I am always on the search for healthy snacks that I can take with me on-the-go or for whenever I travel.

My ideal snack is nutritious, filling, and not too sweet. I don’t want to eat something and suffer through that “sugar hangover”, even if it is derived from a natural source.

Pumpkin seeds, also known as pepitas, are that perfect food. Not only do they satisfy my hunger, but they provide excellent health benefits:

- Rich in minerals: magnesium, iron, copper, and phosphorus.

- A great source of Vitamin B, Vitamin E, Vitamin K, and protein.

- Makes you happy. Pumpkin seeds contains tryptophan, an amino acid that gets converted in the body into serotonin, a neurotransmitter widely believed to be responsible for happiness. (This is particularly important for someone like me, who was on antidepressants for more than a decade.)

- High in zinc, which protects against osteoporosis.

Interestingly, pumpkin seeds were first discovered in Mexico around 7,000 BC, and North Americans were the first ones to recognize their medicinal properties.

With all of these great attributes of pumpkin seeds, why can’t you just buy them out of the bulk bin?

Well, you can. However, I prefer buying Gopal’s Pumpkin Seed Sprouties. And here’s why.

Gopal’s is sprouting these seeds, which means soaking them in water and then dehydrating them.

Soaking pumpkin seeds, or germinating them, helps to remove enzyme inhibitors. The more enzymes that we can get out of a food, the better.

Among other things, enzymes play an important role in the digestion of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, and they also support the immune system.

In the process, soaking also increases the seeds’ bio-availability, which means we can maximize their health benefits.

A few things of note here. One, the organic pumpkin seeds by Gopal’s are raw. This means that they are in the most pure, natural form and have not been roasted. Two, the company is adding stone ground Himalayan Crystal Salt, a very high quality salt. It is important to remember that not all salts are the same, and most companies will use very poor quality salt, which should be avoided.

Gopal’s offers two different types of their organic pumpkin seeds: original and savory (below). The savory one includes turmeric, lemon, ginger, and cayenne — all foods that have incredible medicinal properties.

I like to mix the two flavors, which gives it a very balanced taste.

If you’re traveling or want a nutritious snack to take with you to work, definitely check out Gopal’s Pumpkin Seed Sprouties.  Click HERE to buy the original ones and click HERE to buy the savory ones.

Needless to say, I am a big fan!

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One challenge is that some of the items that I have written about in the past – pressed juice, high pressure pasteurization technology, and GMO activism – will be a growing trend every single year. So, what I try to do is not to repeat myself but find emerging trends that are at their early stages.

For 2013, here are my Top 5 Organic Food Trends.

GLUTEN-FREE OATS

As most people know, gluten-free is an enormous market but finding gluten-free organic oats at a reasonable cost is a real challenge. While there are some companies using gluten-free oats, a majority of them do not because the price is simply too high.

My prediction is that (1) the supply of this ingredient increases, thereby dropping the cost, or (2) more companies will start incorporating gluten-free oats into their products, even if it means bumping up the end-price to consumers.

Similar to food sprayed with pesticides, educated and health-conscious eaters do not want gluten and will pay more to avoid it.

INLFUX OF EUROPEAN PRODUCTS

In the past, if a company wanted to sell an organic product in both the U.S. and the European Union (EU), this required two sets of organic certification paperwork, one here and one in Europe. As a result, not a lot of people went down this road.

Last year, however, the U.S. and the EU signed a historic organic food free-trade agreement and now only one set of paperwork is required. While there are a few differences with organic requirements for livestock and wine products, anything that is certified organic in one trade zone can be sold as certified organic in the other.

2013 is the year when American consumers will have a lot more choice when it comes to European organic food products.

SUGAR-FREE

Even though the alternative sweetener coconut palm sugar (one of my top organic food trends of 2011) will continue its rapid growth, I firmly believe that there is a small movement taking hold that doesn’t want any added sugar in its food.

Company founders and executives have been hearing these complaints since so many products are sweetened or over-sweetened. As such, companies will do one of two things.

They’ll start to offer sugar-free versions of products that have traditionally contained some type of added sweetener  (palm sugar, agave, brown rice syrup, honey, stevia, cane juice, etc.) or they’ll use fruit (dates, berries, etc.) to naturally sweeten the product.

PROBIOTIC DRINKS

There is a growing acceptance that many of the health problems that we suffer from today is because we don’t have enough of the beneficial bacteria in our bodies. This is especially the case with children, and some doctors believe that probiotics significantly help people deal with digestive issues, autism, food allergies, autoimmune disorders, diabetes, depression, and many other ailments.

