Living Maxwell
Company Stories
Last week, I was in New York City to attend two fantastic trade shows — 2024 Summer Fancy Food Show and Good Food Mercantile.
Whenever I go to these shows, I always come across some outstanding organic products, and this year was no exception.
Here are my Top 10 Organic Products of the 2024 Summer Fancy Food Show and Good Food Mercantile.
Living Maxwell
Company Stories
For those of us who are fans of Dr. Bronner’s, the company’s products have a constant presence in our households, and we use them to clean our bodies and physical surroundings on a daily basis.
While this is unquestionably a critical component of our lives and imperative to maintain good health, cleaning transcends removing whatever is on our skin, on our clothes or on our kitchen countertops. It also affects our emotional well-being and directly impacts how we show up in the world.
And this is precisely why Lisa Bronner’s Soap & Soul: A Practical Guide to Minding Your Home, Your Body and Your Spirit with Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps spoke to me so much, as it squarely touches on the importance of cleaning both the tangible and intangible — an essential formula for a meaningful life.
Living Maxwell
Company Stories
For as long as I have been covering the organic food industry, I have attended Natural Products Expo East, with my first show in Boston in 2009.
So, it is very bittersweet to report that after last week’s show in Philadelphia, there will be no more Expo East moving forward. New Hope, the organizer of the event, has decided to launch something new in 2024 called Newtopia Now.
Living Maxwell
Personal
Last week, I was in Syracuse, NY to give a speech at the APCA (Association of the Promotion of Campus Activities) Northeast Regional Conference.
A message from E3Live
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.
Living Maxwell
Personal
As I mentioned the other day, there were tremendous repercussions for me going on Prozac during college. Yet at the time, I didn’t have any idea that they would be so disastrous.
What influenced my judgment to go on antidepressants was a real desperation to feel better. And to feel better quickly. Worrying about how this would impact my life 5 or 10 years down the road was of no consideration whatsoever. I wanted relief and I wanted it immediately.
These are the key repercussions:
Organic Insider
Must-Read
Many people are under the impression that organic crops will just “always be there”.
Meaning, we don’t have to worry, we’ll just go to the local farmers market or Whole Foods, they’ll always have organic. These people will figure out any potential problems.
Yet, if you look behind the scenes and learn what is happening with alfalfa, a main source of feed for animals in the organic meat and dairy industries, you’ll quickly realize that the situation for organic is very dire.
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?
Organic Insider
Company Stories
Last week, Naked Juice agreed to settle a very important class action lawsuit which accused the company of deceptive labeling.
The primary basis of the lawsuit stemmed from the company’s use of the words “All Natural” on products that contained Archer Daniels Midland’s Fibersol-2 (“a soluble corn fiber that acts as a low-calorie bulking agent”), fructooligosaccharides (an alternative sweetener), other artificial ingredients, such as calcium pantothenate (synthetically produced from formaldehyde), and genetically-modified soy.
Since these ingredients are either genetically-engineered or synthetically produced and do not exist in nature, it is completely misleading to consumers for these juices to claim to be “All Natural.”
As part of the settlement, Naked Juice, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, has agreed to remove the label “All Natural” from all of its juices and to pay a $9 million settlement to the class action group.
Living Maxwell
Must-Read
Just as The Environmental Working Group recently put out its bottled water rankings, The Cornucopia Institute has done something similar but with eggs.
While many people may assume that all organic eggs are very similar, this does not appear to be the case. Cornucopia rated all brands of eggs based on 22 criteria that are important to consumers, and the results — not to mention the accompanying video — were quite telling.
Living Maxwell
Better Choices
In a previous post, I wrote that milk is the most important organic product that a family can buy.
But milk is by no means the only item that people should be concerned about.
The worst offender on the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list are apples.
Forbes magazine recently did an excellent piece talking about five reasons to eat organic apples, and I wanted to share the highlights with you and provide commentary. To read the full article, click here.
Reason #1 – The average conventionally grown apple has more pesticide residue on it than any other fruit or vegetable.
Data from the Environmental Working Group showed that 98% of 700 apples tested had pesticides on them and that 48 different pesticides appeared. WOW!!!!
