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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.

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.

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.

As I have written about many times before, I am a water fanatic. I like clean, ultra-purified water and have a four-stage filter (with a .015 micron filter on filter #2) in my apartment.

When I go to work, there is a Poland Spring cooler but I refuse to drink from it. Why?

The water tastes very, very off and is not purified.

So, I bring my own bottles of water to work each day. This may sound crazy to some people but drinking high quality water is essential to staying healthy.

Given that I take so much effort to drink good water, the type of bottle that I use is also of great importance.

I used to drink from a BPA-free plastic bottle. The problem with that is that it is still plastic and is leaching other chemicals into the water.

As you may have already realized, CBD (short for cannabidiol — a cannabis compound) is exploding in popularity and is showing up in an increasing number of food, beverage and personal care products.

Despite the explosion of CBD oils and CBD-infused drinks, almost all of these products do not contain the USDA organic seal.

Boulder-based RE Botanicals has bucked this trend and has become the first national CBD brand to receive USDA organic certification for U.S.-grown hemp. Given who is behind RE Botanicals, the fact that it has achieved this milestone should not come as a surprise at all.

After being in the wellness world for more than 14 years and having eaten close to 100% organic since 2001, it has become painfully clear that almost everyone is ignoring one critical issue when it comes to their health – glyphosate.

Not paying attention to it could have very serious ramifications to your physical and emotional well-being, starting with your gut health.

And eating an all-organic diet is just not enough.

WHAT IS GLYPHOSATE AND WHY IS IT SO PROBLEMATIC?

Glyphosate is the primary ingredient in Monsanto’s toxic chemical Roundup , and it is the most widely sprayed herbicide in the world.

Approximately, 281 million pounds of it are used each year on U.S. farms, and this number does not include the amount sprayed on public parks, schools, homes and gardens.

Most seaweed snacks look the same on the shelf. Same green packaging, similar marketing claims, same plastic tray you’ll throw away thirty seconds after opening. But what’s actually inside, and what the brand behind it actually stands for, makes more of a difference than most people realize.If you’ve been grabbing whatever seaweed snack is on sale without thinking too hard about it, this guide is for you. Because once you know what separates a genuinely great roasted seaweed snack from one that just looks the part, you can’t unsee it.

The Word “Natural” Means Nothing. Here’s What Does.

Walk down any snack aisle, and you’ll see the word “natural” on half the packages. Here’s the thing: it’s completely unregulated. Any brand can print it on its packaging without meeting a single standard. It costs nothing and means nothing.

While I promote organic food as much as I can and want to help the industry prosper, I also feel a need to educate and inform my readers.

Without question, organic food is the healthiest food that exists and is something that I believe can feed the planet. However, sometimes the packaging of organic food products is not always the best.

I have talked a lot in the past about my aversion to plastic bottles. Aside from the fact that they are horrible for the environment, they are also hormone (endocrine) disruptors.

For many of us who understand the importance of organic, we eat and buy organic food without thinking about it.

We know that we don’t want to consume food that contains artificial growth hormones, synthetic pesticides or genetically-modified organisms (GMOs).

We know that it is essential for us to purchase the highest quality food possible.

We know that food is medicine.

Yet, there are too many people out there who are just not that concerned about the food that goes into their bodies. They largely assume that since our government allows it on the shelf, it is safe.

Organic beet kvass isn’t exactly a household name, similar to a coconut water or even kombucha.

And I don’t believe that it will ever come close to having the same name recognition as these other two drinks.

Yet, its health benefits and utility may surpass them both.

A lacto-fermented beverage of Russian origin, beet kvass provides the body with beneficial bacteria and aids in digestion.

It is also touted as a blood purifier and an excellent way to cleanse the liver.