As such, probiotic drinks will become much more mainstream and the market for them will really take off.

TRANSPARENCY IN THE RAW FOOD WORLD

For organic food, there are strict government rules, regulations, and enforcement. If you fraudulently mislabel something as organic, you’ll go to jail.

In the raw food world, a niche segment of the organic food industry, there is a widely accepted assumption that anything that is not heated above 118 degrees is considered “raw”.

Is this number set in stone and accepted by absolutely everyone? No.

Is there any government regulation or enforcement about raw food and this 118 degree threshold? No.

So, this begs the following question. How do we know if something is truly raw when it is labeled as such on the packaging?

The answer is that we don’t know. Therefore, we must rely on the ethics of the company selling the product.

While many raw food businesses are honest and forthright about this, there is talk in the marketplace that some product companies are not being truthful and are playing very, very loose with the term “raw”.

Since the government is unlikely to intervene in this area, I expect there to be customer backlash this year about raw food production methods and claims. Customers will demand transparency and will no longer take the “raw” label at face value.

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The very first video that I launched on livingmaxwell (see bottom of the post) was about the raw food diet and my profile of The Prana Cafe, an organic raw food restaurant in Newton, MA.

Back then, I was still living in Boston and frequented The Prana Cafe A LOT. Within time I got to know the owner, Taylor Wells, and it turned out that we had many things in common.

Aside from the fact that we were each very into organic, we both went to Brown and played on the tennis team there. So, we hit it off right away.

The thing that struck me about Taylor Wells was that she appeared to be this “superwoman” who had more on her plate than anyone I knew and had a ridiculous amount of energy.

She had a raw food restaurant, four yoga studios in two states, a consulting business, and several blogs. Furthermore, she had three children (two of which she home-schooled) and was pregnant with twins in 40s. Never once did I hear her complain about how busy she was, and there was a constant smile on her face. Nothing but words of gratitude flowed out of her mouth.

I always thought to myself  “I don’t know what she is doing but this person is something special.”

In her new book, Create the Best Life Ever: Real Stories to Get Inspired, Taylor Wells lays out exactly how she is able to manifest the best life ever.

Her three core strategies are:

- Practice yoga every day: It is yoga for Taylor Wells, but it could be another form of exercise for other people. The point is to move the negative energy out of your body every single day.

- Practice Deliberate Creation: This centers around thinking thoughts that feel good.

- Eat foods you love in moderation: Despite the fact that she was a raw vegan for seven years, Taylor Wells does not prescribe one diet over the others. For her, it is all about intention and eating foods that enable you to practice yoga and practice Deliberate Creation.

The book gives many, many stories about Taylor’s life, how she met the man of her dreams (literally, of her dreams) and how she handles everyday situations, including major setbacks. Even though she is a Super Mom, Taylor, just like everyone else, suffered a string of hardships including a divorce, a miscarriage, and the eventual sale of The Prana Cafe.

To be used in conjunction with the book is a set of important cards with positive, spiritual, and inspirational sayings on them. These are my favorite.

So, where is Taylor these days?

Still in Boston, Taylor now has five kids, five yoga studios in two states, five blogs (including super-mom.com), a consulting business, and this book.

Oh, I absolutely should not forget to mention that she teaches a 4:30AM yoga class five days per week!! Take a look at her yoga schedule and see for yourself.

If you’re looking to create the best life ever in 2013 and want some guidance from someone proven, definitely check out Taylor’s book and her cards.

Taylor Wells has something to teach us all.

Maybe there are many people out who feel the same way, but I just absolutely love putting organic coconut oil on my bread. (When I do this around my father around, he looks at me like I am an alien. For him, it is nothing but butter.)

I have nothing against jelly. In fact, I really like the BioNaturae jellies that come from Italy.  They are spectacular, fresh, and sugar-free.

However, the taste that coconut oil gives to bread is second to none in my book.

But I am kind of a coconut oil fanatic. I always put it in my smoothies and my chia seed puddings, take a teaspoon of it after a workout, and use it as a moisturizer.

Furthermore, the health benefits of coconut are numerous. As a medium-chain fatty-acid, it is easily digested, does not cause spikes in insulin, is full of lauric acid (which gets converted in the body and provides anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties), supports the immune system, strengthens the heart, and promotes a lean body, among other things.

