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.
How Tradin Organic is Helping Coconut Farmers in The Philippines
For more than a decade, Tradin Organic has been working with local partners in The Philippines to bring a diversified range of organic products to the market, such as coconut oil, tropical fruits and even cocoa.
The company is helping to support local farmers by assisting them with technical support and organic certification, in addition to paying Fairtrade premium on top of the organic premium.
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.
For someone who loves organic food so much and cooks so often, my refrigerator is surprisingly empty. How could this be?
Well, I go food shopping A LOT and pretty much only buy whatever I need for the next meal that I’ll be eating. I have the good fortune of being able to do this because an amazing organic market is literally less a one minute walk from my apartment.
Plus, I LOVE going food shopping and making multiple trips to the market in one day is not exactly a burden. Staring at all of the amazing fruits and vegetables in the produce section is one of my favorite things to do.
Even though I do tend to “buy on-demand”, you’ll pretty much always find these 10 organic foods in my kitchen:
COCONUT OIL I am a huge fan of coconut oil. Not only is it high in lauric acid and great to use after a workout but it is one of the few oils that you can safely heat and cook with. (Olive oil is not one of them.)
Aside from using organic coconut oil in my smoothies, I use it as a moisturizer as well.
Stories about the toxicity of our food supply just keep rolling in.
As I wrote about recently, numerous samples of conventional apple juice were found to have unsafe and illegal levels of arsenic. And now orange juice is having its own set of problems.
Coca-Cola, which makes Minute Maid and Simply Orange, reported to the FDA on December 28th that some Brazilian growers of oranges that are used in the company’s juices and those of its competitors had sprayed their trees with carbendazim, a toxic fungicide.
As a result, the FDA temporarily halted all shipments of imported orange juice while it conducts field tests. Products already on supermarket shelves that have “low levels” of carbendazim (80 parts per billion) may still be sold.
"My Everyday, Must-Have Green Organic Aquabotanical"
The best testimonial that I can give is that I drink this every single day, as it impacts my mood in an incredibly positive way.
E3Live + BrainON is certified organic, fresh-frozen AFA (Aphanizomenon flos-aquae) with a concentrated, aqueous, organic extract of Phenylethylamine and Phycocyanin.
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.
I love putting them on quinoa, millet, and on my salads, and they add a whole new dimension to whatever food that I am eating.
Since Brazil nut milk and cashew milk are two drinks that I make quite often, I started asking myself “What if I made a milk out of organic black sesame seeds?”
My immediate thought was that the taste would be too harsh or too strong, and that I would need to use a lot of honey or organic palm sugar to even it out.
Over the past week or so, I have been experimenting with black sesame seed milk and much to my surprise, I have been thrilled with the results.
