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Better Choices

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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Must-Read

As someone who has eaten close to 100% organic since 2001, my personal experience is that women are more concerned than men about the quality of food they are putting into their bodies.

While this is based on anecdotal evidence, there are a few data points to back this up.

The Pew Research Center’s recent report called The New Food Fights: U.S. Public Divides Over Food Science concluded that women are more likely to care about GMOs than men.

According to Google Analytics, approximately 2/3rds of Living Maxwell readers – people reading about organic – are women.

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Company Stories

The lawsuits against industrial food companies just keep piling up.

First, it was Wesson Oils who got sued for using GMOs in its products that the company claimed were “100% Natural”.

Then, Kashi got sued for using prescription drugs, irradiated substances, pesticides that are a by-product of uranium mining, and federally declared hazardous substances in products that it claimed were “All-Natural” and contained “Nothing Artificial”.

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Company Stories

For as long as I have been covering the organic food industry and giving out Natural Products Expo West awards, it has always been a Top 5 list.

However, due to the incredible number of fantastic products that I saw at the 2024 show and at the urging of my good friend Liana Werner-Gray, I have expanded the list to a Top 10.

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Better Choices

Earlier this year, I wrote a post talking about the tremendous health benefits of black sesame seeds.

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.

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Company Stories

For the first time in three years, the Fancy Food Show returned to New York City, and as usual, it was a spectacular show.

While walking around the show on the first day, I was getting a bit concerned that I wasn’t going to find some stellar new organic products. But by the end of the show on the third day, I completely changed my mind.

Some of the new organic products that I discovered have the potential to be very large, well-known national brands, and the innovation that I saw was outstanding. Additionally, narrowing this list down to just five products was incredibly challenging. It easily could have been ten.

Here are my Top 5 Organic Products of Fancy Food Show 2022.

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Personal

I put up a post last week about a date I had recently and it generated a good number of responses. During this date, the woman asked if it bothers me to be with someone who drinks.

In that post, one of the things that I said was that I would “deal with it” if all of the other aspects of the relationship were good and that the drinking was kept to a minimum. This response of saying that I would “deal with it” brought an interesting comment from Tancie, and I thought it was worth addressing in its own blog post here.

Tancie stated that the phrase “dealing with it” would bring up resentment and that I should avoid all women who drink if it makes me that uncomfortable.

For me, drinking is a very complicated issue and is not so cut and dry, especially given the fact that I feel so strongly about other things as well — organic food being one of them.