Livingmaxwell Homepage

I get asked all of the time by people “how do I know that the food that I am eating is organic?”

Well, when we buy food in the supermarket, there is an organic certification process managed by the USDA. Those organic food products have the organic seal.

Yet, what do we do when we go to restaurants?

While there are very few restaurants that have actually been certified organic (there used to be one in NYC called Gustorganics), most of them are not.

In this video, I share with you the one question that I always ask when I go to a new organic restaurant. The answer gives me a good idea about how serious they are about organic.

While we constantly hear about the tremendous health benefits of drinking tea, one thing that almost never gets mentioned in this message is just how critical it is to drink organic tea.

In a recently released report called Tea Steeped in Toxics, the excellent non-profit Beyond Pesticides gives us an inside look at what is going on in the tea industry. Needless to say, what they uncover is very ugly and very scary.

Whether you’re new to organic or have been eating it for decades, here is a very likely scenario when you go to buy eggs.

You stand in the refrigerated section of the market, look at all of options, check out the prices and make a decision largely based on the packaging of each brand.

Some have attractive pictures of rolling farmland, others show actual farmers, some have photos of the animals. Most certainly, the brands are using buzz words such as “cage-free”, “sunlit porches”, “omega 3-s” or “heritage breed”.

Are these brands being falsely deceptive?

As you may have already realized, CBD (short for cannabidiol — a cannabis compound) is exploding in popularity and is showing up in an increasing number of food, beverage and personal care products.

Despite the explosion of CBD oils and CBD-infused drinks, almost all of these products do not contain the USDA organic seal.

Boulder-based RE Botanicals has bucked this trend and has become the first national CBD brand to receive USDA organic certification for U.S.-grown hemp. Given who is behind RE Botanicals, the fact that it has achieved this milestone should not come as a surprise at all.

When most people think of the reason to drink organic milk, the first thing that pops into their mind is the desire to avoid hormonal milk – milk that has been produced from cows who have been injected with synthetic growth hormones.

Yet, a recently released study gives us an additional reason as to why we should drink organic milk.

In research published in PLOS One, the scientists of the study reported that organic milk contained 62% more omega-3 fatty acids and 25% fewer omega-6s.

It seems like every day that passes, the USDA approves another very risky GMO crop, all to the benefit of biotech/chemical companies and to ZERO benefit for consumers.

This time, the USDA has approved a first-of-its-kind genetically-engineered (GE) apple that doesn’t turn brown after bruising or slicing.

The apple, developed by the company Okanagan Specialty Fruits, uses a relatively new form of genetic engineering called RNA interference, or gene silencing, which has raised numerous concerns from consumer groups, environmentalists, and the apple industry.

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.