Once upon a time, family farms were sprinkled across the rural landscape amongst wild, open spaces and thriving small towns that served the needs of farm families. This warmly appealing image still defines the American psyche and our vision of ourselves. However, this bucolic landscape has all but disappeared. In an alarmingly short period of time, chemical agriculture — and the factory farms it spawned — has almost obliterated the family farms that nourished our culture and has rendered them into nothing more than a sweet memory. We have all lost something very precious as a result — not only a way of life that defined us, but also a safe and healthy food supply, biological diversity, undisturbed wildlife and aquatic habitats, clean air, and safe drinking water.

Farming practices are some of the most significant influences on our health and the natural environment. In fact, the simple choice to eat certified organic food and food supplements might be more important to your health, your family’s health, and the health of the planet than any other lifestyle choice you make. While there are numerous reasons for this, they can be sorted into two primary categories: the toxic trail and the vanishing nutrients. Both have enormous implications for your health and the health of the planet.

Following the toxic trail
Until the 1940s, the form of farming we now call organic was actually the norm. This all changed at the end of World War II, when a problem had to be resolved: what to do with all the toxic chemicals leftover from warfare? A market was created to disperse these chemicals, in the form of pesticides, to farmers. Spurred on by promises of greater yields due to less insect damage, farmers eagerly embraced the new technologies. Chemical manufacturers were heartened by the ease with which farmers accepted chemical pesticides. In fact, the farmers’ acceptance of chemical pesticides was so overwhelming that manufacturers continued the trend and successfully introduced chemical fertilizers in the 1950s. Today, the use of chemicals is so rampant that as many as 16 different chemicals might be applied to a single crop during one growing season! That means consumption of the beautiful, shiny, conventionally grown fruits and veggies on the grocery shelves contributes significantly to the two pounds of toxic chemicals — in the form of trace residues found on our food — the average person ingests each year. Scientists and medical professionals theorize that many modern-day diseases stem from these toxins and other chemical exposures.

Have the benefits of pesticide use been worth the risk? Absolutely not! The USDA reports that in 1915 the percentage of crops damaged by insects was actually less than in 1988 to 1989. Typically, farmers lost one-third of their crops to insect damage before the introduction of chemical pesticides, and they still lose an average of one-third of their crops to insect damage today. This is because insects are extremely adaptable. Unlike humans, insects have brief life spans and reproduce prolifically, allowing them to quickly accommodate changes in their external environment through genetic mutations. As a result, insects have successfully survived numerous catastrophic planetary changes that wiped out other species. We have also inadvertently given them the competitive edge. Agricultural chemicals kill not only humans and the insects that we regard as a nuisance, but also the beneficial insects that eat crop-destroying insects, as well as insect-eating birds and fish. Additionally, they destroy the beneficial bacteria, insects, and worms that live in soil. These important organisms keep the soil vibrant and alive and allow strong, healthy plants to grow and flourish. Compromised soil leads to weak, unhealthy plants that have poor resistance to insects and diseases. The 1992 Earth Summit reported that the United States now has the worst soil on the planet. Eighty-five percent of our soil has been depleted to the point that it can no longer nourish healthy plants, and this has led to the problem of vanishing nutrients.

Nutrients are vanishing
Plants draw minerals and other nourishment from the soil up through their roots, and the minerals are deposited in the body, fruit, and seeds of the plant. Plants then use these nutrients to manufacture the vitamins and phytonutrients we consume when eating a plant. Historically, farmers carefully tended and fed the soil, through a variety of natural methods, to keep it vital and healthy and replace the nutrients used by each crop. The rich soil, in turn, produced vital, healthy, nutrient-rich plants. With the advent of chemical fertilizers, natural soil feeding and tending declined markedly, and, as a result, there is little nourishment left in soil for plants to draw from. This has led to a marked reduction in the nutrient content of our food.

Here's the good news
Scientific studies are showing that there are more phytonutrients in organic produce than in nonorganic — because organic farms operate very differently. Organic farmers continue to focus on feeding and tending their soil. Through the use of crop rotation, cover crops, biological inoculants, and compost and other organic soil amendments, organic farmers are constantly revitalizing and enriching the soil in which their crops grow. This allows organic farmers to raise plants that are not only healthy and disease- and pest-resistant, but also rich in the vital nutrients and phytonutrients necessary for our good health.

While we have always intuitively known that healthy soil produces healthy, nutrient-rich plants, scientists have recently become interested in confirming this. Research at Truman State University, in Missouri, found that organically grown oranges contained up to 30% more vitamin C than those grown with conventional chemical methods. The Doctors’ Data study suggests there are significant differences between organic and conventional food. This study found organic pears, apples, potatoes, and wheat had, on average, over 90% more mineral content than similar conventionally grown food. After reviewing 41 published studies, certified nutrition specialist Virginia Worthington concluded that organic crops contain substantially more of several nutrients: 27% more vitamin C, 21.5% more iron, 29.3% more magnesium, and 13.6% more phosphorous.

