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?

I don’t believe so at all. They are trying to make the packaging as attractive as possible, and rightly so. I would do the exact same thing.

While brand recognition and price are key factors, what the packaging looks like and the emotional reaction that it has on you can heavily influence purchasing decisions.

As I have written about before, all organic eggs are NOT the same — all birds are fed differently and are treated differently — but people forget this and may get seduced by wholesome, folksy packaging.

So, I took a sampling of 8 different organic egg brands and pulled their ratings from the Cornucopia’s Organic Egg Scorecard to see how they stacked up versus the attractiveness of the packaging.

The Organic Egg Scorecard classifies each brand into one of five categories:

“5-Egg” Rating: “Exemplary” – Beyond organic

“4-Egg” Rating: “Excellent” – Organic promoting outdoor access

“3-Egg” Rating: “Good to Very Good” – Organic, complying with minimum USDA standards

“2-Egg” Rating: “Fair” – Some questions remain concerning compliance with organic standards

“1-Egg” Rating: “Industrial Organics” – No meaningful outdoor access and/or non-transparent

Here is what I found.

VITAL FARMS === 4-EGG RATING

Read more »

It is bad enough that we have to deal with genetically-engineered foods, but now we are facing the prospect of something potentially even more scary: genetically-engineered trees.

Tree biotech company ArborGen is requesting an unprecedented USDA approval for its genetically-engineered (GE), “freeze tolerant” eucalyptus. If the USDA grants this approval, it will be the first-ever GE-forest tree to be commercially grown in the U.S., allowing ArborGen to plant massive, unregulated GE-tree farms. Read more »

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. Read more »

New & Noteworthy in Organic is a regular column where I share new and interesting organic products, drinks, restaurants, juice bars, books, events, and special promotions.

If you have any organic-related product or event that people should know about, please feel free to email me.

Solti, a fantastic pressed organic juice company in San Diego, has introduced several things that I have never seen before.

Not only is it selling pressed organic juice in glass bottles using UV light filtration – something completely novel and totally awesome – but it has opened a tasting room at its manufacturing plant. Read more »

With celebrities rushing to invest in organic food companies these days, Sarah Michelle Gellar truly stands alone.

This long-time Hollywood actress isn’t writing a check, fading into the background and hoping for a payout several years down the line. She is doing the exact opposite.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is helping to run and is playing an active role in building one of the hottest organic food brands in the industry. Along with her two other co-founders, CEO Galit Laibow and COO Greg Fleishman, Foodstirs is redefining the healthy baking category by using the best organic and Biodynamic ingredients available.

In addition to her acting career and responsibilities at Foodstirs, this Emmy Award-winning actress and mother of two recently released Stirring up Fun with Food: Over 115 Simple, Delicious Ways to be Creative in the Kitchen, her #1 best-selling book. Organized by the month, Stirring up Fun with Food succeeds because of its approach — providing engaging “food-crafting” ideas that help kids develop self-confidence, creative thinking, and even math skills in the kitchen. Read more »

(See the bottom for a special 10% discount for Living Maxwell readers.)

For those of us who truly care about health, we eat organic food, we drink ultra-purified water, we exercise, we meditate, we do yoga, we have a positive attitude, we use clean personal care products and the list goes on and on and on.

But arguably the most important aspect of staying healthy is something that nearly all people ignore – breathing clean air.

Here are the startling facts:

– We spend approximately 90% of our lives indoors.

– According to the EPA, the air quality indoors is 2-5 times worse than it is outside.

And if you have children with allergies or asthma, clean air inside become even more critical.

– The World Health Organization said that air pollution is more harmful than passive smoking!

– Microparticles, which HEPA machines cannot filter out, are linked to cancer, heart disease and strokes.

– Indoor air contains many chemicals, gases, synthetics and pollutants that did not exist 10 to 15 years ago.

The truth is that if you are not taking action to breathe clean air, a very important aspect of your health is being ignored. Read more »

In what is just more confirmation that the world is moving towards organic food, Papa John’s, the third-largest pizza delivery company, announced that it has launched an organic pilot program in its locations in Lexington, Kentucky.

Customers in this market are now able to order pizzas that feature four freshly-sliced, organic toppings: Roma tomatoes, green peppers, yellow onions, and mushrooms.

While major restaurant chains, including Papa John’s have made serious efforts to clean up their menu by removing artificial colors and flavors, the decision to offer organic ingredients has not been widely embraced just yet.

That is why this announcement by Papa John’s is so significant. Read more »