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
Better Choices
In a previous post, I wrote that milk is the most important organic product that a family can buy.
But milk is by no means the only item that people should be concerned about.
The worst offender on the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list are apples.
Forbes magazine recently did an excellent piece talking about five reasons to eat organic apples, and I wanted to share the highlights with you and provide commentary. To read the full article, click here.
Reason #1 – The average conventionally grown apple has more pesticide residue on it than any other fruit or vegetable.
Data from the Environmental Working Group showed that 98% of 700 apples tested had pesticides on them and that 48 different pesticides appeared. WOW!!!!
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Living Maxwell
Company Stories
Natural Products Expo West, the largest organic trade show in the U.S. was back for the first time since 2019, as the last two years were canceled because of COVID.
Prior to this year’s show, I had one CEO tell me that he thought this would be the best year for innovation anytime in the past decade, given that brands had such pent-up demand over the last 24 months and would be particularly eager to show buyers their most forward-thinking products. Based on what I saw at last week’s Expo West, I believe he was correct. The innovation that I saw was outstanding.
Living Maxwell
Personal
I had a very interesting lunch date recently with this very beautiful Indian woman. A friend of mine thought that I would enjoy meeting her and set the two of us up.
Why did he think I would like her? (1) He thinks she’s awesome (2) He knows that I am very attracted to Indian women (the love of my life is Indian) and (3) There is almost nothing that I find more sexy than a woman who meditates. She meditates. (Meditation is a huge part of my life and is something I first started doing in 1991).
Even though I knew almost nothing about her, the conversation flowed pretty effortlessly. Aside from the meditation, we are both very into yoga and eating healthy. This was the first woman I’ve met in a long time who thought it was fantastic that I eat almost 100% organic. That kind of surprised me. Normally, I don’t get that reaction. What I tend to hear is “isn’t that a little extreme” or “don’t you ever want to go to a nice restaurant with your friends?” or “you can’t be so rigid.”
Living Maxwell
Company Stories
When people talk about why they eat organic food, the most common answer is that they don’t want to ingest food that has been sprayed with toxic pesticides. The focus is generally on “me” or “we”.
An answer that does not come up nearly as much as it should is “I don’t want to expose farmers to these toxic pesticides.”
The truth is that most of us are completely in the dark about what takes place on farms, in terms of what kind of chemicals farmers are exposed to and also how farm workers are treated.
A brand new documentary called Food Chains sheds light on this very serious problem and what we see is not pretty.
Living Maxwell
Better Choices
Aside from the fact that conventionally-raised animals can be pumped with synthetic growth hormones and can be fed genetically-modified grain that has been sprayed with super-toxic pesticides, there is now another scary reason to avoid conventional meat: superbugs.
In results from a just released study, Consumers Reports found that 18 percent of the ground beef samples from conventionally-raised cows contained dangerous superbugs resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics used to treat illness in humans. This is compared with just 9 percent of ground beef from samples that were sustainably produced.
Consumer Reports purchased 300 packages – 458 pounds – of conventionally and sustainably produced ground beef from grocery, big-box, and natural food stores in 26 cities across the country.
Organic Insider
Must-Read
If you are a consumer or participant in the organic industry, something new is set to hit the marketplace that you absolutely want to know about, and it is called the Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC).
Started by three organizations — Patagonia, Dr. Bronner’s and Rodale Institute — the certification aims to raise the bar for what organic represents.
But contrary to what one might believe, it is not a substitution for the USDA organic seal. Instead, it adds onto the USDA organic seal and is referred to as an “add-on” label. The USDA organic seal is a requirement, or a baseline, in order for a company to receive the ROC certification.
Living Maxwell
Better Choices
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For those of us who truly care about health, we eat organic food, we drink ultra-purified water, we exercise, we meditate, we do yoga, we have a positive attitude, we use clean personal care products and the list goes on and on and on.