More recently, a study in the January 2003 Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found 52% more ascorbic acid, or vitamin C, in frozen organic corn than in conventionally grown corn. Polyphenols were significantly higher in organic marionberries compared to conventionally farmed ones. And a three-year study in Italy, reported in the August 2002 issue of the same journal, found higher levels of polyphenols in organic peaches and pears, and about 8% more ascorbic acid in organic peaches.

The organic industry is growing
According to a recent article in Time magazine ("A New Cash Cow," July 8, 2003), the number of conventional dairy farms in Vermont has decreased by one-third since 1990. Over the same period, the number of organic dairy farms increased by 20 fold. Nationally, the number of organic dairy cows increased by four fold between 1997 to 2001 (the latest year for which figures are available). Retail sales of organic dairy products are growing about 20% a year, even though a gallon of organic milk typically costs more than twice as much as regular milk. Why? Because consumers are demanding wholesome organic foods and supplements that are processed without artificial ingredients.

The Synergy Company™ is also growing, and we're especially proud of the work we've done in helping to spearhead the organic movement by building relationships with farmers and supporting organizations that administer organic regulations. We do everything we can to make sure our ingredients are 100% natural and organic. It is important to realize that not all herbs and other foods are available as certified organic. Some of our special ingredients are sustainably harvested by a method called ethical wildcrafting. Ethical wildcrafting employs a code of very stringent rules. Wildcrafting practiced according to these rules enhances the ecosystem, protects the environment, and ensures the purity of ingredients. For example, seaweed can't be cultivated in an organic manner, so we use seaweed from pristine waters, wildcrafted by families who have protected and enhanced precious coastal areas for many years. Our camu camu is another ingredient that can be obtained only in its wild form, from deep within the Amazon Rainforest. Our use of wildcrafted camu camu supports local communities in Brazil and helps prevent clear-cutting of the rainforest in those regions.

Make the world a better place
By their very nature, organic (and ethically wildcrafted) products are powerfully life affirming. When we choose them, we embrace the value, beauty, safety, and regenerative practices of a way of life that successfully nourished the human family for thousands of years, in harmony with the surrounding environment. In doing so, we provide an opportunity for family farmers to once again thrive and work in an environment that does not threaten their health. We restore farms and their surrounding environments to thriving ecosystems that nourish dozens of wildlife species and coexist with natural spaces. We ensure the pristine quality of groundwater, streams, rivers, estuaries, and coastal areas, thus preserving safe drinking water and habitats for aquatic species. We ensure a food supply that is free of dangerous, cancer-causing poisons. We, once again, consume foods and supplements that truly nourish and sustain us.

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HEALING SPIRITS

We just received word that our friends Pat West-Barker and Judith Joslow’s book, Healing Spirits: True Stories from 14 Spiritual Healers, is now in its second printing. Congratulations, Judith and Pat! We thought you might like to have a peek at an adapted excerpt of an interview they had with Mitchell — Seeing the Divine Everywhere: Business as a Spiritual Path (inside this newsletter). In it, he answers the question of why he became a businessman (of all things!) and is taking what appears to be a hiatus from his private healing practice. Many of you have asked this question, and we hope that this excerpt illustrates how Mitchell’s commitment to healing work is as strong as ever as he continues his endeavors to work as a healing spirit. (You can order Healing Spirits at www.crossingpress.com.)

BUSINESS AS A SPIRITUAL PATH
(excerpt from an interview with Mitchell May)

The most challenging spiritual road I’ve ever been on is being in business. I had no intention and no desire to participate in the business world. But I came to realize that what I needed to do was to face it and embrace it in order to heal myself, in order to see the highest good in everything, everywhere.

When I was practicing my healing work in Los Angeles, I was very happy and content — until I realized that, in some ways, I was really hiding from the world. I didn’t have to deal with relationships, and I didn’t have to deal with the rest of the world beyond my own work. I could use the safe haven I had created to insulate myself from those things that I didn’t want to deal with in my life.

This realization was excruciating for me because at that time I was somewhat afraid of the world; it hurt to put my physical body and my consciousness into the many places that people put their lives and minds into — day in and day out. It was at that point — when I realized I was using my spiritual path to avoid life — I left Los Angeles.

