USDA NOP regulations say processed food products that contain at least 70 percent organically produced ingredients can use the phrase "made with organic ingredients" and list up to three of the organic ingredients or food groups on the principal display panel. But the USDA seal cannot be used anywhere on the package. The New Chapter Organics probiotic line falls into this category.
And while New Chapter Claims - and their certifier agress - that their probiotics are food, since the products carry a supplement panel and structure-funtion claims, they are subject to FDA regulation as supplements.
"Consumers want to be assured that they are purchasing products that are truly organic," says New Chapter President Tom Newmark, "but regulation is sorely needed if we plan to expand the organic movement. In the future what we need is for the USDA and FDA to work together to come up with an organic standard that makes everyone happy, and covers the labeling requirements for both sides. It's not about the seal, it's about the standard."
When you're shopping for supplements, you may find other supplement companies that identify themselves as organic, but no other, at this writing, has been certified under the NOP.
Shopping is a political act. When you buy something, you buy something, you are voting with your wallet: You are supporting the manufacturers of the products you buy, and encouraging them to produce more of the same. You can create your own reality in the marketplace by using your economic power to foster change. If you want quality products, demand will create the supply.
Take your multivitamins, for example. Are you getting what you pay for? Did you know that one of the LEAST important factors in your decision about buying multivitamins is the number of milligrams of its constituents? Milligrams measure weight, not effectiveness. Do the math - and the biochemistry - 1,000 milligrams of anything synthetic and isolated can't begin to measure up to the synergistic workings, the alchemy, the "inner wisdom" of a whole plant.
Why does a plant turn towards the sun? How do its leaves know when to sprout? Where does the energy come from to turn a seed into a shoot and a sapling and then a full, blossoming herb? Nature's infinite capacity for making the right things happen at the right time in the right way can't be replicated in a factory using artificial ingredients.
More precisely, it's the gestalt of nature, creating a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, that can't be replicated. At best, it can only be appropriated with great care, by utilizing nature's own processes and its bounty.
Isolates are isolated. They function on their own. Add one isolate to another one and you get two isolates, sometimes synergistic, sometimes not.
However, if you take whole foods and process them according to natural laws of action-reaction, such as fermentation, you will unleash the exponentially greater capacities of the beneficial compounds and powerful antioxidants not found in the isolates themselves, or in any combination thereof.
And, if those whole foods are vegetarian and organic, the end results is a product that can be as beneficial for people as it is for the Earth.
New Chapter's Every Man® and Every Woman® contain at least 70 percent organically produced ingredients which are fermented (cultured) whole-food supplements. Paul Schulick and Tom Newmark, authors of The Life Bridge (and partners in New Chapter), explain the benefits of fermenting or culturing this way: "It's the miracle of transformation from inorganic molecules to organic complexes that carry the vitality of life itself."
Culturing intensifies and releases nutrients that would otherwise remained "locked inside"; it creates activity, bioavailability, and stability. Think of the shelf life of kimchi versus cabbage, or yogurt versus milk. It's no wonder culturing is one of the oldest forms of food preservation and nutritional enhancement.
Cultruing food fibers produces butyrate, a powerful liver detoxifier. The isoflavones in soy are created by culturing soy. Culturing broccoli turns its glucosinolates into isothiocyanates, another detoxifier. The bacteriocins produced in fermentation kill bacteria like harmful strains of E. coli and the culturing yeast make by-products that inhibit the growth of harmful yeast.
