If you are a parent or you know someone who is parent, The Unhealthy Truth: One Mother’s Shocking Investigation into the Dangers of America’s Food Supply — and What Every Family Can Do to Protect Itself by Robyn O’Brien is a book that should be required reading.

As a Wall Street research analyst and mother of 4, Robyn O’Brien was a very unlikely candidate to become one of the country’s leading food safety advocates. But all of that changed when her youngest daughter had a severe violent reaction to the eggs that she had eaten.

From that day forward, Robyn O’Brien took it upon herself to learn about what was truly going on with our food. Needless to say, what she discovered was very, very unsettling. Read more »

When I was in a Whole Foods in Denver recently, I came across an interesting magazine that I had never seen before called Gastronomica.

However, as soon as I saw the $12 price tag, I immediately put it down. It seemed very expensive, and I had already spent too much money on food as it was.

Once back in New York City, I saw Gastronomica again but this time I decided to splurge.

It only took a few minutes for me to realize that not only was this an absolute gem of a magazine but the $12 price was actually a bargain.

How could a $12 magazine be a bargain? Let me explain. Read more »

In May of 2006 when I was still living in Miami, I was involved in a car accident — I got rear-ended at a red light and suffered whiplash. Luckily, the MRI showed that nothing was broken or fractured.

After about three months of doing Network Spinal Analysis with my chiropractor, the pain was gone. I had great range of motion and could move my neck to the left and right without any trouble.

Thinking I was fine and acting as if I were 18 years old again, I then proceeded to play two hours of very hard tennis in the blazing hot Miami summer. At the end of the match, I went to take a serve and knew right away that something was really wrong.

I felt an intense throbbing in my neck that I had never experienced before. Needless to say, the pain came back in a much, much stronger way. Read more »

Maria Rodale, one of my favorite people in the organic food industry, has just come out with her Top 10 farm-to-table restaurants.

For those who don’t know Maria, she has some serious street cred in the organic world.

– Her grandfather, J.I Rodale, started the organic food movement in the U.S. in the 1940s with the publication of Organic Farming and Gardening magazine (now known as Organic Gardening).

– Maria Rodale has published several books including Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe. This is a must-read book for everyone. It clearly and succinctly explains why organic food, and not GMO-food, is the only solution to feed the planet.

– Maria Rodale’s family started The Rodale Institute, which has been researching organic agriculture for the last 60 years.

Maria has compiled her Top 10 favorite farm-to-table restaurants. The restaurants are in both the U.S. and Canada, and meet her criteria of being “locally sourced organic food, cleanly cooked; not too pretentious; and most important of all, delicious and yummiful!” Read more »

If you listen to pro-GMO advocates, the number one reason they tell you why we need genetically-modified food is because there is no other way to feed the world.

Not for one second do I believe this claim and as I have mentioned before, hunger is a political issue. For example, the people in North Korea are starving because their leader doesn’t want to feed them. It has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of food.

I went to a fascinating talk yesterday co-hosted by Eating Liberally-NYC and Kitchen Table Talks where I learned yet another argument against the need for GMO — food waste.

At the lecture, Jonathan Bloom, author of the book American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food, talked about the tremendous amount of food wasted in this country and the statistics are staggering.

1) 40% of all food grown and produced in the U.S. is wasted.

2) 150 billion pounds of food each year is wasted.

3) The amount of food wasted each year has a value of approximately $150 billion. Read more »