There is a popular book out there called The Coconut Oil Miracle, which people mention to me all of the time. I’ve read parts of it, not the whole book, and the reviews on Amazon are extremely positive.

So, I was just standing around the kitchen today thinking about how hooked I am with my bread and coconut oil, and thought that I would share this with you.

Are you a fan of this combination as well? Or, am I alone here? I’d love to know, so please leave a comment below.

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The raw, organic coconut oil I use is by Artisana, and the brand name of the bread that is at the top is called Rudolph’s. It is found in the frozen section of the supermarket and is wheat-free, yeast-free, and salt-free.

I did a post about Rudolph’s a while ago and am a massive fan of it.

Last night at Pure Food and Wine, Veria Living, the leading media company dedicated to health and wellness, had a party to celebrate the launch of Veria Voices.

As it was pitched to us, Veria Voices is “an exciting new programming initiative designed to give the top leaders in wellness a significant voice across all of the Veria platforms – TV, Internet, mobile” and the five of us above (l to r, Jess Underhill, Elena Brower, Rebekah Borucki, Matt Stabile) were selected to be the initial Voices.

Prior to our dinner, I knew that Veria Living wasn’t doing much in terms of organic but was convinced this could be a huge area of growth and opportunity for the company.

After speaking with the management team and listening to its goals, I became very, very encouraged. Why?

Veria Living appears to be ready, willing and enthusiastic to spread the message about organic food. And as you can imagine, this was music to my ears.

Veria Voices starts filming on Thursday, and I will keep you posted as to what happens with the show.

As for the amazing food that we were served at Pure Food and Wine, this is what I had.

ARUGULA SALAD

Salad of wild arugula with avocado and strawberries, blue cashew cheese, and crispy fennel. The dressing was a fennel herb vinaigrette.

SWEET CORN AND CASHEW TAMALE

This sweet corn and cashew tamale came with chile spiced portabella, salsa verde, cashew coconut sour cream, avocado, and raw cacao mole.

I’ve eaten many, many times at Pure Food and Wine over the years and this may have been the best dish yet. The flavor profile was complex, it had a crunchy texture, and the cacao mole rounded it off in a perfect way. To be honest, words cannot do it justice.

CLASSIC SUNDAE

Always spectacular, rich, and decadent, the classic sundae was made with vanilla and chocolate ice cream, chocolate and cherry framboise, sliced bananas, candied almonds, and vanilla cream.

Superfoods provide excellent health benefits and many of them are loaded with antioxidants.

This is particularly the case with two of the superfoods that I used this morning to make a Maca Berry Blast smoothie.

Maca comes in powder form and originates from Peru. Thousands of years old, Maca is believed to enhance your energy, stamina, and endurance. Some men claim that it also helps with the libido.

Maqui berry comes in powder form as well and is considered the highest antioxidant berry in the world. It has an ORAC score (which measures antioxidant activity) of 616. Its closest competitor, acai, has an ORAC score of 185, which is 3x less than maqui berry.

Organic ingredients used:

- 1 glass of Brazil nut milk. (See video below for how to make nut milk. I used 3 cups of cold filtered water and 3/4 cup of raw, unsalted Brazil nuts.)

- 1 banana

- 3/4 cup of blueberries

- 1 teaspoon of maqui berry powder

- 1 teaspoon of maca

- 1 teaspoon of coconut palm sugar

- 1/2 teaspoon of raw coconut oil

- 1.5 tablespoons of Boku’s protein powder

Finally, put all of the organic ingredients into the blender for 20 seconds.

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If you are having this smoothie for breakfast and want it cold right away, be sure that you make the nut milk the night before and keep it in the fridge.

Or, the other option is to put the filtered water in the fridge the night before, so it is sufficiently cold when you make the smoothie in the morning.

Click HERE to purchase the stainless steel mesh strainer that I use in the video below.

Give this Maca Berry Blast a try and let me know what you think!

For the base of the smoothies, I often use Brazil nuts or black sesame seeds to make the milk.

However, when I am in the mood for something a little lighter, I’ll substitute nuts/seeds with tea. Yes, tea.

While I am completely sold on the medicinal benefits of tea, I am just not a (hot) tea drinker. So, in order to get the huge amounts of antioxidant benefits of tea, I’ll use it in my smoothies.

Today, I made a green tea cacao smoothie.

