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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.

Dr. Bronner’s may very well be the most unique company in the entire organic industry.

Not only has it been producing super-high quality soaps, cleaning and personal care products, and coconut oils since 1948, but its unconventional approach and commitment to social and environmental issues truly set it apart.

Most notably, the company gives 8.6% of its revenues to hundreds of different causes. Yes, 8.6% of revenues — a staggering amount.

I learned how to meditate in college when I took a Transcendental Meditation class and have maintained a very serious practice over the past 11 years.

For some reason, I don’t remember doing it that consistently in the 90s. Most likely, it was the hard-partying lifestyle that got in the way.

Anyhow, my meditation practice is something that I cannot live without. It calms me down, centers me and gets me more focused. Nothing makes me more relaxed or present.

So, when I get up in the morning I sit and meditate for 20 minutes. The meditation is Transcendental Meditation, which uses a mantra as a way to keep the mind from wandering.

And after I finish meditating, I do something called Creating My Day.

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.

For those who didn’t see the recent announcement, which shouldn’t be a surprise because our government conveniently released it on the Friday before the July 4th weekend, the USDA said that genetically-engineered grass did not have to go through the normal regulatory approval, like most GE-crops do, and could be grown without any oversight whatsoever.

Yes, genetically-engineered bluegrass developed by Scotts will be coming soon to a lawn near you.

The first thing that popped into my mind, and I am sure that of many others as well, was “Why in the world do we need genetically-engineered grass? Could someone please explain this to me?”

When you mention the name REBBL to most people, the first thing that usually pops up is their favorite flavor of the company’s adaptogenic coconut elixirs.

After all, these drinks are incredibly delicious and nutritious. And addictive.

Yet, when you dig deeper and peel back the layers of this brand, a very inspirational story emerges.

For people who are new to organic, the first question they generally have is “Why should I be eating this food?”

The easy response is “because organic food does not contain synthetic and toxic chemicals”.

Organic food also forbids the use of genetically-engineered ingredients, often known as GMOs (genetically-modified organisms).

Since GMOs are a little bit more complicated and a little less tangible, this point either gets overlooked or is not fully understood.

I almost fell over in my chair the other day when I read this one in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

In nearly half of the samples tested, researchers found traces of hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) in peanut butter, cold cuts, turkey, beef, and other fatty foods.

So what is HBCD exactly?

It is a flame retardant commonly used in the foam insulation of building walls, upholstered furniture, automobile interior textiles, car cushions and electronic equipment.

How toxic is it and who is concerned about it?