The blight of genetically modified (GM) grass that may be growing on your lawn so spooked the USDA recently, the agency is conducting their first environmental assessment. Now a species of GM rice -- illegal for sale to humans -- has contaminated long-grain rice shipments earmarked for Europe.

The problem began in January when one Southern U.S. farming co-op detected the biotech contamination. However, they waited five months before notifying Bayer about the problem.

Then, Bayer waited two more months before contacting the USDA on July 31, about three weeks before the feds made a public announcement. Chalk up part of the delay to a test developed by Bayer and certified in late August by the USDA that identifies unapproved strains of GM rice mixed with commercial rice.

(This is a division of the German Bayer company that sold AIDS-infected drugs in Europe and Asia that were banned in the United States).

The European Union isn't so trusting, however, and for good reason: It imports more than 260,000 tons of long-grain rice from America annually, and its customers want no part of biotech foods.

Make no mistake -- GM plants will accidentally intermix with other plants. In fact, they have already done so. Unless a halt is put on the entire process, some day in the not-too-distant future you may be completely unable to avoid GM foods, even if that is your major goal in life. It will simply be impossible due to the widespread contamination.

One of the issues that is frequently overlooked with GM crops is intellectual property. Monsanto patents are able to patent all these crops because they manipulated the U.S. legal system. So now it is entirely possible to contaminate a crop with patented seeds and then sue innocent organic farmers for patent infringement unless they buy a license to grow their Frankenfoods.

Oh, did I neglect to say Monsanto added a neat twister to this? That twist is called the terminator gene. So once the organic farmer crops become contaminated they also become "sterile." The farmer then has no choice but to purchase the seeds from Monsanto as his contaminated crops will not produce any seeds he can plant the following year.

With that in mind, I urge you to read a detailed list of tips I posted last summer to protect your health and steer clear of GM products as much as is reasonably possible:

• Reduce or eliminate processed foods. Roughly 75 percent of all the processed foods you see at your corner store contain some GM ingredients.

There are many other reasons why processed foods are not optimal for your health -- for instance they often contain trans fat, acrylamide and little nutritional value -- so avoiding them will not only help you to cut back on the amount of GM foods you are consuming, but will also boost your health.

• Read produce and food labels. GM soybeans and corn make up the largest portion of genetically modified crops. When looking at a product label, if any ingredients such as corn flour and meal, dextrin, starch, soy sauce, margarine, and tofu (to name a few) are listed, there's a good chance it has come from GM corn or soy, unless it's listed as organic.

• Buy organic produce. Buying organic is currently the best way to ensure that your food has not been genetically modified. By definition, food that is certified organic must be free from all GM organisms, produced without artificial pesticides and fertilizers and from an animal reared without the routine use of antibiotics, growth promoters or other drugs.

• Look at produce stickers. Those little stickers on fruit and vegetables contain different PLU codes depending on whether the fruit was conventionally grown, organically grown or genetically modified. The PLU code for conventionally grown fruit consists of four numbers, organically grown fruit has five numbers prefaced by the number nine, and GM fruit has five numbers prefaced by the number eight.