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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.

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.

While many of us are familiar with the Dirty Dozen, the toxic fruits and vegetables to avoid as compiled by the Environmental Working Group, there is a lot of uncertainty and confusion as to what fish are healthy to eat.

One of my favorite non-profits, Food & Water Watch, has addressed this problem and come out with their own Dirty Dozen but for fish. These are the 12fish that they give a big thumbs down to.

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.

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.

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.

Just as The Environmental Working Group recently put out its bottled water rankings, The Cornucopia Institute has done something similar but with eggs.

While many people may assume that all organic eggs are very similar, this does not appear to be the case. Cornucopia rated all brands of eggs based on 22 criteria that are important to consumers, and the results — not to mention the accompanying video — were quite telling.

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?