Every night, our children say grace before dinner and mention names of those we love who are ill or fighting cancer.

Speaking of cancer, I'm wondering if we should add this prayer."Lord, please bless this food and cleanse it from any chemicals or poisons that it may hold."My wife is a holistic health practitioner and she has educated me and the kids about the dangers of eating cancer-causing foods, especially those that contain genetically modified organisms.According to the World Health Organization, "genetically modified organisms can be defined as organisms such as plants and animals that have been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating and/or recombination."This means that scientists have been modifying the genes in the meat and vegetables we eat to make them resistant to diseases and pesticides. They claim this is necessary to maintain an adequate food supply to feed an ever-growing world population. The FDA has stamped its approval on GMO foods, saying that they are perfectly safe to eat.There is less trust in anything the government tells us these days. Look at the rest of the world. In Europe, there are stricter regulations concerning agricultural use of chemicals and insecticides than in the United States. That makes you think that somebody else believes the message about GMO dangers and we do not.The anti-GMO movement reports that food producing companies are much more concerned about their profits than they are about the health of the nation.Emily Cassidy, a research analyst for AgMag, writes that Monsanto, the country's largest food producer, has doubled the risk of causing cancer in the diets of millions of people because it has used a herbicide called Roundup that contains a chemical that Cassidy claims is a human carcinogen.In 2012, the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology concluded from a case study that when eating a diet of foods containing the chemical glyphosate (found in Roundup), laboratory rats contracted severe liver and kidney damage.And yet, the government continues to tell us that GMO foods are safe to eat. More and more people are not buying their stamp of approval. Look around your grocery stores and you'll see an increasing number of organically raised, pesticide free meats, fruits and vegetables.William Saletan, however, in his article, "Healthy Fixation" contends that our public has been duped by environmental groups to believe that GMO foods cause cancer when the World Health Organization has assured us that these foods are completely safe.And yet, the WHO also says that 80 percent of all cancers are environmentally caused with the other 20 percent coming from our genetic history.How serious is this controversy? Within the past few years, four anti-GMO environmental health and research scientists have mysteriously died, creating further cynicism about what measures might be taken to protect the claim that the foods we eat do not make us ill.Now I admit I still eat foods that may be harmful to me, because I carelessly desire taste more than benefit. Growing up, I lived on fried and fatty foods and our kitchen had grease stains on the ceiling above our stove to prove it. What I ate, however, was not filled with steroids or treated as much with pesticides.Doctors agree that what we eat can make us sick or even kill us. When I bite into a steak, I wonder what chemical was injected into this animal to increase the size of the meat. When I eat corn, I worry that I am also eating bug killer spray.I think I'll make myself a sandwich. Wait. Should I have white or wheat bread? Both are high in carbohydrates and can also spike blood sugar levels. How about the lunchmeat? It's processed in a factory and filled with sodium and nitrates. That can't be good.I'm no longer hungry. I'll just drink a bottle of water. Water contains toxins such as fluoride and chlorine. I'm not thirsty anymore.I'll just sit down and hold my breath as long as I can. Indoor air pollution is five times worse than the pollution outside.I guess my family and I will just have to rely on prayer. Perhaps praying is the best thing we can do to keep us healthy and alive.Rich Strack can be reached at

katehep11@gmail.com.