In this lecture, Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of Deception, summarizes the contents of his book, which explains how genetically modified foods cause health problems, and their potential for creating a vast array of unforeseen and surprising illnesses. He also sheds light on how the corruption within the U.S. government, the FDA, and the GMO industry has allowed, and perpetuated, the cover-up.

Smith mentions the superior work of Arpad Pusztai, PhD, a (formerly pro-biotech) scientist who was hired to evaluate the safety of GMO food, and then fired for his negative findings and his outspoken criticism of the industry’s shoddy science.

Fortunately, he finally managed to get his animal feeding study published in the journal Lancet in 1999 (see the Lancet October 16, 1999;354(9187):1353-4 for the full PDF article).

Despite the efforts of concerned scientists like Pusztai, you may be surprised to learn that you have a 75 percent chance of picking a food with genetically modified ingredients in the United States. This is because at least seven out of every 10 items have been genetically modified!

Many of you probably try to avoid genetically modified foods, but very few know what they really are, since there are no labeling requirements identifying GMO ingredients. To get an idea of how widespread these ingredients are, I recommend taking a look at The GMO Food Guide I published a couple of months ago.

Jeffrey Smith’s website www.seedsofdeception.com also gives you a more in-depth overview of GMO laced products, but the four main culprits are:

The offspring of these products include items such as maltodextrin, soy lecitin, and high fructose corn syrup. Other GMO products include:

• Some varieties of zucchini, crookneck squash, and papayas from Hawaii
• Milk containing rbGH
• Rennet (containing genetically modified enzymes) used to make hard cheeses
• Aspartame (NutraSweet)

What Can You Do?

Along with using the GMO Food Guide and avoiding the products mentioned above, there’s other tricks you that can use to figure out if something is genetically modified in your fresh produce aisles:

• Examine produce stickers on the fruits and vegetables you buy. The PLU code for conventionally grown fruit consists of four numbers; organically grown fruit has five numbers prefaced by the number nine; and GM fruit has five numbers prefaced by the number eight.
• Buy organic produce as often as you can. By definition, food that is certified organic must be free from all GM organisms.

Stay away from all processed foods, as most of these contain corn and soy ingredients.