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
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.
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
Must-Read
* Impossible Foods is “misleading consumers” about the key ingredient in the Impossible Burger.
* The Company told the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) that its soy leghemoglobin was “substantially similar” to proteins consumed daily by the global population, in the form of meat and other vegetables.
However, on the Impossible Foods website, it claims that the heme in the Impossible Burger is “identical” to the heme humans have been consuming for hundreds of thousands of years in meat and other foods.
* The FDA told Impossible Foods that its arguments “do not establish safety of SLH (soy leghemoglobin) for consumption.” The company decided to sell the Impossible Burger to the public anyway.
* Impossible Foods relied on the expert testimony of scientists who have worked for or have links to Monsanto, the Gates Foundation, Philip Morris and all of the major biotechnology companies.
* 20 minutes after eating an Impossible Burger for the first time, a man Tweeted “went into anaphylactic shock & taken to ER.”
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One of the biggest stories in the food world over the past few years has been the Impossible Burger, the plant-based burger that bleeds when you bite into it.
The goal of the Impossible Burger is to help make a dent in climate change by offering a plant-based burger that does not come from an animal. Animals require a tremendous amount of water and feed, and also produce greenhouse gases. Because the burger is made from plants, the other thing that the Impossible Burger would do is to help alleviate the killing of animals.
Living Maxwell
Must-Read
As someone who has eaten close to 100% organic since 2001, my personal experience is that women are more concerned than men about the quality of food they are putting into their bodies.
While this is based on anecdotal evidence, there are a few data points to back this up.
The Pew Research Center’s recent report called The New Food Fights: U.S. Public Divides Over Food Science concluded that women are more likely to care about GMOs than men.
According to Google Analytics, approximately 2/3rds of Living Maxwell readers – people reading about organic – are women.
Living Maxwell
Better Choices
I get asked all of the time by people “how do I know that the food that I am eating is organic?”
Well, when we buy food in the supermarket, there is an organic certification process managed by the USDA. Those organic food products have the organic seal.
Yet, what do we do when we go to restaurants?
While there are very few restaurants that have actually been certified organic (there used to be one in NYC called Gustorganics), most of them are not.
In this video, I share with you the one question that I always ask when I go to a new organic restaurant. The answer gives me a good idea about how serious they are about organic.
Living Maxwell
Better Choices
By now, many of you may be familiar with the “ANDI Scores” when you walk into the produce section of Whole Foods Market.
Created by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, ANDI stands for “Aggregate Nutrient Density Index” and ranks a food’s nutrient density on a scale from 1 to 1000.
The ANDI scores are calculated by evaluating an extensive range of micronutrients, including vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidant capacities, and by dividing the nutrient level of a food by its caloric content (N/C).
For context, kale, a dark leafy green, scores 1000 while soda scores 1.
Living Maxwell
Must-Read
Last year, I put up a post about how arsenic was temporarily banned for use in conventional chickens.
Whether conventional chicken growers actually paid attention to the ban is anyone’s guess, but a column I read yesterday in the New York Times just made me shake my head even further.
In his column, Nicholas Kristof talked about recently released studies that suggest that poultry on factory farms are routinely fed caffeine, active ingredients of Tylenol and Benadryl, banned antibiotics and arsenic.
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.
