Making the difference: the passionate people behind natural products - innerbeauty

When you walk into a natural products or health food store, you feel differently than you would in a supermarket or drugstore. At the supermarket, bright colors and shelf positioning seem to dominate the senses, iust as jingles and slogans for the most well-known brands run through your head, seeming to make your decisions for you--may the best marketing and packaging win!

But such sales tactics don't really tell us what the best brands are--especially at the health food store, where it's left up to consumers to read labels, and maybe even the ingredients list, to make decisions. Suddenly it's substance over packaging, and for those who are not used to discerning the finer details regarding foods, supplements and personal care products, the experience can be downright daunting, like entering a Circuit City when you don't know a sub-woofer from a sub sandwith. But plunging into the process of label comparing and becoming an informed consumer have incredible rewards, I assure yon.

My own pursuit of the purest and most effective products has led me time and again not only to life-changing results--no exaggeration--but to some of the most passionate people that I have ever encountered.

This month, as part of a two-part series, I'll introduce you to a few of these fascinating people and the missions behind some of their most passion-driven products.

Supporting Sustainability

Aside from her lifelong love affair with herbs, which has taken her from Romania to Sudan to Argentina, herbal beverage pioneer Caroline MacDougall has helped indigenous communities in Central America for over a decade. Her work includes identifying local herbs and spices, plus resurrecting centuries-old harvesting and curing methods that preserve and regenerate rain forests. In creating beverages that utilize Mexican vanilla beans, such as her Teeccino Vanilla Nut Herbal Coffee and her Rainforest Tea, she helps support wild habitats in both Chile and the United States.

Two other pioneers, Gaetane Austin and her daughter, Andree, are founders of Pure Fiji--the first company in the world to commercialize the use of virgin coconut oil, which recently won a Fiji Trade and Investment Bureau award for top exporter. They've implemented a new technique for extracting the oil that requires no electricity and renders a product so unchanged by heat or chemicals that the unscented variety can actually be consumed--or used for massage and traditional skin and hair care. The new methods allow family members to work together as a group.

In similar fashion, Chris Kilham, a teacher of enthnobiology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, together with probiotic and herbal company New Chapter, have brought to market a uniquely therapentic and cosmetically rare oil called tamanu for their product, True Tamanu. Production of tamanu provides income for people of the South Pacific republic of Vanuatu, while helping to keep Pacific island coastal areas pristine.

Chocolate for the Wild

Jon Stocking is founder and president of the Endangered Species Chocolate Company, which contributes at least 10 percent of its profits to environmental groups that protect endangered animals and their habitats. Stocking--known "confectionately" as Chocolate Jon--was motivated in part by a life-altering experience with net-entangled dolphins while working on a fishing boat. Today he spends a good chunk of his time captivating classrooms full of chocolate- and animal-loving children.

Cultivating Consciousness

A company's desire to answer questions and reward and encourage curiosity in consumers is a dead giveaway that it's offering something of real value and substance. That's Brenda Watson's philosophy. She is the founder of ReNew Life Formulas, author of Renew Your Life and founder of five natural health clinics. She says her mission is to educate both consumers and marketers on the methods and the importance of internal digestive cleansing. "It was by sharing what I learned that I began to see people getting better who had the same kind of health problems I conquered. Because I care about how my customers use and learn about our products, I've found it far more effective to have a strong core of marketers and educators within the company" instead of hiring outside marketers, she says.

Personal Triumph

Most missions to develop and offer innovative products start with a personal story. Jordan Rubin, NMD, CNC, author of Patient Heal Thyself, and 27-year-old CEO of Garden of Life, writes about how he cured himself of severe Crohn's disease and transformed himself from emaciated to robust after dozens of doctors deemed his condition hopeless.

Rubin's amazing story also describes his passion for helping others help themselves.

In an equally inspiring story, Diana Kaye, cofounder with James Hahn of TerrEssentials, a line of ultra-pure body care products, says she healed herself of "incurable" non-Hodgkin's lymphoma by detoxifying her life. She then set out to home-grow the very herbs that helped her heal, and to craft micro-batch body care delicacies on her farm in rural Maryland.