Consumer Beware!

How often do you pick up a box of cereal or some other food in the grocery store and try to make sense of the endless list of ingredients?  Even if you manage to pronounce all of them correctly, how much of it do you get?  I mean really get it?  Is it harmless?  Is it responsible for this health issue or the other?  When do the alarms go off in your head?  

For all you iPhone users out there, here are a couple of apps which might make that trip to the grocery store a little bit easier.  

Choose Healthier Foods
The application from Fooducate Blog appears to give information on ingredients, serving sizes and a grade.  I think it also provides some alternative products.  The blog is pretty impressive too (started by a dad who seems to have similar qualms as me about what to put in our kids’ mouths).
http://www.fooducate.com/blog/category/fooducate-mobile-app/

Avoid GMO foods (Genetically Modified Organisms)
This application from the ShopNoGMO Project is free and lists the brands and products which have been verified to be GMO free.  It also lists common GMO crops and ingredients which use them.    
http://www.nongmoproject.org/consumers/search-participating-products/iphone-app-shopping-guide/

They have a pdf version as well over here
http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com/download.html

As a non iPhone user, I guess I still have to rely on Google and memory to decipher the ingredients.  However here is a helpful tip - a product that says ‘made with organic ingredients only’ is required to have a minimum of 70% organic ingredients but it also has to have 100% non-GMO ingredients.  I guess one should just stick to products made with 'organic ingredients only' to avoid GM.  Hmmmn, wouldn’t it be much simpler to have products with GMOs in them labeled as such?  Apparently 9 out of 10 Americans would like that but the FDA is probably paying more attention to the Monsanto lobbyists with much deeper pockets.  I wonder if it has something to do with those 53% of Americans who say they would not buy GMO foods if the products were labeled as such.  That is a gripe for another posting as is the whole argument against GMO in the first place.  

In the meantime, here are a couple of action related links if you want to voice your opinions about GMOs.

http://organicconsumers.org/monsanto/

Not to get all political and stuff but really it should be consumer demand that controls the fortunes of the big food corporations.  Then why is it the other way around right now?  We ought to take action to change that.  After all it is a matter of our health and future.