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Living Maxwell

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”.

Organic Insider

Better Choices

The Pew Research Center recently released its findings from a new report called The New Food Fights: U.S. Public Divides Over Food Science, which largely focused on Americans’ perceptions of organic and genetically-modified foods (GMOs).

It surveyed 1,500 nationally representative adults (whatever that means), and I found the data to be both encouraging and worrisome.

Living Maxwell

Must-Read

Whenever I think about a lot of the food that I ate growing up, it isn’t overly pleasant. It was the standard American diet with all of the processed, fast food that most of the country still consumes today.

Fortunately, my childhood took place before the emergence of GMOs (mid-90s) and growth hormone milk (late 80s), so I escaped some of the really bad things when my body was in its crucial stage of development.

One food that I fondly remember eating, and loving, at family dinners was potatoes. And it wasn’t just the insides of the potatoes. I particularly loved eating the skins. Yet, little did I or my parents know just how toxic they were.

When many people think of the most important foods to be eating organic, potatoes do not immediately come to mind as quickly as apples, grapes, or spinach do. But they should and here’s why.

Organic Insider

Company Stories

Last weekend, I had the special opportunity to interview Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, the groundskeeper who sued Monsanto for giving him cancer and was awarded $289M from a California jury.

Dewayne Johnson was in town to attend the premiere of the documentary Ground War — a filmmaker’s investigation into the death of his father takes him deep into the world of golf, chemical lobbying, and citizen activism, where he learns that the rampant use of pesticides around the world may be far more damaging than he thought.

Living Maxwell

Better Choices

I got a comment from someone the other day who said “Why should we care about GMOs (genetically-modified organisms)? Let them grow what they want. It doesn’t impact the people who eat organic.”

Unfortunately, this individual could not have been more wrong.

GMOs impact everyone, including people who eat 100% organic, and a recent study from the Pesticide Action Network confirms this.

Water sampling results from communities across four Midwestern states — Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota — indicate Atrazine is present in drinking water at levels well above those linked to birth defects and low birth weight.

WHAT IS ATRAZINE AND WHY YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT IT

Present in 94% of our water supply, Atrazine is a toxic weed killer and 76 million pounds of it is dumped onto our farms each year, mostly for corn.

And the health effects of Atrazine?

Living Maxwell

Company Stories

In the organic ingredient world, a significant transaction was announced this morning.

SunOpta, a global company focused on plant-based foods and beverages, sold its organic ingredient sourcing and production business, Tradin Organic, to Amsterdam Commodities N.V. (Acomo) in a debt and cash-free transaction worth €330 million.

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.