The Organic View

Anyone who is a guardian of an animal companion has asked themselves, “What do I feed them?” Often our choices are made from “recommendations” by vets, friends, advertisements, coupons, and our budgets. But do we really know what we are feeding our companions? There is so much information and most of the time, it is conflicting regarding the nutritional requirements and needs of the animal in addition to the labeling of the food, which can be very confusing.

In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, Laura Lassiter, animal and wildlife advocate, will present information that will not be easy to accept. However, if you care for your animal companion, you will want to be informed about what is in most commercial pet food including the premium brands. We will explore why the pet food industry, which represents billions of dollars, is unregulated and expose what goes into these attractive cans and bags which are supposed to be “balanced and nutritional.” We will also discuss if the food we feed our animal companions is killing them? Does it affect their behavior? How can we determine if a particular food is nutritious or not? How do we read a label? How is the food made and would it surprise you that “road-kill” animals are processed into the food? Join us as we explore the organic connection which can turn the health of your animal companion from sickness to health.

Spring is certainly not the only time you should conduct a major cleansing of your home from top to bottom. However, many people typically will conduct semi-monthly to semi-annual cleaning of their home to not only get rid of excess but to keep things sparkling! Here in the northeastern part of the USA, we are experiencing the “change of seasons.” People are preparing for colder weather and are packing away summer attire. Closets are being rearranged to make space for other warmer weather items and so the fall cleaning ritual begins! There are so many products to clean all sorts of surfaces on the market but are they really necessary? Which products are safe for pets? What if you have allergies? What do you do if the unscented detergents are still aggravating your sinuses? In this segment of The Organic View, Larry Plesent, the “Organic Soapman” himself, who is subsequently the CEO of Vermont Soapworks (http://www.vtsoap.com), will my guest to talk about organic household cleaning. He will also be taking calls from our global audience to answer questions and help you to make your home environment cleaner! Larry Plesent is a well known authority in the organic soap making industry. Larry also developed the world's first certified organic pet shampoo, shower gel, nontoxic cleaner, and spray cleaner. He also is the founder of the Green Products Alliance. So, if you want to learn how to clean your home organically without breaking the bank, stay tuned!

More and more people are choosing to follow a vegan or vegetarian diet whether it’s due to allergies or moral reasons. In this segment of The Organic View, we will discuss which foods to avoid, what foods to substitute and how to dine out! Stay tuned!

Most women have become so accustomed to buying a product to make their skin softer, accent cheekbones or deep condition their hair. As a society where time has become the most valued commodity, we have lost the art of making high quality products from scratch. In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, Kayla Fioravanti, Chief Formulator, who is a registered aromatherapist and an Organic Trade Association member from Essential Wholesale Labs (www.essentialwholesale.com) will be my guest to talk about how you can make many of the things you buy at home. If you have had a hard time finding beauty products that don’t irritate your skin, want to start your own business or are looking to make some really great holiday gifts, stay tuned!

Everyone is back to school and so begin the parent-teacher conferences. So, perhaps our audience would like to connect with me directly about organic! When I lecture, I am constantly asked some of the same questions over and over. Is organic just a marketing scam? Can anyone really tell the difference between organic and conventional? Why do they call food conventional when organic food is actually conventional? Why does the country of origin matter? Are there genetically modified organisms in organic food? Do pets need to eat organically? What other products should I be using that are organic? What is greenwashing? In this segment of The Organic View, June Stoyer, the host of the show, will be taking calls from our global audience to answer questions and go over some of the myths about organic. Stay tuned!

As the demand for certified organic increases, people are becoming more aware of the ingredients in their food, the country of origin and especially the process in which these products are grown or made. It has been a common practice in many 3rd world countries to utilize child labor as well as heinous working conditions in order to be able to produce enough products in order to meet these demands. The Fair Labor movement is trying to do something about it. Wages and labor conditions are measured and monitored at every point in the supply chain, not merely on the farm. In this way, social responsibility is promoted throughout the supply chain, providing a clear path for continuous improvement. This actually results in more productivity, less waste due to product recalls, less pollution and overall better for society as a whole. 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 what this certification entails. She will also talk about why she chose to certify her entire line of products and how this certification will impact her business. If you own a business or are a consumer, it is important to educate yourself about exactly how our products are made and why this certification is becoming critical to protecting our environment. Stay tuned!

