If you’ve been reading our Saving Dinner posts and articles for any amount of time, hopefully, you’ve grown aware of the dangers of the GMOs lurking in our food chain.
Sometimes it feels like a never-ending battle to avoid these foods. Everywhere we turn, there’s a new food danger to be aware of.
GMOs are hiding where nobody would suspect. One place you probably have GMOs in your home is in an ingredient we all have sitting in our pantries: white vinegar.
I can hear you now: But I am so aware of GMOs and eating organic! How did I not ever consider vinegar?
Probably because most of us have never stopped to think about where vinegar comes from!
White vinegar is made from corn. Yes. Corn.
Corn is distilled into corn alcohol. That corn alcohol is then mixed with water and fermented into vinegar. From there, the vinegar is filtered to make it clear before being bottled. There are more steps to the process than this, but that’s the gist.
White vinegar comes from corn, and at least 88% of the corn grown in the US is genetically modified. And, honestly, that is a conservative estimate.
I’ve always considered white vinegar a non-food anyway, using it only for cleaning. White vinegar is too acidic for cooking, and given the fact that it is GMO, I strongly advise that you keep it out of your mouth at all costs!
In households where white vinegar is mainly used as a cleaning agent, I wouldn’t worry as much about splurging on an organic brand. But, if you’re washing your fruit and veggies with vinegar, it might be worth splurging on a GMO-free brand like Spectrum.