One of the critical factors required in order to keep a manufacturing facility profitable is the cost of labor. Companies that are both large and small seek cheaper labor in order to offset the final cost which enables them to stay competitive. Unfortunately, the price that has been paid has been more than just payroll. The environment has been upset due to carelessness for the land or illegal dumping of waste. Then there is the cost of illness and death due to carelessness from product recalls. Enough is enough. For some people, unless they make it themselves, they won’t buy it. That may seem like the perfect solution but for most of our world, it is very time consuming and not very practical. The Fair Trade Certified™ Label guarantees consumers that strict economic, social and environmental criteria were met in the production and trade of an agricultural product. Fair Trade Certification is currently available in the U.S. for coffee, tea and herbs, cocoa and chocolate, fresh fruit, flowers, sugar, rice, and vanilla. TransFair USA licenses companies to display the Fair Trade Certified label on products that meet strict international Fair Trade standards. In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, Bena Burda, President and CEO of Maggie’s Functional Organics (http://www.maggiesorganics.com) will be my guest to talk about the new pilot program FairTradeUSA has in order to not only protect the workers but to ensure the quality of the products. She will discuss how the organization helps farmer groups to establish fair prices, fair labor conditions, their policy against child labor, how the farms are able to invest Fair Trade wages, community development and environmental sustainability. If you would like to learn more about this wonderful organization and how they are working together to make products safer while protecting the environment, stay tuned!

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden http://www.bbg.org is one of the top botanical gardens in the world. Founded in 1910, it's situated on 52 acres and offers so many wonderful activities for the entire family from garden tours to art classes. No matter where you are in the garden, there is something here for every nature lover! Growing from its humble beginnings as an ash dump in the late 1800s, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has come to represent today the very best in urban gardening and horticultural display. The mission of Brooklyn Botanic Garden is to serve all the people in its community and throughout the world by displaying plants, practicing the high art of horticulture in order to provide a beautiful and hospitable setting for the delight and inspiration of the public. The BBG engages in research in plant sciences to expand human knowledge of plants, disseminating the results to science professionals and to the general public. Education is also a huge part of the garden. There are many programs geared specifically for children and adults in order to teach them to properly grow plants and create beautiful gardens. There are also a number of programs to reach out to help the people of all diverse urban neighborhoods in order to enhance the quality of their surroundings and their daily lives through the cultivation and enjoyment of plants. The BBG actively seeks to arouse public awareness of the fragility of our natural environment, both local and global. It offers a myriad of publications as well as other information about environmental protection and conservation. In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, Mr. Lou Cesario, Director of Visitor Services and Volunteers will be my guest to talk about the history of this prestigious garden as well as the upcoming Gourds and Ghouls festival. If you're in the New York City area or intend to visit the greatest city in the world, this is one of the most memorable places you definitely must visit!

In America, there is so much confusion about our food as to whether or not something is in fact genetically modified or not. Due to the success of the “greenwashers” who simply manufacture products that offer an illusion of purity, something needed to be done. The irony is in America, you are innocent until proven guilty but with our food, it has come to the point where the consumer is concluding that products are “guilty” of being everything but organic until it has passed a certification process. The Non-GMO Project http://www.nongmoproject.org) is a non-profit collaboration of manufacturers, retailers, processors, distributors, farmers, seed companies and consumers. Their shared belief is that everyone deserves an informed choice about whether or not to consume genetically modified products, and our common mission is to ensure the sustained availability of non-GMO choices. This organization is committed to practical solutions and offers North America’s first consensus-based Standard, third-party Product Verification Program, and uniform Seal for products made following best practices of GMO avoidance. In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, Mr. Michael J. Potter, the President and Chairman of Eden Foods (http://www.edenfoods.com ) will discuss this project and how it will impact our food. Mr. Potter has been an innovator in the organic industry and is also highly respected by all, especially since Eden Foods had banned GMO’s almost 2 decades ago. So why is yet another certification necessary? Will this mean additional costs passed on to the consumer? What will this mean to the producer? Who is going to manage the verification and what checks and balances are in place? If you are concerned about the quality of the food you eat and the future of our food, stay tuned!

