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Non-GMO: Hottest Food Trend

Consumers of any age can improve their health with one change. "Avoid eating genetically modified organisms (GMOs)," says expert Jeffrey M. Smith, who points to evidence of mounting health risks associated with gene-spliced foods.

Smith urges consumers to cross off brands that contain genetically modified (GM) ingredients, which are in 60-70% of foods sold in the U.S. The principle offenders are non-organic soy and corn derivatives and canola and cottonseed oils. Thus, Ragu tomato sauce would be off limits, since it contains corn syrup and soybean oil, but Light Ragu or Barilla brand sauces, which contain olive oil and no corn sweetener, are non-GMO.

"Consumers in the U.S. are being used as human guinea pigs by biotech companies, which rushed their GMOs to market without adequate studies and before the science was ready," says Smith. "Once Americans learn they are feeding these high-risk foods to their children, they will demand non-GMO alternatives." In Europe, where consumer knowledge about GMOs is considerably higher, shoppers' concerns prompted food manufacturers there to remove all GM ingredients. Smith sees this trend building in the US, with more and more healthy brands declaring ingredients "Non-GMO" on the label.

Smith's new book, Genetic Roulette: The documented health risks of genetically engineered foods, due out in the spring, links GMOs to risks such as allergies, immune system dysfunction, potentially pre-cancerous cell growth, stunted organs and death. "Many of the beliefs about DNA that were popular when GM foods were introduced ten years ago," he says, "have been proven wrong. Swapping genes between species turns out to have far more unpredicted dangerous side effects than we thought."

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