YOUsers of Lumigrate might know that Lumigrate launched in 2009 with a link on our products tab to Vitamin Cottage, which is a Colorado-based company which started in the mid 1950s. I grew up very near that part of the Denver area, but my family was not into 'health foods' or supplements, ironically.
We drove right near them to shop at Safeway, where I would negotiate with my mother to pay the extra few cents, about 10% more, for a non house brand of white bread because the roof of my mouth got rubbed less and I could eat the crusts. "If you promise to not feed the crusts to your puppy under the table (my puppy was a dog that wouldn't be sellable from our commercial kennel (golden retrievers) as she had a cleft palate, my parents were very concerned with ethics in breeding and we kept any of the dogs that might have anything wrong and did not breed them, or if Xrays showed hip displasia, they were euthanized. Too much of THAT lead to a 'no more' from my father after many years of having to do a lot of the heart-wrenching trips to and from the vet and out to the pet cemetary on the property.
That puppy ended up doing well, by the way, she survived no getting my crusts under the table in the mornings, but was outside when there were some coyotes around and it was presumed she was taken by them as a meal, though my mother did place an ad in the local paper, and I'm pretty sure she knew I'd expect to see it in the paper so she wasn't just acting like she called them.
FIFTY YEARS LATER, it was so interesting to be having a conversation about making gluten free and low carb or not so low carb breads after attending Building Meals for Superhero Health with other attendees and Dustin McFarland, CNC, my local area store's Nutritional Health Coach, who had presented to a group of about fifteen people at 11 am on a weekday. I'd talked with him last year when we were both leaving the store at the same time, I had been several days by then frazzled over finding out what was going on with SpoildeyCat and having had Bach Flower Remedies recommended, which Natural Grocers carries. I'd tried some of their mix called 'Rescue Remedy' for pets but it hadn't done the trick.
The floor clerk who had helped me on that trip had tried to lead me to a specific remedy, he had experience in life as a ferrier (horse shoer) and I just thought I'd stick with what a former homeopath had suggested, which was the mixed product. Turns out the big time cat expert I'd made my way on the phone to talk to in California had recommended the exact thing the former ferrier had. Sometimes it takes hearing something more than once before you 'do it', in sorting through so many issues and choices and paths of things to do possibly. Unfortunately, she had a genetic disorder that there is no known solution for so was euthanized later in the month, this is about a year ago now. But I'd initially purchased all her food from Natural Grocers, but I noticed they now carry the brand that was at the Colorado-based Chow Down pet supply storie, a raw frozen or dehdrated food, for both cats and dogs. It was so impressive to see how she did differently with different foods, and her favorite part of the day was when I'd get into the spinach clamshell containers and she could carry away as many leaves as she wanted, like they were mice or birds she'd caught. Per the DVM homeopathic expert, it was VERY unusual she craved spinach when I got her, and until she was about 2 years old. After that it was my fish oil so I got her fish oil from Natural Grocers. They've just become part of my Colorado 'tradition' in these last 18 years I've shopped with them.
I'd wanted to see what Natural Grocers was doing with their seminars lately. The folks at our videos tab were some of the first to present at the local store, back before they exanded and had a dedicated little room (overly air conditioned and lit for my liking with cold white paint on the walls, it's my least favorite venue ever for attending a seminar, but providing that space in the store is an investment and shows their 'value' on education.) In the past, when they first started doing seminars back at the time Lumigrate's providers were intact in a clinic and I was in charge of getting the seminar series off the ground (with their admin help), they'd have 50 people sometimes, in a V shape in the back corner of the store and if anyone shopping wanted items in those areas they or staff would have to climb over the seated attendees.
And I went to every seminar for a long time, but after a while you've seen a lot of the information and attendance drops, so I felt this was a very good number of people in the room. But I couldn't help but notice that there were some awesome suggestions in the room, of uses for products sold in the store, and it was going "I'll bring Dustin the recipe" -- Or people were talking about The Oiling of America video and the book that they sell authored by the same gal -- it would be fun 'connections' to have those things on a social media-type sight somewhere. It would possibly allow for deeper connections within the community -- there were some really neat people in the room! (And they gave away a LOT of really good items for the giveway too, I was shocked.)
