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Organic Insider

Must-Read

Just the other week, I wrote about a California farming community that MUST buy bottled water because the tap water is so polluted from pesticides and other contaminants.

Well, the news about the horrid quality of our drinking water continues.

Trying to figure out why food allergies have exploded over the past 20 years, a team of researchers published a study in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology which said that there is a relationship between the use of a group of pesticides called dichlorophenols and food allergies.

TIME Magazine explained that the study’s participants who had high levels of dichlorophenols in their bodies were 80% more likely to have food sensitivity than those with lower levels, and the authors believe the exposure to the chemicals may be contributing to a hyper-sensitive immune system that recognizes even common food proteins as foreign.

Living Maxwell

Must-Read

Last year, I put up a post about how arsenic was temporarily banned for use in conventional chickens.

Whether conventional chicken growers actually paid attention to the ban is anyone’s guess, but a column I read yesterday in the New York Times just made me shake my head even further.

In his column, Nicholas Kristof talked about recently released studies that suggest that poultry on factory farms are routinely fed caffeine, active ingredients of Tylenol and Benadryl, banned antibiotics and arsenic.

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Better Choices

These past few days have been heaven for college football junkies such as myself. Why?

We got to watch a ton of great bowl games and the best is yet to come — January 10th when Auburn and Oregon play for the National BCS Championship. Then, a few months later comes March Madness, the college basketball championship tournament.

Now that I got the sports plug in, let’s talk about Organic vs. Natural.

Living Maxwell

Better Choices

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.

Organic Insider

Company Stories

Let me say right up front that I support the USDA’s national organic certification program. Why?

Because it is the only nationally recognized and accepted system we have in place for organic standards.

I firmly believe that the more people we have participating and engaged in the system, the stronger it will become. Conversely, the more people who opt out of the system, the weaker it will become.

Organic Insider

Must-Read

If you haven’t noticed by now, organic is under constant attack in the media for one simple reason — healthy, organic food has become a serious threat to the business model of Big Ag and their chemical-laden GMOs.

That is why you will see pieces such as the recent Wall Street Journal op-ed The Organic Industry is Lying to You  and The Boston Globe’s article on agriculture which tells you to “learn to love” GMOs.

While critics will often say that organic is a waste of money and that the nutritional differences between organic and conventional are negligible, here are three reasons why you should completely dismiss their words — glyphosate, atrazine and chlorpyrifos.

Living Maxwell

Better Choices

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?