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Everywhere you turn these days, you’ll find news and stories about the ketogenic diet.

This low-carb, high-fat, high-protein diet is helping people lose weight and giving them much needed mental clarity.

However, one of the misconceptions of the keto diet is that animal products are an essential component of it. And for people who only eat plant-based, this can be quite disconcerting.

Along with her co-author Nicole Derseweh, my good friend Whitney Lauritsen — also widely known as the EcoVegan Gal — has just come out with a fantastic book called The Vegan Ketogenic Diet Cookbook, and it is a phenomenal resource for people looking to explore this lifestyle.

Not only does it clear up a lot of the confusion about the keto diet requiring the consumption of animal products, but it provides 75 delicious recipes. And when I was sent an early version of the book, I literally read it cover-to-cover in one sitting. I was that impressed by it.

Living Maxwell

Better Choices

Here are a few things that we know.

1) In its pioneering testing several years ago, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) identified up to 493 chemicals in Americans of all ages, including 287 industrial chemical pollutants found in the cord blood of 10 babies born in 2004.

So, from the time we are in the womb of our mother, our body is flooded with synthetic toxins.

2) Even though this EWG data was collected a decade ago, not much has changed since then, in terms of our exposure to chemicals.

Living Maxwell

Better Choices

An apple a day will keep the doctor away.

Thanks to a new study, that saying has taken on even more meaning, particularly for organic apples.

In a recently published paper in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, it was found that organic apples contain a more diverse population of beneficial bacteria than conventional apples.

Researchers analyzed the peel, flesh, seeds, and stem of both organically and conventionally grown apples, looking to find how much and what kinds of bacteria were present. While organic and conventional apples contained the same amount of bacteria, there was a big discrepancy in the types of bacteria found.

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As more and more people are moving toward a plant-based diet and migrating away from animal products, organic cannot be forgotten in this equation.

Unfortunately, I see far too many people who think that as long as it is plant-based, that is sufficient. It’s not.

Case in point: almonds.

In the early 2000s, there were a few outbreaks of salmonella traced to raw almonds from California, a state where nearly 100% of America’s almonds are grown. As a result, the USDA implemented a rule that required all almonds grown in California to be pasteurized. This holds true for both organic and non-organic varieties.

Living Maxwell

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According to research recently published in the Environment Health Perspectives, pregnant women who are exposed to organophosphate pesticides have a very, very high probability of having kids who suffer from ADHD.

The study tracked Mexican-American women in Salinas Valley, CA who were exposed to high levels of pesticides and then diagnosed their kids when they were between 3 and 5 years old. The results were not good and also not in the least bit surprising.

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I just love reading announcements like this. Researchers at Washington State University just released the results of their study of strawberries and concluded that organic is superior to conventional in several different categories.

Not that this is any great surprise to me but having empirical evidence is always beneficial.

The study, which was published in PLoS One, came to the following conclusions about organic strawberries:

– Longer shelf life and greater dry matter.

– Higher antioxidant activity and concentrations of ascorbic acid and phenolic compounds.

– Sweeter taste, better flavor and appearance.

Organic Insider

Better Choices

Nestled in the heart of the mountains in the Andean Paramos region of Peru, there are 182 families who entirely depend on coffee cultivation for their livelihood.

Unfortunately, coffee rust – a fungus also known as “La Roya” — has devastated the coffee trees of 64 of these families, leading to catastrophic economic losses for hundreds of people.

With coffee production their only way to make a living and provide for their families, they have had no choice but to search for nearby land which has not been infected by coffee rust. While this is giving these families a financial lifeline, it has also resulted in the destruction of forests in the region, a territory that cannot that cannot afford this type of displacement.