It is getting harder to do the shopping. Get one allergy, intolerance, or celiac guest for dinner and it gets complicated. What if you want to avoid GMOs, dyes or artificial sweeteners? I thought I would share some simple tricks to make sense of all the options.

There is much that could be said on the topic of GMOs. The scope of that debate is beyond this post, but what I want to share is a way to use your personal viewpoint to guide your shopping.

Produce items will have SPU stickers on them. If the code number shown starts with an 8 than it is a GMO food. If the number starts with a 9, it is not GMO. Here is an example:

Any other number or a zero mean that the consumer will not be able to tell as the food producer has elected not to share the information. Safe to say, those foods would be, ‘conventionally grown’ as the lingo goes. This means probably fertilized, sprayed with chemicals while growing and perhaps treated with fumigants, irradiation or chemicals to lengthen shelf life. The SPU code is a voluntary system but it’s a start.

For the rest of the market, check out the free App ipitt.