Eventually, I became aware of the need to challenge myself in order to break my boundaries. So I’d think, “Where am I afraid? I’m afraid of business. I’m afraid of what I perceive as the lying, the deceit, the manipulation, and the ego and all the games that go along with that. And I’m afraid of what it means to try to pour myself into business, into money. What does that really mean?”

My ultimate goal was to reach out far and wide, to touch the whole world — because business makes that a real possibility. What touches the whole world today? Business and the people who are in business — IBM, AT&T, Nestle! When the corporate boards of mega-businesses make a decision, millions of people are affected.

Today, I can say that I truly love being in business, but there's a shadow side to it I continuously have to confront, because I'm faced with temptations every day. For instance, I frequently have to deal with somebody who probably isn’t telling me the full truth. Every day, somebody offers me a deal proposing that if I just slide a little bit here or there, I can make a lot of money; all that has to be dealt with. It’s very demanding. It would be so much easier to be in business without my ethics. It would make life so much easier. This to me is where what we call karma surfaces.

When you don’t know what you’re doing, that is really a very different kind of karmic situation. But when you know what your actions mean, that’s when you generate karma. And even though this may sound like a simplistic explanation, it’s just cause and effect: when you cheat somebody, life responds. That’s how it is. It’s no different from when you touch a hot stove: you get burned. When you “burn” somebody in another way, you make a statement to life and life meets you exactly where you are. It’s not as if life is getting even with you. Life is simply responding to you. That’s all there is to it. There is nothing esoteric here. We've seen it reflected in the highly publicized business scams (e.g., Enron) in the past several years.

I learned a great deal about this from my mentor, Jack. To him, one of the deepest teachings was to really live by your needs, not your wants. If you really go by your needs, your true needs, you will have everything that you need. If you go by your wants, you may get them, but you may not get what you need. I see that with people all the time. They may be getting their wants, but their needs are not being met. And, in many ways, inadvertently, they’re interfering with other people getting their needs met. This is because their consumption and their wants are so great and so disproportionate to their true needs and to others’ needs.

One of the reasons I got into business was because I wanted to generate enough resources to help people whose full attention has to go into survival, into just feeding and sheltering themselves. I want to help people meet their basic health needs, including their basic nutritional needs. If you don’t have the basics, you simply cannot pursue freedom, your own individual freedom.

I don’t have an answer to all this. I just know that my way of healing now, strange as it may seem, is to do business. That doesn’t mean I don’t also teach another side of healing, because I do both. But I need to bring the principles that I’ve learned from my mentor and my own life experiences into the world — and The Synergy Company has been an incredible vehicle for putting our values and ethics into the world while offering products that enhance people’s lives.

Part of my goal, on a truly literal level, is to support our human evolution. I want to support the full use of our nervous system and our senses and everything that we are physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I want to put together life-enhancing products and services that address these issues and assist us toward our highest capacity of functioning, our highest evolution — which is why I founded The Synergy Company.

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PROTECTING YOU
AND THE AMAZON RAINFOREST (graphic ~ hands w/berries)

Pure Radiance C™ is an example of an organic and ethically wildcrafted product at work in the world, making a vital difference to the Indians of Brazil, to the sacred lands they are entrusted with, and to your health!

For centuries, the indigenous people of the Amazon have gathered wild camu camu berries (the world's richest source of natural vitamin C) to protect their health and immune systems. Today, with The Synergy Company’s support, these communities are protecting their homeland from the destructive practice of clear-cutting the rainforest, as they create a sustainable economy based on the tradition of wildcrafting camu camu.

During harvesttime (the Amazon basin flood season), the native people paddle their dugout canoes to handpick thousands of kilograms of camu camu berries. After filling the canoes to the brim with these wild berries, they float down the Amazon River to a special barge awaiting them. There, the berries are cold-processed to ensure that all their vitality and precious natural vitamin C are preserved. We then blend these incredibly rare camu camu berries with our special certified organic berries and fruits — acerola, blueberry, cranberry, cherry, raspberry, lemon, rose hips, and buckwheat berry sprouts — and with wildcrafted amla berries to create Pure Radiance C.

PURE RADIANCE C™

The Synergy Company™ is putting the word “natural” back into “natural products.” Pure Radiance C is made with organic and wildcrafted ingredients, including camu camu. It is available in vegetable capsules and will soon be available in powder. Camu camu is the world’s richest source of natural vitamin C.

Pure Radiance C is the first and only 100% natural vitamin C supplement, and it is made with organic and wildcrafted ingredients. It contains no GMOs, corn, synthetic ascorbic acid, or additives! Pure Radiance C offers 120 milligrams of 100% natural vitamin C per serving (one capsule or ¼ of a teaspoon of powder). Of course, you can take more when additional immune support is needed.

THANKS FOR HELPING US GROW
A BUSINESS ORGANICALLY!

