Living Maxwell
Company Stories
For as long as I have been covering the organic food industry and giving out Natural Products Expo West awards, it has always been a Top 5 list.
However, due to the incredible number of fantastic products that I saw at the 2024 show and at the urging of my good friend Liana Werner-Gray, I have expanded the list to a Top 10.
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.
Organic Insider
Must-Read
For anyone who cares about the integrity of organic and the future of our industry, what has transpired with Carey Gillam should be of incredible concern.
Recently released court documents revealed that Gillam, a journalist and author of Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science, was the target of a carefully-crafted campaign by Monsanto to discredit her.
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
Company Stories
Natural Products Expo West, the largest organic trade show in the U.S., was held last week in Anaheim and attracted more than 65,000 visitors.
I came across some fantastic innovation at the show — a handful of products that I had never seen before and others that brought me back to my childhood.
Here are my Top 5 Organic Products of Expo West 2023:
Living Maxwell
Company Stories
For the first time in three years, the Fancy Food Show returned to New York City, and as usual, it was a spectacular show.
While walking around the show on the first day, I was getting a bit concerned that I wasn’t going to find some stellar new organic products. But by the end of the show on the third day, I completely changed my mind.
Some of the new organic products that I discovered have the potential to be very large, well-known national brands, and the innovation that I saw was outstanding. Additionally, narrowing this list down to just five products was incredibly challenging. It easily could have been ten.
Here are my Top 5 Organic Products of Fancy Food Show 2022.
Living Maxwell
Better Choices
Earlier this year, I wrote a post talking about the tremendous health benefits of black sesame seeds.
I love putting them on quinoa, millet, and on my salads, and they add a whole new dimension to whatever food that I am eating.
Since Brazil nut milk and cashew milk are two drinks that I make quite often, I started asking myself “What if I made a milk out of organic black sesame seeds?”
My immediate thought was that the taste would be too harsh or too strong, and that I would need to use a lot of honey or organic palm sugar to even it out.
Over the past week or so, I have been experimenting with black sesame seed milk and much to my surprise, I have been thrilled with the results.
Living Maxwell
Better Choices
Recently, I got an e-mail from a reader asking how she would know if she is eating genetically-modified soy or not.
Figuring that many other people may have that same question, I wanted to explain how to avoid eating genetically-modified food (GMOs) and the things that you need to look out for.
#1 – Buy USDA Certified Organic Products GMOs are prohibited in organic food. Therefore, look for products that contain the USDA certified organic seal.
Even though GMOs are prohibited in organic, organic crops can be contaminated by GMOs through cross-pollination and drift. (That is why the proliferation of GMOs is a real threat to organic farming. The co-existence of GM-crops and organic crops is simply not possible, despite what our government would like us to believe.)
USDA rules require that organic certifiers test samples from at least 5% of the operations they certify on an annual basis.
A message from Tradin Organic
At Tradin Organic, we believe that regenerative organic farming is key to growing healthy and nutritious food ingredients — for now and for future generations.
And in Sierra Leone, we have grown the world’s first Regenerative Organic Certified cacao.
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.
Organic Insider
Company Stories
Last weekend, I had the special opportunity to interview Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, the groundskeeper who sued Monsanto for giving him cancer and was awarded $289M from a California jury.
Dewayne Johnson was in town to attend the premiere of the documentary Ground War — a filmmaker’s investigation into the death of his father takes him deep into the world of golf, chemical lobbying, and citizen activism, where he learns that the rampant use of pesticides around the world may be far more damaging than he thought.
