Living Maxwell

Better Choices

Organic Kaffir Limes – WOW, These are Amazing!

A while ago I did a story on gold nugget mandarins and when I saw this unknown fruit above, I couldn’t help but think of them because of the similarity of the rind.

And just as I had never seen gold nugget mandarins before, the same was true with these organic kaffir limes.

When I started asking the woman at my local organic market about kaffir limes, she quickly asked “Do you want to try one?”

With a bit of reluctance, I said “Ok, I guess.” After all, eating limes isn’t something that I normally do.

Yet when I bit into it, I was pleasantly surprised.

The kaffir lime didn’t have the sourness or bitterness that most limes do. It was more mild, more refreshing. In fact, after a few small bites, I found myself unable to stop eating it.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t control myself. The woman who cut it open for me jumped at the chance to do it because she knew that she was getting the other half, which was devoured in a split-second and with great enthusiasm.

Apparently, kaffir limes are a staple in Thai cooking. While I never eat this type of food anymore, my senses did recall the taste of kaffir limes in the Thai food that I had consumed in the past since the peel is an important part of many Thai curries.

Based on what I have read about kaffir limes:

– They are commonly used in household cleaners.

– The scent is supposed to improve one’s mood (I believe this – the smell is intoxicating).

– Supposed to promote gum health and are recommended for use in brushing teeth.

—

Many people who eat a lot of Thai food or have traveled extensively in Asia may already be familiar with kaffir limes but very rarely do they appear in organic markets in the Northeast.

While I always get very excited when I discover a fantastic new organic product (maybe that’s why I love going to Expo West and Expo East so much), my level of excitement goes to a whole new dimension whenever I come across a new organic fruit.

When you spend the majority of your life in Boston, New York City and Providence (not exactly tropical locations), you’re just not exposed to that many varieties of fruit.

So, discovering amazing organic fruit, such as kaffir limes, is just one of those awesome moments.

What can I say? Organic food is my passion.

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Why Organic Coffee is So Important

A girl I used to know in New York City was so fanatical about recycling that she would literally take empty bottles home from bars because she feared that they would be tossed in the garbage.

I’ll never forget the time when we were out one night and she started filling up her designer handbag with empty beer bottles, which weren’t even hers! She was that committed to the environment.

Yet, when she drank her coffee each morning, organic coffee was never even a consideration.

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, this didn’t make much sense. Why?

Because conventionally-grown coffee is incredibly unhealthy for people and the planet.

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Another Reason to Support Organic – The 59 Pesticide Residues Found in Our Water Supply

When people talk about organic food, we mostly focus on the importance of eating food that is free of synthetic chemicals, genetically-modified ingredients and artificial growth hormones.

Yet, what we also need to be mentioning is that conventionally-grown food means that our soil is getting sprayed with an astronomical amount of toxic pesticides, which ends up polluting our public water supply.

According to the EPA, we use about 1.1 billion pounds of chemicals per year, 80% of which are used for agricultural purposes.

And what impact has this had on the quality of our public water supply?

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Another Reason to Eat Organic — The Water Supply in the Midwest is Becoming a Serious Health Risk

I got a comment from someone the other day who said “Why should we care about GMOs (genetically-modified organisms)? Let them grow what they want. It doesn’t impact the people who eat organic.”

Unfortunately, this individual could not have been more wrong.

GMOs impact everyone, including people who eat 100% organic, and a recent study from the Pesticide Action Network confirms this.

Water sampling results from communities across four Midwestern states — Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota — indicate Atrazine is present in drinking water at levels well above those linked to birth defects and low birth weight.

WHAT IS ATRAZINE AND WHY YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT IT

Present in 94% of our water supply, Atrazine is a toxic weed killer and 76 million pounds of it is dumped onto our farms each year, mostly for corn.

And the health effects of Atrazine?

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"My Everyday, Must-Have Green Organic Aquabotanical"

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Why Organic Coffee is So Important

Another Reason to Support Organic – The 59 Pesticide Residues Found in Our Water Supply

Another Reason to Eat Organic — The Water Supply in the Midwest is Becoming a Serious Health Risk