The root of every major problem we deal with begins with the amount of stress we have and how we manage it. The Institute of HeartMath (http://www.heartmath.org)is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization that is dedicated to helping people establish heart-based living and global coherence. So, what is meant by personal and global coherence? Personal coherence, also known as psychophysiological coherence, refers to the synchronization of our physical, mental and emotional systems. It can be measured by our heart-rhythm patterns: The more balanced and smooth they are, the more in sync, or coherent, we are. Stress levels recede, energy levels increase and our brain and what HeartMath calls the "heart brain" are working together. It is a state of optimal clarity, perception and performance. HeartMath tools and technology have been scientifically proven to help us achieve personal coherence. Global coherence refers to the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being of the greater community of human beings, while acting in concert with their own hearts, each other and nation to nation in harmony with our living planet. HeartMath believes coherence on a grand scale is highly achievable when large numbers of people focus their heart intelligence on a common goal. In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, Howard Martin, Executive VP, Strategic Development who is also the co-founder of HeartMath , will be my guest. Howard has been instrumental in assisting Doc Childre, founder of HeartMath, in the development and teaching of HeartMath's programs since its inception. Howard is also the co-author with Doc Childre of The HeartMath Solution, published by Harper San Francisco and also developed Nightingale-Conant's tape series, The HeartMath Method. He is the key spokesperson for HeartMath and has conducted hundreds of news media and documentary film interviews including CNN Headline News, ABC Good Morning America, and ABC World NewsTonight.

All wheat varieties belong to the genus Triticum. Within this genus, wheat can be divided based on its number of chromosomes in three groups. The first is Diploid wheat, (14 chromosomes) which is the oldest selection. Cultivated varieties are rare and uncommon in this group. The only known example of the cultivation is einkorn. Cultivated by the ancient Egyptians, it was found in 4000 year old tombs of pharaohs. "Kamut," not the name of a wheat variety, is a trademark, for the commercialization of a wheat variety guaranteeing the quality of the grain. In 1990, the Quinn family, registered the word "Kamut" as a trademark because of the exceptional qualities of the ancient Khorasan wheat they wished to preserve in addition to the high quality and nutritional benefits. Only through the use of a trademark did the Quinns feel that they could protect the buyer in order to guarantee that Kamut® Khorasan wheat products are made from the pure, ancient wheat variety Khorasan. Kamut, which has a nutty taste can be used in any recipe that requires wheat. It is 20-40% higher in protein than whole wheat and has a lighter texture than whole wheat. Often, people who are sensitive to wheat can tolerate Kamut. (It is always best to check with your doctor.) So, why did the Quinn family go to such an extreme to protect something like wheat? In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, Dr. Bob Quinn, President of Kamut® International, will be my guest. Bob has been involved in organic agriculture since the 1970s. He has promoted organic agriculture throughout his home state of Montana, encouraging other farmers—including U.S. Senator Jon Tester— to go organic. He works closely with Montana State University personnel on testing of new farming systems and new crops to provide farmers a substitute for the use of conventional fertilizer and pesticides. If you want to learn more about this amazing food and what it took to protect it, stay tuned!

Have you ever come home completely exhausted and couldn’t wait to crash on the couch? Then, just as you are about to drift off to the Land of Nod, you hear a noise. It is a very familiar sound that simply won’t stop. You wonder what exactly is making this annoying noise. Then, you realize that it’s your cat or dog, busy grooming themselves! While you would normally ignore this sound, it's hard to ignore at this point. You tolerate it for and then, it becomes too annoying. You call out with a stern voice expecting it to stop. However, chances are it's not going to be effective because your animal companion appears to be involved in a bad habit that is obsessive and compulsive. Could this be a medical condition? Little do we realize the animal is trying to communicate with us as he or she continues to lick the fur excessively. Without the awareness that licking is a form of communication, most of us have no idea and assume it is some kind of topical issue. As we scour their bodies trying to find some invisible culprit, we often give up and take our companions to the vet. Popular solutions, can include a shot containing a steroid or perhaps a round of antibiotics. This doesn’t work. A few days to a week later, you find that your pet is compulsively “licking” again. Frustrated, we repeat this cycle until we either run out of money or the animal develops a serious condition as the result of all of the medication administered which now takes precedence over the licking. Is it natural for animals to compulsively lick themselves? Is there any explanation for this behavior? Is there anything that works permanently to stop the licking? If so, what is it and how do you find it? Is licking an indication of deeper emotional issues? In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, Laura Lassiter, animal and wildlife advocate, will share some very important information that will shed light onto this puzzling behavior.

