Living Maxwell
Company Stories
For as long as I have been covering the organic food industry and giving out Natural Products Expo West awards, it has always been a Top 5 list.
However, due to the incredible number of fantastic products that I saw at the 2024 show and at the urging of my good friend Liana Werner-Gray, I have expanded the list to a Top 10.
Living Maxwell
Company Stories
For those of us who are fans of Dr. Bronner’s, the company’s products have a constant presence in our households, and we use them to clean our bodies and physical surroundings on a daily basis.
While this is unquestionably a critical component of our lives and imperative to maintain good health, cleaning transcends removing whatever is on our skin, on our clothes or on our kitchen countertops. It also affects our emotional well-being and directly impacts how we show up in the world.
And this is precisely why Lisa Bronner’s Soap & Soul: A Practical Guide to Minding Your Home, Your Body and Your Spirit with Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps spoke to me so much, as it squarely touches on the importance of cleaning both the tangible and intangible — an essential formula for a meaningful life.
Living Maxwell
Company Stories
For as long as I have been covering the organic food industry, I have attended Natural Products Expo East, with my first show in Boston in 2009.
So, it is very bittersweet to report that after last week’s show in Philadelphia, there will be no more Expo East moving forward. New Hope, the organizer of the event, has decided to launch something new in 2024 called Newtopia Now.
Living Maxwell
Company Stories
Regenerative agriculture is a major trend in the organic food world these days, but for many people, it is a confusing and uncertain term.
Wanting people to understand just what ‘regenerative’ means and how the company is embracing this agricultural practice around the world, Dr. Bronner’s has just released an inspirational and compelling new documentary called Journey to Pavitramenthe.
This short film tells the story of fair trade, small-scale farmers in Bareilly, India – located in the state of Uttar Pradesh, 170 miles east of Delhi — who produce regenerative organic mint oil for Dr. Bronner’s products.
A message from Tradin Organic
For more than a decade, Tradin Organic has been working with local partners in The Philippines to bring a diversified range of organic products to the market, such as coconut oil, tropical fruits and even cocoa.
The company is helping to support local farmers by assisting them with technical support and organic certification, in addition to paying Fairtrade premium on top of the organic premium.
Living Maxwell
Must-Read
The more time that you spend in the organic industry, the more you learn about what is truly going on and what you find is pretty scary.
While I try to remain as optimistic as possible, the reality is that the organic industry is under a constant existential threat from genetically-modified organisms (GMOs).
Even though organic food has never been more popular, nearly 80% of the food on supermarket shelves contains GMOs and organic remains less than 1% of all farmland acreage in the U.S. While 64 nations around the world require GMOs to be labeled, the U.S. does not. Why?
Because the ag-biotech industry has “purchased” agricultural policy in our country, by spending $572 million on campaign contributions and lobbying from 1999-2010.
Living Maxwell
Company Stories
When I review organic food products, I do my best to make sure that they are available either online or at retail locations throughout much of the country, so readers can go buy them.
Sometimes, however, my excitement about a product is so strong that I have to make an exception.
Over the Thanksgiving holidays, not only was I fortunate to have eaten at Dr. Andrew Weil’s restaurant True Food Kitchen for the very first time, but I was also lucky enough to have discovered Ozuké kimchi by the Esoteric Food Company.
For the most part, sauerkraut, kimchi and other fermented foods is a very regional business.
So, wherever you go in the U.S., there tends to be a different local producer of these foods.
Organic Insider
Must-Read
If you read in the media or someone tries to convince you that organic doesn’t matter, do not believe them.
It does.
And it could potentially save your life.
In a just-released, peer-reviewed study, four families across the country were fed both an organic and non-organic diet, and the ones who ate all organic saw their pesticide load drop by as much as 95%!
Living Maxwell
Company Stories
At the recent 2011 Expo West trade show, I got a chance to speak with Minh Tsai, the founder of Hodo Soy Beanery. Hodo Soy Beanery is based in Oakland, CA and makes artisinal organic tofu.
A message from E3Live
The best testimonial that I can give is that I drink this every single day, as it impacts my mood in an incredibly positive way.
E3Live + BrainON is certified organic, fresh-frozen AFA (Aphanizomenon flos-aquae) with a concentrated, aqueous, organic extract of Phenylethylamine and Phycocyanin.
Living Maxwell
Must-Read
Each day, more and more news comes out about the harm that pesticides can do to our bodies.
This time, a report out of Europe says that pesticides can cause brain damage. Yes, brain damage.
Organic Insider
Must-Read
Just the other week, I wrote about a California farming community that MUST buy bottled water because the tap water is so polluted from pesticides and other contaminants.
Well, the news about the horrid quality of our drinking water continues.
Trying to figure out why food allergies have exploded over the past 20 years, a team of researchers published a study in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology which said that there is a relationship between the use of a group of pesticides called dichlorophenols and food allergies.
TIME Magazine explained that the study’s participants who had high levels of dichlorophenols in their bodies were 80% more likely to have food sensitivity than those with lower levels, and the authors believe the exposure to the chemicals may be contributing to a hyper-sensitive immune system that recognizes even common food proteins as foreign.
