Saturday, April 6, 2013

GMO Labeling at Whole Foods Market - Delicious and Healthy Living

As a vendor at Whole Foods Markets, I received a letter from their corporate headquarters on their plans to label products containing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's).  I have seen a number of posts on Facebook that indicate that people don't understand why it will take years (2018 to be exact) for this labeling to go into effect.  That is an excellent question that I also want to know the answer to.  This letter clarifies why this labeling will take so long.

The prevalence of Genetically Modified Organisms in our food supply is now SO high that it is very difficult for the many vendors who sell their products to Whole Foods Markets to source where the ingredients came from in the first place.  They have to make certain that even the fields where the ingredients are grown won't receive cross contamination from nearby GMO crops. 

Think about it for a moment.  If I make a jar of tapenade, the olives come from one place, capers from another and garlic from still another.  It can be tough to trace back to the farms and make absolutely certain that ALL of the ingredients in my product contain no GMO's.  Whole Foods Market is simply giving their vendors plenty of time to trace back ingredients and make decisions about whether or not to replace them or to go ahead and just label them as containing GMO's.  This makes a lot of work for the vendor who will have to print up new labels that comply with Whole Food's new standards.

For now, there are many products in Whole Foods that already are labeled as non-GMO.  Products will continue to be labeled as such between now and the 2018 deadline.  Keep looking at the labels and purchase products according to what you are comfortable with. 

If a label has no mention of GMO's it may contain them but does not mean it does.  Whole Foods Market has worked hard to keep products with what they call "dirty ingredients" off of their shelves since they opened.  Unfortunately, it has become more and more difficult to do so with GMO ingredients in so much of our food supply here in the United States.

Briefly, GMO's are lab created foods that use the DNA of living organisms that are often from two different species and then they splice them together. For instance, they crossed a cold water fish with a tomato to give it a longer growing season (as tomatoes naturally do not do well in cold weather).  These things would never occur naturally so why would we want to put them into our bodies? What do they do to us?  How could they do this without consulting the consumer of the tomato?  What if you are vegan or deathly allergic to fish?  Is the massive rise in food allergies due to these practices (more than 20 years of GMO's)?  Is that why bee populations dying off, from GMO tainted pollen?  What other crops are modified and with what?  These are only a few questions of the moral, ethical and health implications that we must ask ourselves when it comes to GMO's.

Thank you to Whole Foods Markets for standing up for our right to know what is in our food.  Please shop there and at other health food grocery stores for the best ingredients available from vendors that care about our health and well being.

For more information on living a Delicious and Healthy life, go to www.DeliciousAndHealthy.com
See my cooking show, "Free Food with Dr. Meg" here!


  





Thursday, January 10, 2013

New Year. New You - An Update

Ten days into 2013 and the sense of newness is going strong.  It is for me and I hope it is for you as well.  This is a time to reflect back on the last year and take stock of what's passed as you look towards the future and what may come.  Some years were so tough that I didn't want to look behind or ahead.  Lucky for me, this year was not one of them.  If this was a tough one for you, I hope you reconsider ignoring this time of transition.  No matter how low you go, there's always some way to go up.  Take time to find it and create a new year for you.

I can't help but notice that the last time I blogged was three days post juice fast in July!  I am happy to say that there was a good reason for that.  It was just then that my life as a private chef in Hollywood took off in a way that I could not have imagined.  A number of people asked me if I thought the juice fast had anything to do with the rise in my business.  I would have to say yes, I believe it did.  There is level of clarity that comes with cleansing and rejuvenating the body through juicing that I think creates an opening for the mind and spirit to soar to greater heights.  And so it was for me . . .

I was a few days into my juice fast when I met with NCIS actress, Cote De Pablo.  She said she knew I was the right chef for her when I showed up to our first meeting with a big container of juice in hand and shared my stories of eating to heal illnesses in my own body.  I began my work with her that week, sipping juice as I cooked her food.

A couple of weeks into working with Cote, she asked me to cook for a dinner party with a high profile guest.  By the end of the night, Martyn Lawrence Bullard of Million Dollar Decorators tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Darling, I just love your food, I wonder if you would like to come work for me?"  So, I did and word quickly spread of my delicious and healthy food as big name celebrities sampled it at dinner parties and as guests of my new found clients.

It is a dream come true to cook for these wonderful people but I have to say that the biggest thrill comes when I get to see how healthy and happy they have become by eating food that suits their systems.  When I tune into their shows or see them on a talk show, I look at their color, how much weight they have lost, their energy levels and overall health.  That's what it's all about.  Seeing their vitality increase.

So what's ahead for this year?  As I continue to cook for the best clients in the world and teach at Whole Foods Market, I am planning on a few new things too.  I have a new book I am writing (details to come), videos to shoot, food products to make and get to market, a supper club to start and a TV show I am working on getting produced.  I think I have my work cut out for me!

If you're feeling stuck and want to get the energy moving again for a great 2013, I suggest doing what I did on New Year's Eve.  I spent some time writing in my journal.  I wrote out thirteen goals I have for the year, twenty things I am grateful for and a request for help from the Universe for it to happen with ease.  I don't know what the future holds exactly but if it's anything like last year, I am in for a year that's better than I could possibly imagine.  It is my sincerest wish that you get to have the same.  Happy New Year!

For more information on living a Delicious and Healthy life, see my website at www.DeliciousAndHealthy.com.  To see my books, click here.