Organic ingredients used for 2 large glasses:

- 3 cups of cold filtered water

- 3 small bananas

- 3 packets of ActiGreen, a special green tea powder with 3-4x the amounts of antioxidants as normal green tea.

- 1.5 tablespoons of palm sugar

- 1.5 tablespoons of raw cacao powder

- 1/2 teaspoon of Artisana raw coconut oil

- 2 tablespoons of chia seeds

- 3 tablespoons of Boku’s protein powder

Finally, put all of the organic ingredients into the blender for 15 seconds.

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Two great things about this smoothie:

1) It can be made in about 2-3 minutes and requires almost no prep time.

2) It is a fantastic recipe to make while traveling. If you’re going somewhere that has a blender, you can literally pack all of the ingredients that you need in order to make yourself a nutritious breakfast in the morning.

And, yes, this green tea cacao smoothie tasted as good as it looks. It is light, refreshing, packed with antioxidants, and won’t weigh you down.

For a long time, people have been emailing me wanting to know which organic protein powder they should buy.

It took a while but now I finally have an answer.

Boku’s Super Protein is the best certified organic protein powder that I have seen so far.

While I have no issue at all with consuming whey protein (dairy-based), Boku’s Super Protein is different in that it is both raw and vegan.

And when you start to look closely at the ingredient list in this protein powder, you can immediately tell that a great amount of care and thought went into the formulation.

Let’s talk about a few of the ingredients:

Protein – It uses a grain base of sprouted, bio-fermented brown rice. This process allows for maximum absorption of minerals and nutrients. It also contains dulse, one of the most nutritious sea vegetables on the planet.

I found the inclusion of dulse to be very, very interesting. Sea vegetables are an incredible source of minerals but they remain a food that people rarely consume.

Sweeteners – The combination of dehydrated Vermont maple syrup, vanilla powder (I LOVE vanilla powder), and lucuma (a superfruit from South America) really works.

Enzymes – This vegan protein powder includes a proprietary enzyme formulation called Boku Super Enzymes. Enzymes are incredibly important for digestion and are something that I take as a supplement before meals.

Here is a picture of Boku’s protein powder.

If you are used to a whey protein powder, the taste of Boku’s Super Protein is slightly different but still excellent. You need to adjust your palate and understand that this is a grain-based product, not a dairy-based one.

The other thing that I can tell you about Boku is that the people behind it are very impressive. When you see a company that has multiple products, all of which are all outstanding (the bars are amazing and so is the green matcha tea), you know that these individuals know what they are doing.

Boku’s Super Protein is certified organic, doctor formulated, kosher, raw, vegan, and free of wheat, gluten, soy, and dairy, and can only be purchased online.

TWO OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW

1) Boku’s organic protein powder can only be purchased online. It is not available at Whole Foods or at health food stores. The company’s strategy is Direct-to-Consumer.

2) How much do I like this organic protein powder?

Well, they have my credit card on file and I am on auto-ship with this product along with their green Super Food.

If I am purchasing Boku’s products with my own money, I cannot give it a much bigger endorsement. This is a fantastic product, and I suggest you get on auto-ship as well.

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Here is a recipe that I love to make. Of course, I only use all organic ingredients.

Brazil Nut Cacao Smoothie

- 1 glass of Brazil nut milk (below is the video on how to make nut milk). Use raw, unsalted Brazil nuts – 2.5 cups of filtered water and .5 cup of Brazil nuts, then blend. You can add more water and nuts, depending on how much you want to make, and can also vary the ratio for desired thickness.
- 1.5 teaspoons of raw cacao powder
- 1/2 teaspoon of raw organic coconut oil
- 1 teaspoon of coconut palm sugar
- 1 banana
- 1.5 tablespoons of Boku Super Protein

Put all of the ingredients in the blender and mix.

Tip: Since I want it to be cold first thing in the morning, I will put my filtered water in the fridge the night before. Then, about 30 minutes before I make the smoothie in the morning, I’ll put that water in the freezer to get it even more cold.

The reason that it goes into the freezer is because the other ingredients – banana, protein powder, etc. – will slightly offset the coldness of the water.

If you want to try something a little bit more different, take a look at my post making black sesame seed milk, which I then use in my smoothies.

I buy a good amount of organic nuts and seeds each week. Not only do I always take them with me when traveling, but I use them to make nut milk smoothies quite often for breakfast.

Here is some information about how I buy, prepare, and use organic nuts and seeds.

