Living Maxwell
Company Stories
Last week, I was in New York City to attend two fantastic trade shows — 2024 Summer Fancy Food Show and Good Food Mercantile.
Whenever I go to these shows, I always come across some outstanding organic products, and this year was no exception.
Here are my Top 10 Organic Products of the 2024 Summer Fancy Food Show and Good Food Mercantile.
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
Personal
I put up a post last week about a date I had recently and it generated a good number of responses. During this date, the woman asked if it bothers me to be with someone who drinks.
In that post, one of the things that I said was that I would “deal with it” if all of the other aspects of the relationship were good and that the drinking was kept to a minimum. This response of saying that I would “deal with it” brought an interesting comment from Tancie, and I thought it was worth addressing in its own blog post here.
Tancie stated that the phrase “dealing with it” would bring up resentment and that I should avoid all women who drink if it makes me that uncomfortable.
For me, drinking is a very complicated issue and is not so cut and dry, especially given the fact that I feel so strongly about other things as well — organic food being one of them.
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
Better Choices
For those of us who are extremely committed to health and wellness, the reality is that maintaining this lifestyle is very difficult when traveling.
At home, we have much greater control over our environment, but we lose that control when we go on the road, regardless of how aesthetically pleasing the living conditions may be.
Fortunately, the world is starting to change, and there are now businesses entirely focused on meeting the needs of the wellness-minded traveler.
One such company that I recently discovered is Pure Wellness, whose main offering is a Pure Room — a hotel room unlike anything I have seen before.
Organic Insider
Better Choices
In a recent online survey of a 1,000 health-conscious consumers conducted by Market LOHAS – Mambo Sprouts Marketing Research, it was found that 80% of shoppers seek out non-GMO products, with 56% saying non-GMO was key to brand buying versus 52% for organic.
Hence, a product that has the words “Non-GMO” on its packaging is going to carry more weight with consumers than “Organic”.
On many levels, this is incredibly worrisome, mostly because shoppers are making the absolute wrong and unhealthy decision at the supermarket.
Living Maxwell
Better Choices
By now, many of you may be familiar with the “ANDI Scores” when you walk into the produce section of Whole Foods Market.
Created by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, ANDI stands for “Aggregate Nutrient Density Index” and ranks a food’s nutrient density on a scale from 1 to 1000.
The ANDI scores are calculated by evaluating an extensive range of micronutrients, including vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidant capacities, and by dividing the nutrient level of a food by its caloric content (N/C).
For context, kale, a dark leafy green, scores 1000 while soda scores 1.
Organic Insider
Must-Read
What GMO apologists will constantly tell you is that genetically-modified food is essential to feed the world.
They’ve spent so much money on lobbying and influencing politicians – $572 million from 1999 to 2010 – that a majority of people in Washington D.C. have actually come to believe this nonsense. (University of Michigan’s Catherine Badgley explains here why organic can feed the world.)
But GMOs, we are told, won’t just feed the world. They’ll supposedly nourish it as well.
One prime example of this is GMO ‘Golden Rice’, which was touted as a way to help solve a major global health problem by providing kids adequate amounts of Vitamin A.
Organic Insider
Company Stories
David Bronner, the Cosmic Engagement Officer (CEO) of Dr. Bronner’s, saw this coming years ago.
With California having legalized cannabis in 2016, he knew that this plant was headed down the path of other agricultural crops — mass industrialization, genetic engineering, enormous energy consumption through fossil fuels, and the displacement of small-scale family farmers.
Where cannabis differs from other agricultural commodities, however, is that there can be no such thing as “organic cannabis” until the federal government stops classifying it as an illegal drug.
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.