At that time they had a service where you could order online and they'd ship to people --- anywhere in the US, I believe, and perhaps beyond; foods, supplements and other products. I thought that was a great 'fit' for Lumigrate's YOUsers, and I was aware in our first year of more than a couple people who either went to a store after learning from Lumigrate they were a great resource, or they ordered online. In one case it was someone rather bedridden who made a lot of progress overall with their health, but there needed to be more expertise given to those purchasers with supplements and nutrition combined with other factors, such as medications, etc.
(Then we also selected the links at Amazon for people who might prefer using that if they were more comfortable with Amazon, but then Amazon quit doing business with Colorado based companies because Colorado was one of the first to close up the gap for collecting sales tax on Internet sales). Keep in mind, Lumigrate started to come together in 2008, the year of the economic problems in the US and beyond. So we had tons of monkey wrenches right from the start -- same as I'm sure Vitamin Cottage's founder did back in the 1950s.
So in late 2009 when I talked with one of the company's mangement staff about why the rebranding was occurring from Vitamin Cottage to Natural Grocers, I believe they told me --- and were the FIRST to raise my 'awareness' -- about Codex Alamentarius. Now that 2013 came and went, and I went down the rabbit holes of education and learning that I did and came to "Codex" again, this time to learn about it more fully, I think about how much the Natural Grocers business had to shift in order to stay viable going forward as all the changes come through that are part of Codex.
(Agenda 21 and ICLEA in terms of areas of the world being developed for people to live and have goods transported dovetails into Codex as does Common Core in education, which some people have heard about if they're teachers or have kids in school.... I have covered these in other topics on Lumigrate and strongly suggest people learn enough about 'that stuff' as soon as possible, as everything, even related to foods and supplements, will make more sense when you do.)
Natural Grocers stopping the online ordering lead me to find another Colorado based company which provided good supplement advise and products, ITC Compounding and Natural Wellness Pharmacy. We enjoyed working together in 2011 and 2012 but one of the co-founders became ill and died from pancreatic cancer just as their business environment was undergoing changes that have to do with shifts in what medical providers and clinics 'outside the box' doing; some are going out of business and there's a lot of shifting of who's working for whom.
Hence, I turned to a new format on Lumigrate and recently have exclusively been creating the content at Lumigrate as it takes a long time to develop relationships with the experts and how Lumigrate works etc... I was preferring to find people who weren't 'all over the Internet' so we had unique expertise writing, but sometimes I would have to help them register as users and sometimes they weren't really keyboarding writers so I'd write for them from what they verbalized.
I'd hoped that perhaps this company would fund Lumigrate in some way where we could help them get their message out to the public and they could help us stay viable providing content for the YOUsers to learn from. But when I got to looking at what they were doing -- massively expanding to other states and opening 15 new stores a year for at least two years in a row now, it just seemed like they had to get shifted before they'd know what they'd want to collaborate on. So here I was, finally feeling like the time might be right to plug back in and at least see what they were doing.
In 2009 I met with several members of their corporate staff, briefly, at their 'flagship' store, which I call their 'mothership' since the company's offices are located attached to it. For a year in the late 1990s I shopped at that store and lived within a mile of it, but I'd started shopping at their Cherry Creek store in 1996 when I moved to Denver after completing 18 years in Fort Collins living and working in everything from air quality research to occupational therapy and health education at the student health center for Colorado State University. I had gone GF/DF (and egg free) in 1995 so had my eyes peeled in my new Denver neighborhood; I was doing my internships at the Denver VA which was located near the CU Medical center.
I was eating a lot of Mexican food because I could eat corn and beans, so noticed a place I'd never heard of called 'Chipotle'; it turns out that was their #2 store and they'd never served someone who didn't want a flour tortilla, so we created the 'burrito bowl' and naked burrito together. Yes, my claim to fame.... They didn't have anything but the red baskets and foil, so they'd double up foil for the lining and put one over the top and trust me to bring the red basket back. I would do that on Thursdays as in my University OT time it was my big treat to watch Friends at 7 pm on Thursdays. You might know recognize the brand Chipotle, they've been busier than ever at the one store in my city, now living for a decade in the far west end of Colorado by Utah -- in 2014 they went GMO-free. And they've done some other things for advertising their message, such as a 'miniseries now showing' per their drink cups' marketing.
These are a few things from the Natural Grocers' website I thought I'd bring here for YOUsers:
On a tab about advocacy -- link: www.naturalgrocers.com/advocacy/advocacy-federal-state-and-community-regulation-and-planning
We realize that political and social advocacy is a process of implementing incremental improvement over time to achieve a better world. One advantage to being nearly sixty years old is that we have seen many great improvements. The other advantage is that we know that falling backward is an ever-present threat. If you see Natural Grocers aggressively pursuing an issue, be assured we have good reason!