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (http://www.nbcam.org ) and is celebrating its 25 year anniversary! According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), an estimated 192,370 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed among women in the United States this year. An estimated 40,170 women are expected to die from the disease in 2009 alone. Today, there are about 2.5 million breast cancer survivors living in the United States. In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, New York’s very own Irene Virag (www.irenevirag.com) will be my guest to talk about her own journey through cancer and how it changed her as a gardener and as a writer. Irene is a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper reporter. She has been named a Great American Gardener by the American Horticultural Society and won the organization’s national communication award for inspirational garden writing. For 14 years, Irene wrote New York Newsday’s garden column and was honored with the Garden Writers Association’s Gold Award for the nation’s best newspaper column. Currently, she writes for magazines such as Country Gardens, Organic Gardening, Fine Gardening, Better Homes & Gardens and others. She was recently awarded the association’s Gold Award for best magazine writing for her “Backyard Biology” column in Nature’s Garden magazine. Tune in to hear Irene’s story which is one of hope, inspiration and survival!

In 1954-1957, there were 3.5 million dairy farmers. Today, there are only 47,000 dairy farmers in America. With the pressure increasing on dairy farmers as well as the heat from the big chemical companies like Monsanto closing in, they seem to be dropping like flies. The latest slam to the American Dairy farmers has to do with the ability to sell raw milk. In this segment of The Organic View, Joel Greeno, the President of the American Raw Milk Producers Pricing Association and the Vice-President of Family Farm Defenders will be my guest to talk about these pressures. Joel Greeno has been a Wisconsin Dairy Farmer for 15 years. As the current President of the American Raw Milk Producers Pricing Association, which is an organization of dairy farmers dedicated to establishing a raw milk price which returns to dairy producers their cost of production plus a profit, he advocates for dairy farmers across America. ARMPPA is a milk-marketing agency that holds no allegiance to any existing milk handler, cooperative or corporation. Through ARMPPA, small and moderate-sized dairy producers can survive as independent businesses and avoid vertical integration. So, is raw milk getting the raw deal? Why is it that a bottle of wine costs 3 times as much as one gallon of life giving sustenance? Even a bottle of water adds up to $8 a gallon if you do the math. However, milk remains very cheap but costs quite a lot to produce. Want to know why there is so much unfairness, injustice and harassment of the dairy farmers? Stay tuned!

What would you do if you lost your dog or cat? Most people would be devastated. Domestic animals have become such a part of our lives, it is almost impossible to even think about what it would be like if they were no longer a part of our lives. This is all the more reason why pet owners really need to think about what kind of food they are feeding their animal companions. Last year, there were over 60 million cans and pouches of pet food recalled from China that it literally sent Americans into a panic, as they raced to their vets to make sure their pets were in good health. People learned the hard way that they cannot just opt to buy anything that is available on the shelf. If people made some effort to make their own pet food, their animal companions would live a longer, healthier life, without so many trips to the vet. In this day and age, just one trip to the vet has become a small fortune. It just is not worth it! In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, my guest will be Dr. Harvey Cohen, Founder and CEO of www.DrHarveys.com Dr. Harvey is a renowned expert on animal health and nutrition. He lectures extensively throughout the United States, Japan, Canada and Europe, on the health and nutrition of all creatures, great and small. If you want to learn more about keeping your animal companion healthy and happy, stay tuned!

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but what would you do if you found that all of your favorite cosmetics irritated your skin? Then to top it off, you found out that they were tested on animals? In this segment of The Organic View, I have the pleasure of interviewing Katherine Corkill, President of Sterling Minerals (http://www.sterlingminerals.com) Katherine has embraced the challenges of finding cosmetics that actual work well with a mature woman. In fact, she even launched her own series of videos that really help women to understand that beautiful women can be of any age. If you want to find out how one woman decided to overcome an obstacle and help other women, stay tuned!