BUY RAW

Although I am not a 100% raw foodist, or even remotely close, I only buy organic nuts and seeds that are raw. Why?

When a nut is heated or roasted, it loses some of its minerals, enzymes and nutrients.

Furthermore, I never buy salted nuts.

If I wanted salted nuts, I would buy them unsalted and then put my own, high-quality salt on them. There is no such thing as “certified organic salt”, and most of the salt out there is of very, very low-quality.

Lately, I think this Himalayan pink salt is fantastic.

BUY IN BULK

When possible, I almost always buy nuts and seeds in bulk rather than buying them in plastic containers. I find that the bulk bins are less expensive and also are more fresh.

STORE IN THE FRIDGE

As soon as I get them home, I immediately put them in the fridge, ideally in an air-tight, glass jar. If I don’t have an air-tight, glass jar, I’ll put the bag of the nuts or seeds into the fridge.

Storing them this way will keep them fresh longer and will help prevent them from going rancid.

SOAK IN THE FRIDGE

When I make nut milk smoothies, I always soak my organic nuts and seeds. The primary reason to do this is because the soaking process removes the enzyme inhibitors. This allows us to absorb the maximum amount of enzymes from the nut or seed.

The general rule I follow is 2-8 hours of soaking time or soaking them overnight. I used to soak the nuts or seeds in water sitting on the kitchen counter but now I am soaking them in an air-tight container in the fridge. Once the soaking is finished, I wash them off with water several times.

It is my understanding that Brazil nuts (above, on the left) do not have to be soaked.

If I am simply eating nuts right out of the bag, I won’t soak them, mostly because I don’t have a dehydrator.

MAKING NUT/SEED MILK

As I mentioned, one of my favorite things to consume in the morning are nut milk smoothies. (A concoction that I came up with lately and absolutely love are black sesame seed milk smoothies.)

Once you have the nut or seed milk, you can then put it back in the blender and then add bananas, coconut palm sugar, maca, cacao, chia seeds, berries, or any other ingredient that you wish.

Below is a video on how to make nut milk, and I never let my nut milk sit in the fridge for more than one day. Some people leave it up to four or five days but I like to play it safe and give it only 24 hours.

When making nut or seed milk, the general rule of thumb is to use a 5:1 ratio of water to nuts/seeds to water (5 cups of water to 1 cup of nuts), then make adjustments based on how thick you want it.

Never made nut milk before? Below is a video on how to do it and this is the super-fine mesh strainer that I am using.

If you’re a new reader to my blog, you may not be aware of a very important documentary called Farrmageddon.

Last year, I wrote several posts about this movie and also screened it for a fundraiser that I held to raise money for The Center for Food Safety.

Farmageddon exposes the USDA’s brutal crackdown on farmers selling raw milk and how the agency’s heavy-handed, corrupt and politically-motivated ways have destroyed the lives of small, organic farmers trying to do the right thing.

This documentary is even more relevant now because of the huge battle we are facing to get genetically-modified food (GMOs) labeled.

Between the GMO-labeling fight and the USDA telling us what food we can and cannot eat, our rights as American citizens are being violated to a ridiculous extent, all in the food arena.

FARMAGEDDON NOW WIDELY AVAILABLE

Up until this point, there has been almost no way to see Farmageddon unless you hosted a special screening of the film or saw it in the limited release theater run.

The good news is that Farmageddon just became available on Amazon, Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, XBox, Playstation, VUDU, Blockbuster, Wal-Mart, and Cable on Demand such as Comcast, Infinity, and Time Warner Cable.

People with Netflix can queue it up, but Farmageddon won’t be available to rent via DVD or streaming until there is a longer list. So, add your name to the queue.

If you haven’t seen this movie, I strongly, strongly suggest it. Click HERE to read why I believe that it is such an important documentary.

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Overall, I am becoming more optimistic about imminent change in our food system because (a) the truth is on our side; and (b) awareness is growing.

Between pink slime, the Just Label It campaign, the California ballot initiative to label GMOs, 13 million acres of super-weeds in the U.S., and outrage about the proposed GM-corn resistant to the highly toxic 2-4, D pesticide that is being proposed, people are starting to wake up and realize that the USDA and FDA are not promoting food policies that benefit American citizens.

The current policy enriches the chemical and seed companies while sickening our people, our land, and our water.

Momentum is building but we need everyone involved, demanding a better, more honest system.

And one that favors organic -  instead of GMOs, synthetic growth hormones, and toxic pesticides.