And check back here to find out what that reason is.
One of the things discussed in the seminar I attended about superhero meal building was they'd dropped some of the more popular brands of dairy after finding out that the products were being made from milk from confinement dairies in some cases. The company's standards were discussed generally, and we were told about a brand that is sold there that exceeds the standards. It was funny, I'd just shopped there and forgotten to purchase butter to make into ghee (as I try to minimize the protein from dairy that I have historically been tested to be allergic to, which is not in ghee), so I was able to go from the seminar to the butter area and purchase that brand. Well worth the time to learn about in the seminar.
By creating a standard about confinement of the animals creating the milk (or eggs) you also get into addressing 'grassfed' and 'nonGMO', two things many consumers are looking for today. The animals consuming things that don't mess with their bodies (and minds) is a principle taught in paleolithic diet information, which I happened to be studying in late 2012, right when Newtown happened in the news and created 'the shift' to activism that I was expecting to happen at some point, it was just 'what will the story be, when will it happen.' You'll see I rapidly created a 'why' topic that weekend, and it was focused about diet. Why GENERALLY are we seeing more autism and other mental health differences, the behaviors that come from them, some of which is in the news but often is simply under our own roof or on our own street and neighborhoods in grossly increasing numbers.
So I was very pleased to see that Natural Grocer's very pre-pared presentation and handouts are congruent with what Lumigrate's provided along the way. They have a really great, colorful but simple 'wheel' of How to Build a Health Meal, reminding people of their commitment to affordability, quality and education. Half your plate vegetables, palm sized portion of protein, healthy fats, fruit and OPTIONAL additional carbohydrates shown with a grain graphic.
In the seminar, Dustin stressed how you get into things that are yo-yo-ing your blood sugar unless you're active. He really did a great job and it was apparent that he has a 'following' and is well respected and liked. He mentioned Jeff McCloskey, DC, who presents there regularly, who has provided topics at Lumigrate in 2012, one of which has almost reached 15,000 reads.
Their seminar is designed to go over the blood sugar regulation piece, something I was first presented with in my teens when I was found to have 'prediabetic hypoglycemia' and was told by the MD I'd just flat out be a diabetic when I was an adult. It was initially brushed under the rug by the Gates Rubber Company clinic MD, who said it was 60 at hour #3 and that's still in the 'normal' range, but it had been so high and was rapidly falling, so what did it do at hour #4 and 5? I had to retest when my parents finally figured I needed to be seen out of the 'system'. That's when it was found to be 37 at it's lowest. No wonder I wasn't feeling so great all the time! Strugging in school. The underlying reasons for that I have only birddogged as an adult and even today and turning up new stones, such as pyrole disorder, which I was really interested in asking Dustin about to see if anyone else had been asking about it at the store. It was awesome to turn him onto something new and know that a book they sell on their bookshelf has some information about it in it, under the word pyroluria. (Same info we present on Lumigrate from Primal Body, Primal Mind).
Due to my compliance as a teen (and I was really good about following the recommended guidelines about carbs and diet for blood sugar regulation), and due to much EXTRA work I have done outside the box of what conventional medicine teaches, I've avoided that diagnosis. But I'm only 54, the fat lady hasn't sung yet, as the saying goes. My mother and I were getting into organic gardening heavily by my teen years, I credit that about half our vegetables for a year were from our own garden and organic. I had a lot of exercise as a young person too, we had mountain property and animals and many things that needed to be done and a small family. My father and mother both had health issues so I worked 'tirelessly' to help with what I could. Every day. Literally.
I also learned at the seminar that when manufacturers offer discounts to distributors, Natural Grocers passes 100% of that discount on to the consumer in what they call their 'hotline' deals, which is not something their competitors do always (or maybe ever, I don't know).
So I was interested to see what they now have at their new website setup. The last time I'd looked here wasn't a whole lot there, I think they were still in the transition phase of things. I was thrilled to see that they present information about vaccines -- similarly to how we have at Lumigrate: It's your choice, learn the whole of it and decide, but .... be aware you need to learn it or we'd not be saying something about it, right? I don't prefer giving money to grocery chains that have pharmacies that are giving shots, that's just my personal opinion. So I really enjoy buying as many things as I can at Natural Grocers. This is the link about vaccinations - personal choices:
www.naturalgrocers.com/nutrition/vaccinations-personal-and-scientific-choices .... and this is a bit of what you'll find there:
But I've saved the most interesting for last, as they discuss naturopathic medicine.
