Good Spices for Fighting Cancer; The Bad News About GM Food

Recent research from the University of Texas Cancer Center has found that the active ingredient curcumin found in the spices turmeric and curry, seems to fight cancer, specifically melanoma. The spice halts the cancer cells from spreading and then causes them to kill themselves. The spice also helped with disorders such as arthritis. An interesting side note is that Curcumin has long been used as a food additive in India and other Asian countries where the incidence of the top four cancers that occur in America is four times lower. On the political front, news that genetically engineered food may not be good for you has surfaced in Germany. The German politcians forced the biotech company Monsanto to expose a controversial (hidden) document that states their bio-engineered corn caused animals that were fed on it to develop kidney and liver disease, increased blood sugar levels and reactions that mimic cancer and allergies. The scary thing is that Genetically Engineered food is contained in 75 % of processed food with soybeans and corn being the most modified. That is why the most important thing an informed health consumer can do is read labels. If you know what ingredients to avoid, you'll know what foods to purchase. The odds are that any processed food that contains "starch, corn flour and meal, dextrin, soy sauce and margarine" have been modified. As far as produce goes, Gentically Modified Produce has a 5 number code prefaced by the number 8 on the PLU sticker. All this label reading and food checking sounds like a big hassle (it is!), that is why it is just easier to avoid processed foods to begin with and eat whole foods that do not come in boxes or cans with 150 ingredients on the labels.