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
Several years ago, I was introduced to Erewhon, and my life has not been the same since.
Not only is it my first stop whenever I go to Los Angeles, but anytime I meet someone who is from there, I always ask “So, do you go to Erewhon?” It is that impressive of a supermarket and is a place I think about often, even from 3,000 miles away in New York City.
What many people may not realize is that Erewhon has been a pioneer in the health food world since the 1960s and was profiled in Joe Dobrow’s fascinating book Natural Prophets: From Health Foods to Whole Foods — How the Pioneers of the Industry Changed the Way We Eat and Reshaped American Business.
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
I got a comment from someone the other day who said “Why should we care about GMOs (genetically-modified organisms)? Let them grow what they want. It doesn’t impact the people who eat organic.”
Unfortunately, this individual could not have been more wrong.
GMOs impact everyone, including people who eat 100% organic, and a recent study from the Pesticide Action Network confirms this.
Water sampling results from communities across four Midwestern states — Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota — indicate Atrazine is present in drinking water at levels well above those linked to birth defects and low birth weight.
WHAT IS ATRAZINE AND WHY YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT IT
Present in 94% of our water supply, Atrazine is a toxic weed killer and 76 million pounds of it is dumped onto our farms each year, mostly for corn.
And the health effects of Atrazine?
Living Maxwell
Must-Read
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.
Organic Insider
Better Choices
The Pew Research Center recently released its findings from a new report called The New Food Fights: U.S. Public Divides Over Food Science, which largely focused on Americans’ perceptions of organic and genetically-modified foods (GMOs).
It surveyed 1,500 nationally representative adults (whatever that means), and I found the data to be both encouraging and worrisome.
Organic Insider
Better Choices
Nestled in the heart of the mountains in the Andean Paramos region of Peru, there are 182 families who entirely depend on coffee cultivation for their livelihood.
Unfortunately, coffee rust – a fungus also known as “La Roya” — has devastated the coffee trees of 64 of these families, leading to catastrophic economic losses for hundreds of people.
With coffee production their only way to make a living and provide for their families, they have had no choice but to search for nearby land which has not been infected by coffee rust. While this is giving these families a financial lifeline, it has also resulted in the destruction of forests in the region, a territory that cannot that cannot afford this type of displacement.
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
Over the last few years, it has been a widely viewed belief among the medical community that the health of the bacteria in our bodies has a direct relationship to our overall health.
While the exact nature of the bacteria in our bodies still remains a big mystery, research is showing that certain bacteria can prevent and treat many common diseases.
More specifically, in tests with mice, bacteria played an important role in fighting cancer.