... and here's a bit of what you'll find there:
In the medical world, few issues divide and consternate like whether to vaccinate our children and other family members. Natural Grocers does not take a stand on this issue, except that each person must make their own informed decisions based on a myriad of factors such as:
- Overall health of each individual
- Family history of reactions to vaccines
- Expected severity of symptoms from disease
- Potential for infecting other family, school and community members
- Recommendation from primary medical care provider
- Religious beliefs
- Concern over additives to vaccines
- Internet information critical of vaccinations
They go on with an interesting historical overview that includes vaccines being pioneered by the original homeopathic medical researchers following the theory that treatments similar to the potential disease would allow the body to better identify the illness and thus be able to respond by activating responses. I really suggest you go look around the website -- and see if there's one in your area OR someone you know who YOU might be able to turn onto this great resource for their wellness.
They have a lot of information about naturopathic medicine -- This is some of what you'll find (and the link is give, below, with encouragement to go see the source website:
Naturopathic Medicine on the Health Care Spectrum
The debate remains active and important today because these two diverse views of wellness provide the foundation for two different views of health care.
See also:
The health care spectrum: miracle medicine
On one end of the health care spectrum are the determined research scientists busily documenting how every gene affects every cell which in turn affects how the body creates disease or maintains wellness. They identify the microscopic chemical and physical interactions fueling the machine so a substance can be created to interrupt, augment, or change the interaction to cause a favorable outcome. Mostly, they aim at suppressing individual symptoms of diseases with expensive patented drugs. They test for usefulness and side effects, but making the symptom go away is good enough to claim success. Besides, they can build new drugs to control the side effects. You know the drill.
This is our modern miracle medicine, which has curtailed epidemics, cured infections, and increased life spans for millions. It is built on treating diseases with substances that may be quite dangerous, but they are not as dangerous as the symptoms of the disease itself. The key theory behind miracle medicine is that a particular set of physical symptoms can be differentiated among all others to make it possible to identify the existence of a disease of the patient. The disease is given a name and a number (for billing purposes), and a standard treatment protocol is prescribed for the patient. In many cases, this is good enough and wellness ensues. Or does it?
The acknowledged weakness of this disease/symptom/treatment approach to medicine is that it never works for everyone. The development and testing of pharmaceutical products is gauged against statistical averages. In every successful clinical trial, there are subjects who improve (or don't improve) on a placebo regimen, those who improve (or don't improve) on the experimental medicine with minimal side effects, those who get well due to the placebo affect while taking the medicine, and, at the bottom of the list, those who suffer mild to severe side effects from the medicine. A positive outcome in a drug trial is to minimize the harm done to subjects relative to the good done to those subjects who were not harmed. You get the idea: it's really good to be lucky in miracle medicine.
The health care spectrum: naturopathic medicine.
This section of our web site speaks to the other end of the health care spectrum, namely naturopathic medicine. Admittedly, we began above by doing a hatchet job on "modern miracle medicine" in order to better point out the contrasts with natural medicine.
First, the theory that there exists a singular disease caused by a structural or functional problem within the body that can be fixed with chemical intervention is not dismissed outright, but it is treated with some suspicion. Long before the current list of diseases and conditions were codified based on a mechanical view of health, hundreds of other diseases systems existed based on other theories. So the Naturopath takes great interest in these lists of symptom sets, diseases, and treatments, but within a different framework altogether. Our bodies grow from the smallest spark of life into thriving, reactive beings that have evolved over tens of millions of years to thrive without miracle medicine. So, let's start by supporting all the ways we have learned to survive and thrive before we abandon or interfere with that legacy using invasive interventions.
Second, the natural treatments used by Naturopaths must align with the primary tenet of the ancient Hippocratic Oath of doctors: first, do no harm. In the black bag of the Naturopath there are no poisons. Treatment is provide primarily through changes to diet and exercise, botanicals and dietary supplements, removing food and environmental irritants, adding other foods, stress reduction, and other methods using light, sound, and touch. Treatment is also provided by paying attention to the patient and helping him or her identify all of the particular symptoms and circumstance, both past and present, that are interrupting their wellness. Moreover, good naturopathy empowers patients with science-based knowledge and the ability to make informed choices -- especially when facing their primary care physician.
