Botanical Nutrition

Which kind of Maca is right for me? US consumers enjoy a rainbow of super food options

Maca root, used for centuries in Central and South America, has become increasingly popular in the U.S. Personally I believe the reason that it is becoming popular is because it has energizing health benefits you can really feel! I don’t mean ‘energizing’ in that it contains caffeine or other stimulants, because it doesn’t. Maca root…
Moringa documentary drives home ‘The Miracle Tree’s contribution to hunger relief

When I think of ‘food medicine’ (and the arbitrary distinction between what is ‘food’ and ‘medicine’ in the West, as opposed to in the East) I often think of Moringa. You may know of it because of its reputation as a high source of vitamins and minerals. In fact the freeze-dried biodynamic Medicatrix Moringa has…
Antioxidants don’t work? Polyphenol hormesis at the gates of dawn

Americans love simple answers. This fact breeds such rampant intellectual dishonesty, and audacious marketing follies, all because our greatest loyalty seems to be to our short attention span. To my mind – there is nothing wrong with, in the words of Malcolm X “talking to everyone in a language they can easily understand.” However, the…
High-Altitude Peruvian Maca Higher in Actives than Differently Cultivated Maca

I once had a teacher who liked to point out that almost everything in life is a “multi-variable equation”. Few things exist in isolation. We can choose to consider only a limited set of variables, but we have to always consider that there may be many more factors at work than we can know. Plants…
Why Americans Are Still Omega-3 Deficient, and ‘Death by Omega-6 Overload’ Is A Bigger Problem Than We Ever Imagined : Become a Fast Learner

Omega-3 essential fatty acids have achieved the coveted status of “household words” in American life. You’d have to have been living under a rock to be unaware of their importance, as industry rushes to add DHA to orange juice and Omega-3 eggs are offered to the masses as a valuable dietary item. Still more advanced…
Here’s to a Healthy and Happy 2013!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on what an amazing year 2012 has been! As with every year, there is a lot to be thankful for; many lessons learned and prospects for the future. I know I have said it many times before, but I continually feel privileged to be able to…
New Humates and Biomineralization blog!

New Humates and Biomineralization blog! It is in its rough stages, but Living Organic Earth is now up. Because Whole Earth Minerals is somewhat of an obscure subject at this point, LOE is presented as a third-party blog to bridge the gap between good scientific literature on the subject and commercial products. All efforts like…
Whole Earth Minerals : humates, humic acid and fulvic acid for the benefit of humankind

It seems an auspicious date, 12/12/12 as it were, to unveil the genesis of Whole Earth Minerals. After much research, two groups I have worked with have finally formed an alliance through Medicatrix Naturae and the release of Whole Earth Minerals, a complex of humates, humic acid, fulvic acid and 72 biominerals is upon us.…
Dr Oz Defends Monsanto

If you work in the natural products industry, you may have mixed feelings about TV personality Dr Oz. I personally am thankful for the attention he has brought to nutritional supplements, but I often find myself forced to take issue with his seemingly infinite wisdom. (One 400 mg capsule of Moringa? Would you eat 400…
Moringa : Whole Leaf Super Food Nutrition

Moringa oleifera is a tree native to the southern foothills of the Himalayas in northwestern India and widely cultivated in Africa, Central and South America, Sri Lanka, India, Mexico, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. I’ve been really interested in Moringa for a number of years. It has quite a reputation internationally as one of the…
Good Health : The Revolution Starts Within

We live in an era of icons. At the popular intersection of social media and marketing, the line between truth and advertising is blurrier than ever. Diet fads pass through the slipstream of TV culture, yet how many onlookers make lasting changes to their health and their lifestyle because of daytime talk shows or tabloid…
Vegan vitamin D-3 really does exist!

The internet is an interesting place. Nowadays we can point and click quicker than ever (anyone remember dial up?) to find the answer to our latest trivia question, settle intellectual debates or just find out where we are. However, some things don’t change THAT fast. Take for example the new Vegan Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) recently…
FDA Agrees to Change NDI Draft Guidelines : Cheers Go Up from the Rooftops!

The Natural Products Industry collectively breathed a sigh of relief today as the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would revisit and revise the New Dietary Ingredients draft guidance it had put forth nearly a year ago.The NDI draft guidance the FDA had drafted in 2011 has been very controversial, in part because it…
Bold New Botanical Beverages

Hey! If you spend half your life in the aisles of health food stores like I do (yes, even on vacation) you may have that certain sensation when you spot something NEW that you want to try, and potentially share with others, on the shelves. Sometimes these discoveries may also come through travel, business connections…
The Food Movement to Release Plant-Based Vitamin D-3 to US Health Food Stores

Vitamin D is an essential nutrient which has become more and more popular in recent years as a nutritional supplement. However, those following a pure vegetarian (vegan) diet have been left out in the cold because all of the vitamin D-3 (cholecalciferol) on the U.S. market is derived from animal sources (either fish oil or…
High Vibrational Foods

If you’ve been exploring natural health and healthy eating principles, you may have come across recommendations that you eat “high vibrational foods.” It is an interesting turn of phrase, causing one to wonder perhaps what frequency the REST of our diet is vibrating at? And what precisely does this mean? One thing we can infer…
Red Maca : Physical Vitality and Hormonal Balance from a Natural Whole Food

People think I’m down on drugs. It is true, I have been critical of the medical industry, and of ‘big pharma’ hijacking science. But I know there are some pharmaceutical drugs which are important and life-saving; I would never dispute that. The contrast for me is between the mediocre results most folks get from their…
The Beauty of Juice Powders – or Why You Can’t Eat Grass

Health food is a lifestyle for a growing number of Americans. People who aren’t into this lifestyle may have their own connotations of what ‘health food’ means… (food that tastes like cardboard, starving yourself to death, eating weird things). One thing that is almost instantly associated with the idea of a specialty health food market…
Arsenic in the Apple Juice? Natural health celebrities face off

Watching my favorite morning news show, Windy City Live, at the gym this morning, I caught an interesting tidbit about a sort of ‘war of words’ between natural health celebrities Dr. Oz and Dr. Gupta. I just had to laugh. Apparently, the controversy surrounds reported incidents of high levels of arsenic in Apple Juice. Now,…
FDA proposed NDI Guidelines – waiting for DSHEA’s other shoe to drop

If you feel strongly about natural medicine and the natural products industry, you may have some strong feelings about the FDA’s new NDI guidelines draft. If you’ve been around long enough to remember the original passage of DSHEA, you may remember how vigilantly the Natural Products Industry fought to oppose some of the more unfriendly…
Guayusa – Natural Balanced Energy from the Rain Forest

Guayusa is a very interesting herbal tea from the Amazon. When I first started drinking it, I wanted to share it with everyone. It seems to have so many advantages over coffee or tea, that it is the ideal hot morning caffeine-containing beverage of choice for practically anyone. It is a bush in the holly…
The Body is a Natural Healer

Hey, thanks for checking out my new blog! This has been in the works for a long time. I’d like to see this space become a resource for information, debate and perhaps inspiration. What is ‘botanical nutrition’? Essentially, the words mean… nutrition from plants. You would have to have been under a rock in order…