Let’s keep this clear and simple. To do so, we need to talk about exactly what the current buzz words really mean and how they can affect you. Strictly speaking, the way natural healing works is to get good nutrition in and waste material out. Good nutrition includes your positive approach to life—aka, what you think about. Getting the bad stuff out is what Marge has helped people do since 1996 with her whole body cleanse.

It all starts with you, the consumer. People in business want to please you—no that’s not right, they must please you to remain in business. Since remaining in business is primary in their thoughts, they will do, or pretend to do what they believe you want. That’s why organic produce is on the rise in this country and natural food stores are enjoying excellent growth while conventional markets are flat or declining.

You’ve seen it in the new gigantic super markets. They’re bigger than ever. You need to pack a lunch to get from dairy to checkout. And your really in trouble if it’s your first visit and you don’t know where things are. You’ve set yourself up for a major hike.

Also, look at the diversification. A few years ago a supermarket was a big grocery store. Now, the word takes on its true meaning—a SUPERmarket. Today, these stores are selling less food and more drugs, cosmetics, school supplies, flash lights, even furniture and house wares. (We just found the kind of patio chair we were looking for in, yep, a supermarket.)

But, why are these things pushing food items off the shelves? Because fresh food; meats and produces, have a very small markup. In other words, the stores don’t make much money from traditional food items like bread, milk, eggs, butter, etc. Their real profit comes from the sale of non-food items, especially drugs and cosmetics where markups are traditionally greater than 100%. For every dollar they spend for inventory, they make another dollar plus change, on the sale.

The store owners are not evil demons. Their goal is to make a living, that’s all. And, what is our concern is not what they sell but how much of their marketing lingo comes from the background of non-foods where ambiguous advertising has been rampant since WW II.

We’re talking about buzz words that are not clearly defined but imply things that may not be true. How about the one spelled n-a-t-u-r-a-l. It’s use is often deceptive and just as often, meaningless.

This spring, we had a major weed problem and searched to find something to kill our weeds that didn't’t  also kill our cats and Ralph. We found a product that boasted the word n-a-t-u-r-a-l and, in fact, turned out to be a great product. Yet, while the word, natural, was very close to true, the cautions on the label were more frightening than those found on Roundup (ugh). 

However, through some knowledge of chemistry, Ralph decided to test it before returning it. 

Why? Because the natural ingredients were clove oil (used as a pain killer by dentists), acidic acid (which is vinegar), citrus oil (from lemons and limes) and only one violator to natural, Sodium Laurel Sulfate (used as an emulsifier).

The product is fantastic. There’s no problem keeping the cats away until it’s harmless (a couple of hours), they don’t like the heavy clove oil smell and gladly give it a lot of space.

Another word under suspicion is the one spelled o-r-g-a-n-i-c. If you ask 10 people what the definition is, you’ll most likely get 10 different answers—except for the one, most reliable definition provided by the state of California in their organic labeling law.

Many people consider that California’s organic certification is overkill and other purist say it doesn't’t go far enough  because of contamination from water run off of non-qualifying properties, etc. Our personal take is simple. We seriously doubt there is any 100% organic food produced anywhere. Mostly because of the chemicals found in our drinking water which even now include the medicine people are taking which is passed through to our water table, coupled with winds and rain disbursal. But, we do the best we can and encourage you to do the same.

We are still living in a caveat emptor world (let the buyer beware) and that’s not likely to ever change. We’re not sure it should change because all personal growth, mentally and physically, depends on taking responsibility for what we do. A very dangerous action of any society is to turn over more and more of their individual personal choices, and freedom, to the group or to the biggest and scariest group—government.

We’ve discovered that the more we learn, the more we research, the better we are at determining the true from the false. You develop a built in lie detector that dings when you read something you don’t believe. Which reminds us to point out that it’s a very good idea to read, listen and even watch with question marks around the data before you. It’s all someone's opinion anyway based on information which can be totally distorted from what it actually is.

At the risk of sounding like giving advice in how to write a news article, let’s just say we’re always interested in learning who, what, where, when and how a statement came into print. In other words, how many ways can the data be intentionally and accidentally distorted.

Also, quite a lot of the label rules come from the company attorney. We live in a litigation happy world. Law suits are common, especially where class action suits are concerned. Who has not gotten a notice of a class action against someone you never heard of, let alone bought their product or service?

Lawyers go on these fishing trips to see what can be stirred up.  We’re not attorneys and our evaluation is not learned. But, we feel it’s a good way for law firms to squeeze income out of industry. These things rarely go to court and for every dollar paid to the “winning” class,  much of it goes into the lawyer’s pocket.

This forces defensive labeling that is often misleading to the consumer.

But, back to the word n-a-t-u-r-a-l. Natural healing began when Hippocrates first cured cancer with garlic. The garlic didn't burn out the cancer and the body it was growing in. It didn't slice parts of that body away adding another trauma - that of healing the therapy itself. It certainly didn't poison the body in the hope that the cancer would die before the body did.

The garlic was Hippocrates way of helping the body help itself, and that's what we mean by natural healing. It’s really a no brainer. Your body heals itself all the time. Does your finger “die” when you injure it? Does a headache never stop hurting? Does a cold or flu last forever? Those are all examples of the body healing itself. That’s what your marvelous immune system is all about.

That’s why we suggest putting good food into your body, supplemented as needed when what you eat has been compromised by modern agriculture’s chemical tomfoolery. Then, cleanse your body’s vital organs regularly to get the accumulating bad stuff out. Marge’s New Revitalizing Cleanse will help you do just that.