It's easy. Buy some green stickers and red stickers (or use tape with a marker or whatever). Find any GMO-containing products in your fridge and cupboards and put red stickers on them. If you find things that are certainly non-GMO, put green stickers on them. Leave the rest blank or use a third color- possibly golden for those you're not sure about. Now, do some sleuthing. Use our PDXShoppingGuide or the sources it uses which we list on it. Try brand websites. Ask us in an email or on Facebook about your list of unknown products. Once you have a lot labeled, try to substitute greens for reds over time next time you buy.
Advanced: Start avoiding big brands that have GMO products even if you do have an organic one. Avoid products with unsavory ingredients and/or practices (they go hand in hand- if they don't care about the consumer, they probably don't care about lots of things they do to people and the planet.) Put a red tag on them after you've gotten rid of your GMO foods. Honest T sold 40% to Coke in 2008. I stopped buying them and discovered Guayaki. I love their tea in the tall can called "EnlightenMint." I don't like what Coke and Pepsi have done in the world. Avoiding the GM ingredients plus their general bad ways was how we found Oogave cola. It tastes like a fountain Coke - but better. Coke brought back a real sugar version but they have all this nasty stuff in it and Oogave has a very simple list of ingredients that we like. I would like to find a replacement Diet Pepsi flavored cola too. Oogave is non GMO & there's nothing seedy about this company, so we want them to do really well. If we stay on top of it, and exercise this discretion, we consumers can help them can stick around by supporting them. It's the old saying, "Use it or lose it." Buy an independent soft drink product or watch Pepsi, Coke and Dr. Pepper gobble up the company. (Seriously- look at this. https://www.msu.edu/~howardp./softdrinks.html). You have to enable independents to reject the money of the megacorps who will come knocking (pounding) at the door as soon as they become a threat to their market share. Without our loyalty, companies are forced not just under- but to sell their product name and watch it be destroyed. All they worked to do is violated and we consumers don't realize it and still buy it after it's been commandeered. Smartfood, Snapple, part of Honest T... the first sign of a buyout is the tripling of the ingredients labels putting in addictive and otherwise repulsive chemicals. The megacorps actually hide their ownership of the company. It's vile.
As we clean out our cupboards of GMOs, we find other things we don't like about our foods and we simply trade them out so feel free to take the next step after you get rid of the GMOs and get rid of negativity. Where do they source the palm oil- from sustainable farms or wiping out elephants and orangutans and rainforests? We called Hain-Celestial's MaraNatha about the palm oil in peanut butter. It's sustainable. I said, goodness if you're going to go to the trouble the representative told me they do to make sure of it, put it on the label! She's passing that on to management. Work at your own pace but be in that process starting today. If you find the GMO avoidance thing daunting, this is a mellow way to change but not be overwhelmed.
If you can't do the tags because it seems that some are very hard to figure out, but you want to play and you're local, send us an email. We can do it with you. Depending on the distance you are from us and time involved we may ask for a donation for flyers that we hand out to people. But we are here by email (and phone after we're introduced) to do this with you for free.