Since I started livingmaxwell a few years ago, doing this post has always been a favorite of mine.

One challenge is that some of the items that I have written about in the past – pressed juice, high pressure pasteurization technology, and GMO activism – will be a growing trend every single year. So, what I try to do is not to repeat myself but find emerging trends that are at their early stages.

For 2013, here are my Top 5 Organic Food Trends.

GLUTEN-FREE OATS

As most people know, gluten-free is an enormous market but finding gluten-free organic oats at a reasonable cost is a real challenge. While there are some companies using gluten-free oats, a majority of them do not because the price is simply too high. Read more »

The very first video that I launched on livingmaxwell (see bottom of the post) was about the raw food diet and my profile of The Prana Cafe, an organic raw food restaurant in Newton, MA.

Back then, I was still living in Boston and frequented The Prana Cafe A LOT. Within time I got to know the owner, Taylor Wells, and it turned out that we had many things in common.

Aside from the fact that we were each very into organic, we both went to Brown and played on the tennis team there. So, we hit it off right away.

The thing that struck me about Taylor Wells was that she appeared to be this “superwoman” who had more on her plate than anyone I knew and had a ridiculous amount of energy.

She had a raw food restaurant, four yoga studios in two states, a consulting business, and several blogs. Furthermore, she had three children (two of which she home-schooled) and was pregnant with twins in 40s. Never once did I hear her complain about how busy she was, and there was a constant smile on her face. Nothing but words of gratitude flowed out of her mouth. Read more »

First off, to those of you who celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a wonderful day with your family and ate some great food.

Maybe there are many people out who feel the same way, but I just absolutely love putting organic coconut oil on my bread. (When I do this around my father around, he looks at me like I am an alien. For him, it is nothing but butter.)

I have nothing against jelly. In fact, I really like the BioNaturae jellies that come from Italy.  They are spectacular, fresh, and sugar-free.

However, the taste that coconut oil gives to bread is second to none in my book. Read more »

For several years, the FDA has been considering whether to approve genetically-engineered salmon and it just released (right before a major holiday) an Environmental Assessment as to whether it is safe or not.

(If you are not familiar with this whole genetically-engineered salmon issue, please see the video at the bottom of this post which gives a great explanation.)

Continuing the Obama administration’s pandering to the biotech industry, the Environmental Assessment (EA) said GE-salmon is safe and poses no real risks, and this report paves the way for approval in 2013.

Needless to say, this is horrible news.

The public backlash against this “FrankenFish” has been very clear, yet it has fallen on completely deaf ears.

– Over 400,000 comments were submitted demanding that this GE-salmon be rejected.

– More than 300 environmental, consumer, health and animal welfare organizations, salmon and fishing groups and associations, food companies, chefs, and restaurants filed joint statements with FDA opposing approval. Read more »

When I go to the supermarket, my absolute favorite place to shop, look, and browse is the vegetable section.

I am captivated by the bright colors, fascinating shapes, and wide variety of flavors from the vast array of these plant-based foods.

Even though I could take many of the beautiful vegetables that catch my eye and throw them into the juicer, I know that they could be put to use in many other ways.

And that is precisely why Veggies for Carnivores is so compelling.

Author, blogger, cook, and world traveler Lora Krulak takes the mystery out of preparing vegetable-based recipes and demonstrates their incredible versatility in the kitchen. Read more »

Last night at Pure Food and Wine, Veria Living, the leading media company dedicated to health and wellness, had a party to celebrate the launch of Veria Voices.

As it was pitched to us, Veria Voices is “an exciting new programming initiative designed to give the top leaders in wellness a significant voice across all of the Veria platforms – TV, Internet, mobile” and the five of us above (l to r, Jess Underhill, Elena Brower, Rebekah Borucki, Matt Stabile) were selected to be the initial Voices. Read more »

Recently, I have been playing around with smoothies using a variety of different superfoods.

Superfoods provide excellent health benefits and many of them are loaded with antioxidants.

This is particularly the case with two of the superfoods that I used this morning to make a Maca Berry Blast smoothie.

Maca comes in powder form and originates from Peru. Thousands of years old, Maca is believed to enhance your energy, stamina, and endurance. Some men claim that it also helps with the libido.

Maqui berry comes in powder form as well and is considered the highest antioxidant berry in the world. It has an ORAC score (which measures antioxidant activity) of 616. Its closest competitor, acai, has an ORAC score of 185, which is 3x less than maqui berry. Read more »