The health care spectrum: synergy
We find that most medical doctors support the naturopathic approach to medicine, as long as its scope of practice keeps within the bounds where it is effective. For instance, it will seldom cure cancer, but naturopathic support during conventional cancer treatments is widely recognized as hugely beneficial. By the same token, medical doctors' practices are structured so that there is no time provided to converse extensively with a patient, or to educate and counsel a patient over time. When a patient's condition is fundamentally caused by poor nutrition, improper nutrition, allergens and sensitivities, or social and emotional issues, establishing a long term honest and open therapeutic relationship is essential.
The health care spectrum: primary care
An individual's primary care physician often is in command of every health-related conversation and decision in a patient's life. Only certain therapies -- those that the physician is trained in, comfortable with, paid for, covered by professional liability insurance, and are within the doctor's scope of practice and standard of care -- are available to the patient. In many instances, therapies such as stress relief, weight loss, and individualized nutritional changes are not made available as accepted primary therapies. Medical doctors are best at finding out what is already wrong, but not so good at making sure nothing bad is preparing to happen in the future. For this reason, preventive and maintenance care are often best provided by a naturopathic practitioner who can help identify an individual's particular sickness and wellness patterns and devise plans to avoid or mitigate future health issues.
We at Natural Grocers look to a future where high-tech conventional medicine is adjunct to holistic primary care. In the long term, the curriculum and training for medical doctors needs to include an understanding of holistic and naturopathic principles. By the same token, the typical primary care physician (and their support staff, such as nurse practitioners) have to allow time and focus to better identify the cause of health conditions over time. Finally, conventional medicine needs to recognize the great value of Naturopathic Doctors and Traditional Naturopaths (and other alternative health care practitioners) in helping the public stay healthy. We can no longer afford a health care system that only treats diseases, when those very diseases are being caused by diet, environmental, emotional and lifestyle choices. An informed and empowered citizen, guided by a naturopathic practitioner, is often the most curable patient.
See also:
The above is from this link: Please take the trip to 'see the sites' as I say -- it's a great website and can hopefully help YOUsers even if they're not fortunate enough to have a store in their area --- yet!
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT CODEX:
What is NHF
Codex since 1997 (they have a book for sale about Codex)
And for some diversity of types of information, a link I found and liked about codex, though I realize the website educate-yourself dot org overall looks very rag tag and rabel rouser-ish (so I'm not necessarily saying I've gravitated to all their website content, just their Codex information seemed a good resource to link YOUsers to in addition to the NHF:
I'm going to recommend a little variety here: The more tried and true, established, nonprofit activist group the National Health Foundation
__________________
Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!
Comments
.... per Anthony Samsel, for those of us who care about pets and other animals, or humans and how this all applies to ALL things, this is an interesting addition that I saw Stephanie Seneff post on Facebook this week. Here's the link for the YouTube:
www.youtube.com/watch [11]
You'll find at the link that Tony Mitra interviews Anthony Samsel, frequent collaborator with Stephanie Seneff, PhD, senior research scientist from MIT (from there with all of her degrees, and now a senior researcher there), able to blow the whistle basically, because, she says, MIT does not have funding from Monsanto the way agricultural organizations do.
Samsel on Glyphosate contaminated lab chow [11]
Lab tests done by promoters of Glyphosate (Roundup) apparently has Glyphosate contamination in regular lab food given to animals. This means, even control animals are subject to diseases due to Glyphosate contamination in their food.
The producer of lab-chow conducts random tests for presence of chemicals in their feed, but do not test for Glyphosate because they have never been required to.
This is another bombshell - essentially raising question on the very authenticity of any lab test done on safety assessment of Glyphosate.
Dr. Samsel is writing another paper on it. Take home message :
1) The protocol for laboratory tests need to be overhauled.
2) Quality of lab animal feed needs to be taken into account. Contaminated lab feed should disqualify a test.
3) Historical control should be banned from science.
Here's more from Anthony Samsel: Samsel on Glyphosate safety tests - Part 1Dr. Anthony Samsel got the US-EPA to reopen files containing safety tests on Glyphosate that had been sealed since 1981 as "Trade Secret" on request of Monsa... [12]
Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as: Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate [9] and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!