National Nutrition Month Week 2: "Your Way"

Last week we talked about how March is the 32nd annual National Nutrition Month, sponsored by the American Dietetics Association, and the first part of this year's theme, "Eat Right, Your Way, Every Day." This week I'd like to talk about what it means to eat "your way."

According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics' website, the National Nutrition Month campaign is, among other things, "designed to focus attention on the importance of making informed food choices." You can't really eat your way if you aren't able to make informed food choices. And you can't make informed food choices if you don't know what's in your food or where it comes from.

There are a number of things standing in the way of our making informed food choices. Some deliberate, (but it says "diet!") and some simply a product of convenience. (What's a sausage, anyway?) One of the ways in which people are deliberately denying food eaters the information they want is by refusing to label foods that have been genetically modified. Back in November, California came pretty close to making GMO labeling mandatory, but thanks to a whole bunch of marketing money from Monsanto and friends, the bill was voted down.

GMO labeling is back in the news, though, thanks to a recent poll in which 83 percent of respondents said they believe genetically modified organisms should be labelled as such. Additionally, Whole Food Market announced that it will be voluntarily labeling all of its GMO products...by 2018. Better late than never, I guess.

In the meantime, you can look for the Non-GMO Project's label on a handful of products at grocery stores and restaurants across the country to be sure that your food is naturally grown.

What else do you do to stay informed about your food choices?