5 Genetically Modified Foods You Should Never Eat

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Since genetically engineered foods were introduced in 1996, the United States has experienced as upsurge in low birth-weight babies, infertility and an increase in cancer.

Agricultural tech giants like Monsanto have restricted independent research on their crops, which is legal, because under U.S. law, genetically engineered crops are patentable. The studies that have been conducted link genetically modified foods to a vast array of diseases—and long-term effects have yet to be measured.

Below, Indian Country Today Media Network rounds up the five most deadly genetically modified crops or substances on the market that you should avoid at all cost.

1. Corn

This is not our ancestors’ corn. Genetically modified corn contains toxic materials and is at least 20 percent less nutritious for our bodies, according to a report titled “2012 Nutritional Analysis” by globalresearch.ca.

Corn is the worst offender on the GMO list, because at least 65 percent of the U.S. corn production is genetically modified, and it is found in so many products and forms—on the cob, in nearly every processed food with corn syrup, in the corn feed consumed by the chickens and cows you may eat, and the list goes on.

Genetically engineered corn contains the highly toxic gene Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis), which Monsanto introduced in the 1990s to make plants immune to Roundup, which is Monsanto’s weed and insect killer that tears into the stomachs of certain pests.

According to Sherbrooke University Hospital in Canada, Bt has been found in the blood of humans, including in 93 percent of pregnant women they tested, in 80 percent of the umbilical blood in their babies, and in 67 percent of non-pregnant women tested.

2. Soy

More than 90 percent of soybeans grown in the United States are genetically modified, and animal studies have shown devastating effects from genetically engineered soy, including allergies, sterility, birth defects, and offspring death rates up to five times higher than normal, according to Dr. Joseph Mercola in the Huffington Post.

Americans typically consume unfermented soy, mostly in the form of soymilk, tofu, TVP, and soy infant formula, which have at least 10 adverse effects on the body, like reducing one’s ability to assimilate essential nutrients and increasing the potential for thyroid cancer.

3. Sugar Beets

Sugar beets comprise more than 50 percent of U.S. sugar production, while sugar cane counts for the remainder, Natural News reports. Last year, the USDA deemed genetically modified sugar beets safe, de-regulating the crop. Now the hazards of an already toxic substance are exacerbated, presenting the likelihood of increased cancer rates, changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal tract, allergic reactions, infertility and accelerated aging.

But all sugar is best avoided, according to a specialist in pediatric hormone disorders and the leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco, Robert Lustig. “Sugar is not just an empty calorie, its effect on us is much more insidious. It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s a poison by itself,” Lustig says.

4. Aspartame

This fake sugar substitute is made from genetically modified bacteria and is used in basically every diet soda and product on the market.

Aspartame “has been linked to a number of diseases, can impair the immune system, and is even known to cause cancer,” Natural News reported. In one study, of the 48 rats given aspartame, up to 67 percent of all female rats developed tumors roughly the size of golf balls or larger.

5. Canola

Canola—marketed as being void of “bad fats”—is a genetically engineered oil developed in Canada from the Rapeseed plant, which is part of the rape or mustard plant family.

Rapeseed oil is poisonous to insects and used as a repellent.

So while olive oil is made from olives and coconut oil is made from coconuts, canola oil is made from the rapeseed. Canola is short for “Canadian oil low acid.”

Agri-Alternatives, a magazine for the farming industry, notes “By nature, these rapeseed oils, which have long been used to produce oils for industrial purposes, are… toxic to humans and other animals.”

But, canola oil companies insist that through genetic engineering, it is no longer rapeseed, but “canola” instead.

According to Dr. Josh Axe, “It’s an industrial oil, not a food, and has been used in candles, soaps, lipsticks, lubricants, inks and biofuels. Rapeseed oil is what is used to make mustard gas. In its natural state, it causes respiratory distress, constipation, emphysema, anemia, irritability and blindness.”