurting the environment with your fish entree.

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Drinking water poses a threat due to possible perchlorate contamination and BPA leaching from plastic, but it seems reasonable to assume that in the United States, bottled water is free from fecal matter.  Yet until now, there were no requirements to test source water — 70% of which comes from the the same place as tap water.

Beginning December 1st, “bottled water containing E. coli will be considered adulterated,” says the US Food and Drug Administration.  You don’t say?  It doesn’t seem as though we’d need a press release to tell us that, but this is the FDA we’re talking about.

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The chemical giant Bayer — the same Bayer which brought you aspirin, heroin and mustard gas, and currently manufactures a wide variety of pesticides, herbicides, polyurethanes and other questionable chemicals — has wrapped their toxic fingers around our rice.

This is nothing new. The company’s glufosinate-resistant LL62 genetically modified rice isn’t commercially grown, but that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t already entered the global food supply.

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In news that may make supermarket label readers and organic consumers even more wary, a recent report raised serious questions about many brands of soy products.

The investigation by The Cornucopia Institute included a survey, in person visits to farm and processing facilities, and a review of import data from over 60 soy product companies.  The report included a scorecard of each company as well as a comprehensive 54 page report outlining their findings of the overall industry.

Some of their more disturbing findings include:

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New BioGreen water bottles are biodegradable, recyclable and reusable.

It is getting hard to keep track of all the containers you should and shouldn’t be eating and drinking out of, let alone what happens to the stuff when it gets thrown away or recycled. While the latest claims about stainless steel water bottles being generally better for you than plastic ones (some more dubious than others) are generally spot-on, you can’t squeeze stainless, and sometimes, you just gotta squeeze.

Filling that niche is a new BioGreen water bottles made by California Springs Water Bottles. Read the rest of this entry »