Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Can you spot GMO foods? (Genetically Modified Organism)

I thought this was an interesting article on how to avoid GMO foods (which make up at least 70% of all foods in the grocery store).



Quick reference for being able to determine if your produce is organic, conventional or GMO:


Look at Produce Stickers


Those little stickers on fruit and vegetables contain different PLU codes depending on whether the fruit was conventionally grown, organically grown or genetically engineered. The PLU code for conventionally grown fruit consists of four numbers, organically grown fruit five numbers prefaced by the number 9, and GM fruit five numbers prefaced by the number 8.


For example:




  • Conventionally grown PLU: 1022




  • Organically grown PLU: 91022




  • Genetically modified PLU: 81022




In terms of fruit, another strategy is to avoid hybrid varieties, which are fruits that have been altered by humans. Typically hybrid fruits contain more sugar than regular varieties so they taste sweeter and can be picked out because generally they don't contain seeds (seedless watermelon, seedless grapes, etc.). Although there are also seeded hybrid varieties, avoiding seedless fruits is one of the more prominent ways to avoid hybrid fruits.



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