Botanical Nutrition

Today is the 30 year anniversary of the passage of the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act. On October 25th, 1994 DSHEA was signed into law by President Bill Clinton after being passed by Congress. This did not come easy, and in the coming days I will do my best to help illuminate the spirit (and the spunk!) of many of the brave health food retailers that helped fight to get DSHEA passed.

Many in the natural products industry know this law primarily as something that governs what we can and cannot say when selling dietary supplements. In fact, it is much much more than that – and it is no small part of the very freedom we have to sell nutritional supplements in this country. Tonight, I will have the honor to be part of a panel on the Future of Health Freedom at the Naturally Independent Expo here in beautiful Palm Springs, CA.

It is a really important topic because now more than ever there are many who want to challenge our freedom to pursue alternative health, and would rather see all of us medicated with prescription and OTC synthetic drugs whether we like it or not. Is this a country where we should have a choice, or is this a fascist regime? It is a question that we are, once again, forced to answer as a nation.

On my podcast, I did an interview with Daniel Fabricant of the Natural Products Association, an important industry trade group protecting health freedoms on my podcast Whole Earth Radio. Check it out, I hope you find it as compelling a subject as I do.

In short, it is important that we as Americans NEVER take ANY of our freedoms for granted. Get out and vote, get involved and support you local health food store. It has never been more important that we fight for DSHEA and the continued freedom to choose health alternatives in as many ways as we feel that we need to.