Aloha from the Love Life! Team. October is GMO awareness month, but to us at Down to Earth, GMO awareness is always year-round.
As a mother I feel very concerned about the uncertainty of GMOs and the possible effects they may have on my family. I would love for my food to be labeled so that I can make informed decisions when choosing foods. But until we have nationwide success in a labeling law, there are two ways that I can take precautions. One of the ways to avoid GMOs is to choose foods that have the USDA certified Organic seal, the other is to look for the Non-GMO Project Verified Seal.
The Organic seal certifies that GMOs were not used in production:
The Non-GMO Project Verified Seal means that the product bearing this seal has passed a rigorous verification process by the Non-GMO Project:
Down to Earth, along with the natural products industry, strongly supports this Project. It is a non-profit collaboration of companies, farmers, and consumers offering North America’s first program that verifies non-GMO products. The Non-GMO Project provides a seal of approval to manufacturers that meet their rigorous non-GMO standards. Backed by independent testing, the “Non-GMO Project Verified” seal means that GMO contamination has been avoided throughout the growth and harvesting of crops, their processing, storage and packaging. Thousands and thousands of products have been verified to date, and you see more and more products with the Non-GMO Project Verfied seal every day!
Thankfully Down to Earth is a strong advocate of labeling and has very high standards about the products we have in our stores. We do not sell any single GMO ingredients, so that makes it easy to purchase the “big watch” item such as corn, soy, canola, zucchini, summer squash, sugar beets, and alfalfa.. But when it comes to ingredients in processed packaged foods there is no way to tell for sure since we do not have a labeling requirement. Down to Earth supports Non-GMO Project Verified products, another thing that makes me immensely happy as a mama. I always look for this label knowing the integrity of the verification process to help further avoid GMOs in food. For information about GMOs, check out the FAQs page of their website. Another source of great information is the Label GMOs page on the Down to Earth website.
Also, for the month of October the Love Life Team, Jordan Ragasa and myself, have been featuring Non-GMO recipes (of course we always make Non-GMO recipes), but we are featuring soy and corn as main ingredients. Here is our delicious menu: Tofu Poke, Corn Fritters with a Tofu Dipping Sauce, and a Chocolate Peanut Butter Tofu Pie that is out of this world! On Maui I will teach: Raw Manicotti, Kale Salad with a Papaya Seed Dressing, and a Papaya Smoothie. Visit our website to see our schedule of free coooking classes held monthly at various Down to Earth locations. We hope to see you at one of the classes. Hope you have an awesome October!
Mahalo Nui Loa,
Trisha "Mama T" Gonsalves
Community Outreach Team Leader/ Event Coordinator