Obviously there is great benefit from the growing trend (pardon the pun) towards organic and vegan dietary disciplines, but not all of us are there yet, and may not be for some time.  No matter what your choices are when you prowl the aisles of your local supermarket, it is now more important than ever to be an informed, educated shopper, and that means knowing how to read the UPC bar codes on your products.

 Lets begin with GMO and GE bar codes.  If a product has a five digit code starting with 9, that denotes ORGANIC grown food.  If the product has a five digit code starting with 8, that denotes GMO or GE “food”, which is undoubtedly decidedly low in  vibration.  Products showing a four digit bar code are conventionally grown, and contain pesticides.
 

 Lamentably GMO and GE products are not the only hazards to be avoided at the grocery store.  There are the so called ‘black hearted goods’ made in china, as well as anything originating in Japan, of course due to the radiation problems there.  As a cautionary note to those who do not own a radiation detector, I would avoid any seafood from now on just to be sure.   Wouldn’t it be an interesting social experiment to obtain a working radiation detector and use it to scan products prior to purchase…but I digress.
 

Below is a collection of various bar codes you might be interested in knowing about, considering not all GMO foods originate in the US.  Please keep in mind that this is by no means the absolute final word, as different countries may use a different type bar code other than the UPC, such as the EAN-13 system used in Europeand some other countries.  Additionally in some instances the country code may refer not to the origin of the product, but rather the country the code is registered in.  With that in mind, here are the UPC Bar Codes I've collected for you.  The first two or three digits in the UPC bar code are the country identifier.

00 – 09               USA& Canada

50                       UK

49                       Japan

30 – 37               France

40 – 44              Germany

471                    Taiwan

690, 691, 692    CHINA

480                    Philippines

489                    Hong Kong

740-745             Central America

880                     South Korea

885                     Thailand

888                     Vietnam

899                     Indonesia

890                     India

930-939              Australia

955                      Malaysia

I hope this information is helpful.  I remember how in school some kids used to make little ‘cheat sheets’ just before a big test.  That might not be such a bad thing to do at the market as well.  You make out a grocery list, why not make out another list of UPC codes and such that may be important to you, cause they sure aren’t going to print them on the handle of the shopping cart for you!