Every once in a while, I write one of these articles without any real theme.  It’s just a collection of random factoids, research studies, whatever… just stuff that I find interesting from the last year.   Enjoy!

But What’s the Expiration Date? This March, researchers took an 85-year-old chunk of Black Cohosh root out of a museum’s vaults and analyzed its chemistry.  In particular, they looked for compounds called triterpene glycosides, responsible for much of the plant’s activity in reducing hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause.  As it turned out, the 85-year-old root was just as strong as a fresh one! 

Bring on the Organic Pork Rinds!  According to a recent survey, Americans prefer products that are “organic” to those that are “natural.” (Which explains why we’re seeing such a glut of organic marshmallows and pork rinds these days…)  But let’s think about this for a second: what’s really better – an organic marshmallow, or a green salad grown with pesticides, herbicides, and petroleum-based fertilizers?

I believe that nutrients in “natural” foods outweigh whatever pesticide residues are left behind after washing them.  Organic marshmallows or organic French fries might not have those residues, but they’re still unhealthy regardless.  If I were forced to choose, I’d take “natural” foods over “organic” junk any day. 

On the other hand, eating foods grown with pesticides is like smoking cigarettes: you don’t just harm yourself; you harm the people around you.  The chemical residues from industrial farming enter the environment and they stay there.  Every time you eat a conventionally-grown salad, you’re exposing people and wildlife to second-hand pesticides. 

Luckily, we don’t have to choose: we can get food that is natural and organic[1]. 

Our store has never been 100% organic or even 100% natural, but we try.  Believe it or not, we think about every single new product we bring in, and debate each one amongst ourselves.  So while we may carry margarine (for vegans, who will not eat butter), we make sure that it is at least organic.  And while we may carry some potato chips that are fried, they aren’t fried in trans-fats, or artificially-flavored or -colored. 

And sometimes we get something that’s just perfect.  Like our new beef from Steady Lane Farm, which is raised biodynamically in Ashfield by our customer, Janet Clark.  Or our Tuesday Produce Day which is not only 100% organic, but in the summertime, many of the fresh veggies travel less than 10 miles to get here.   

Whenever there is a reasonable alternative that is natural, organic, or both, we will put it on our shelves.

Antibiotics are dangerous – and now we have proof: For years, people in the natural medicine community have been suggesting that antibiotics are linked to cancer.  The reasoning goes like this: antibiotics kill of the “friendly” bacteria that live in our gut, which help keep our immune systems up and running, and which help us excrete cancer-causing agents such as pesticides and estrogens.  Obviously, then, if you kill off these bacteria, you’d be increasing your risk of cancer – right?  To which the folks in the mainstream medical community always replied “Nice theory – but where’s the proof?”    

Then, a landmark study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association which indeed showed a strong link between antibiotics and breast cancer.  Simply put, the more antibiotics women had taken, the greater their risk.  It didn’t matter which antibiotics they had used.  It didn’t matter what illness they had used them for.  And it didn’t matter how long ago they had taken them (the study covered seventeen years).  If you had taken antibiotics any time in the last seventeen years, you had an increased risk of breast cancer.  Period.

This was a large, very well-designed study.  Granted, it only examined breast cancer; perhaps the results won’t translate to other kinds of cancer…  But the results were awfully clear-cut.  

When it came time for the study’s authors to explain their findings, they did in fact suggest that the increased cancer risk was due to die-off of friendly bacteria.  They did not, however, mention that these friendly bacteria (or “probiotics”) are available as supplements.  You can buy them in pill form, and take them to restore the good bacteria after you finish antibiotics.  Which would, seemingly, offset the increased cancer risk associated with the drugs. 

Why didn’t they mention this?  One can only guess.  Perhaps, since there has never been a 17-year trial explicitly examining the role of probiotics administered following antibiotics, it would still fall under the heading of “Nice theory – but where’s the proof?”         

C.H.E.E.R.S.!  Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency cancelled a $9 million study that would have examined the impact of pesticide exposure on infants.  The Children's Health Environmental Exposure Research Study (or “CHEERS” as they actually called it…) offered poor families $970, a camcorder, and baby clothing if they agreed to record and videotape their use of pesticides around their infant children[2]. 

Mr. Stark Goes to Washington: A few weeks ago, Debra sent me to Washington, D.C. to lobby on behalf of the National Nutritional Foods Association (NNFA), the trade association for the natural products industry[3].  There were over 100 of us there that day, from 37 states, none of us professional lobbyists, none of us getting paid.  Nobody was promoting their business, or themselves.  We were simply there because we all consider it part of our civic duty; because we believe that natural products are intrinsically better than the alternatives.  I was the sole representative from Massachusetts. 

It costs a lot of money for a small business to send someone to Washington.  Airfare and hotels aren’t cheap!  For this reason, I want to acknowledge four of our suppliers who were in attendance: Carlson Laboratories, Jarrow Formulas, Thayers, and Vitamer (the folks who make our “Debra’s Natural Gourmet” brand vitamins for us).  It’s no coincidence that all four of these companies make high-quality products: all four are in business for the right reasons. 

We mostly lobbied for three things.  One was the Dietary Supplement and Health Meal Replacement Tax Parity Relief Act, proposed the week before by Chris Cannon, a Utah congressman.  This law would define dietary supplements (vitamins, minerals, and herbs) as “medical expenses” under the tax code (which seems like a no-brainer, but probably won’t happen).  We also lobbied for money to teach poor families about nutrition.  And of course we lobbied for research dollars.  Mostly, though, we tried to get the basic message across: natural foods are good for people, and good for the economy, and supplements are safe.