Don’t you just love big cats? They look so soft and cuddly, they make you just want to take one home with you! Well, that is not the smartest idea as many people have discovered because these creatures are, in fact, wild animals. They need a proper habitat and also need the freedom to do as nature intended. However, there are many people that feel they know everything and will buy these creatures only to dump them in a public park when they get to be too much to handle. Some will even “drop them off” to what appears to be a private wildlife sanctuary only to have the animals caged and even sold for their hides and parts used for pet food. The zoos are no solution because once the cubs are no longer babies, they are not deemed valuable because the public only wants to see babies. So, what exactly happens to these creatures when they get big? There is very little legal protection for these animals. However, there is one organization that has been fighting to change the laws to help protect the animals and also to help protect people from having access to these animals! Did you know that there are more tigers in backyard cages in the U.S. than tigers that are left in the wild? In the U.S., there are more incidents of killings, maulings and escapes by big cats than the rest of the world! This is interesting because Americans only account for 4% of the global population. In this segment of The Organic View, Carole Baskin, Founder and CEO of Big Cat Rescue (http://www.bigcatrescue.org), will my guest to talk about the exploitation of these animals in America. Big Cat Rescue, is the world's largest accredited sanctuary that is devoted entirely to exotic cats, such as lions, tigers, leopards and bobcats. She will also talk about how Hollywood has been profiting from the heinous treatment of these creatures. If you want to find out what you can do to end this multi-million dollar trade that results in so much abuse and abandonment, stay tuned!

American degeneracy is quite a hot topic, especially if you are spewing theories that have no scientific proof. There have been many comparisons between Al Gore and Comte de Buffon, who was a leading French naturalist. In Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle, he basically ripped apart America and said that because it was the last to emerge from the sea, it had weaker land, smaller animals and would never be strong. Interestingly enough, Thomas Jefferson defended our great country and pointed out that his theories do not fully explore all possibilities and just go so far. So, what have we learned from history? Why is or why was the study of plants so important? How did the debate over American Degeneracy affect American garden and landscape outlooks? How come Lincoln thought it important enough in the middle of the Civil War to establish the Department of Agriculture? In this segment of The Organic View, horticultural expert, John Peter Thompson, will be my guest to talk about this controversy and why we need to pay attention to the environment. If you want to hear the facts and understand what is going on with our environment as it pertains to Global Warming, stay tuned! We welcome our audience to participate and join the conversation! Call 917-932-1068 to speak to our featured guests or send us a tweet @TheOrganicView and if your question is selected, your name will be mentioned on LIVE radio!

Did you know that may people have rabbits as domestic pets? In fact, they are as common in the United States as cats and dogs. Interestingly enough, the rabbit is a commonly used animal when it comes to marketing. Hugh Hefner trademarked the rabbit for his Playboy Empire. Christians around the world think of rabbits as a sign of fertility and also associate it with Easter. Then you have good old Bugs Bunny, America’s favorite cartoon. Well, one of mine, at any rate! Rabbits are either loved or adored, depending upon whether or not you find them to be invading your garden or find them to be such gentle, sweet, loving creatures. They are actually a vital part of the ecosystem and make wonderful pets! However, many people will buy or adopt these gentle creatures without a clue as to how to care for them. In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, Inge Dehenin from RabbitMatch.org (http://www.rabbitmatch.org) will talk about the vast number of rabbit owners and the progress that her organization has made educating the public about adoption, care and overall rabbit well being. Stay tuned!

Most people think of guacamole when they think of the avocado. In fact, there are so many different ways you can utilize this fruit (yes, it is a fruit!) that the range varies. Avocados can be used as a topical for skin treatments to all sorts of appetizers, tapenades, oils, sauces and even desserts! Have you ever thought about eating deep fried organic avocados? What about organic avocado chocolate pie for dessert? Many people have begun to substitute them for eggs in recipes because it is great for binding ingredients!

In this segment of The Organic View,two Organic Avocado Farmers from the Sunshine State, Mr. Murray Bass, from Twin Meadows LLC. and Mr. William Benjamin McLean, Jr. from Uncle Matt’s Organic (www.UncleMatts.com) will talk about the nutritional and health benefits of organic avocados, what it is like to grow organic avocados, and some of the struggles they have faced as farmers. Stay tuned!