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
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
Better Choices
When it comes to eating, I like clean and light food.
My body seems to reject heavy sauces, fried foods, and sautées, even if they are 100% organic.
I like simplicity in a meal and as a result, I tend to cook a decent amount for myself. Why?
Not only is cooking at home the most inexpensive way to eat organic but I can have exactly what I want.
Whenever I make quinoa, millet or a big salad, one of my favorite things to put on these dishes are black sesame seeds.
Living Maxwell
Better Choices
Whether you’re new to organic or have been eating it for decades, here is a very likely scenario when you go to buy eggs.
You stand in the refrigerated section of the market, look at all of options, check out the prices and make a decision largely based on the packaging of each brand.
Some have attractive pictures of rolling farmland, others show actual farmers, some have photos of the animals. Most certainly, the brands are using buzz words such as “cage-free”, “sunlit porches”, “omega 3-s” or “heritage breed”.
Are these brands being falsely deceptive?
Living Maxwell
Company Stories
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.
Living Maxwell
Better Choices
For someone who loves organic food so much and cooks so often, my refrigerator is surprisingly empty. How could this be?
Well, I go food shopping A LOT and pretty much only buy whatever I need for the next meal that I’ll be eating. I have the good fortune of being able to do this because an amazing organic market is literally less a one minute walk from my apartment.
Plus, I LOVE going food shopping and making multiple trips to the market in one day is not exactly a burden. Staring at all of the amazing fruits and vegetables in the produce section is one of my favorite things to do.
Even though I do tend to “buy on-demand”, you’ll pretty much always find these 10 organic foods in my kitchen:
COCONUT OIL I am a huge fan of coconut oil. Not only is it high in lauric acid and great to use after a workout but it is one of the few oils that you can safely heat and cook with. (Olive oil is not one of them.)
Aside from using organic coconut oil in my smoothies, I use it as a moisturizer as well.
Living Maxwell
Better Choices
A while ago I did a story on gold nugget mandarins and when I saw this unknown fruit above, I couldn’t help but think of them because of the similarity of the rind.
And just as I had never seen gold nugget mandarins before, the same was true with these organic kaffir limes.
When I started asking the woman at my local organic market about kaffir limes, she quickly asked “Do you want to try one?”
With a bit of reluctance, I said “Ok, I guess.” After all, eating limes isn’t something that I normally do.
Living Maxwell
Better Choices
In a recent issue of Organic Insider, I discuss the decision by the Non-GMO Project to place potatoes on its High-Risk list.
Joining soy, corn, canola and a few others, this is by no means a prominent distinction. Rather, it is something that every crop should seek to avoid because it means that the likelihood of consuming a genetically-modified version of this crop in the U.S. is extremely high.