From the very beginning (the 1970s), our customers have been an extended circle of friends. Mitchell’s fellow practitioners and researchers, doctors, and friends all wanted the amazing green superfood drink he was creating for his clients and family, and these friends told their friends, who told more friends. Over time, The Synergy Company was born!

Although the circle has grown, The Synergy Company’s mission is still deeply rooted in connection — one that fosters a nurturing, mutually supportive relationship. Our goal is to support you by creating products that enhance and nourish the life energy and well-being of all our customers and that are produced in an environmentally respectful manner. Likewise, through your continuing goodwill and influence, you’ve supported us by organically growing the Synergy circle of friends. The beauty of this circle is that everyone benefits. For this, we sincerely thank you.

We created our Friend to Friend program as a way to show you our deep appreciation for your ongoing support of our work. If you (or your friends) haven’t had a chance to benefit from our Friend to Friend program, we invite you to take a moment to refer to the Customer Programs listing in this newsletter for more details.

Now, benefiting from the Friend to Friend program is easier than ever! Your friends can now participate in the program by ordering through our websites, or www.mitchellmay.com, Mitchell’s healing website. As always, the incentives offered through Friend to Friend are available when your friend calls us directly at 800-723-0277 to order. Refer as many friends as you like, and you will get that many coupons: just ask them to mention or make note of your name as they place their first order — we’ll take care of the rest. It’s just that simple!

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WALKING LIGHTLY

Never before have the opportunities for conscious living been so plentiful, and never before has the need been so great. Most of us are acutely aware that just by living and by doing business, we impact our planet. Despite our best efforts to tread lightly and responsibly on this earth, fossil fuels are burned, trees and habitats are destroyed, landfills are overflowing, and toxic pollutants are created — simply as a result of our day-to-day life. We believe that, given the chance, most everyone truly wants to make a positive contribution to their families, friends, themselves, and the world, and at Synergy we love giving people tools and resources for making positive contributions.

It is our passionate belief that the collective effect of individual choice is extraordinarily powerful — in truth, the most significant and lasting changes occur when individuals begin to make different choices. It is also our belief that businesses are responsible for developing solutions, not exacerbating problems. The need for a deeply conscientious stewardship of our ecosystem must become the foundation upon which today's businesses are built.

Because The Synergy Company is founded on the premise that good faith, integrity, and environmental responsibility are eminently compatible with good business, the commitment to leaving behind only footprints infuses our daily operations. Accordingly, we strive to promote renewable and sustainable means of doing business. This takes many forms, but all are rooted in the challenge of looking at every impact we create and then generating solutions in our day-to-day business practices.

Environmental Consciousness Award
The first of many solutions and sustainable choices occurred before we ever broke ground for our facility, when we worked with the US Park Service to transplant the site's native plants for use in park restoration projects.

The decision to build our own production facility allowed us to incorporate low-impact and sustainable technologies into every aspect of our business. The desire to minimize our use of nonrenewable resources influenced our selection of everything from xeriscape (water conserving) landscaping, to low-flow toilets, to energy-efficient appliances, to automatic light sensors. The use of only 100% biodegradable cleaning agents further protects the valuable water supply in our delicate wilderness ecosystem.

Our efforts toward sustainability also extend to many other activities. Of course, we use only recycled paper, paper products, and boxes, as well as soy inks and water-based coatings for our printed materials. Our glass bottles are easily recycled in just about any community. We also have our own extensive in-house recycling program that includes recycling expired ingredients into compost piles for our gardens. We reuse or recycle all paper we receive, including all magazines, newspapers, and cardboard. Additionally, we utilize only organic cotton on our bottling line and have always used only biodegradable cornstarch packing materials to ship our products. For these and several other sustainable practices at The Synergy Company, we received the Environmental Consciousness Award for Excellence in Manufacturing from the State of Utah.

Support for organic agriculture
Perhaps our most significant commitment to the environment (and your health), which we’ve made since the outset, is to source and promote the development of organic and ethically wildcrafted ingredients for our products. The environmental damage caused by chemical farming methods (as you read in this newsletter’s article about organic food) is far, far greater than most people know — it’s enormous! Fortunately, supporting organic farming practices is enormously restorative. In fact, it may be the single most influential thing that you can do to help restore environmental health, renew communities, and protect your own and your family’s health.

Sustainable choices that make you and the planet feel good! In looking for additional ways to walk lightly, we initiated two sustainability programs that we are extremely proud of, and we sincerely hope they inspire you! First, The Synergy Company now purchases 100% of its energy from the Blue Sky wind power program (Mitchell’s satellite office has always been 100% solar powered). This means that Synergy is directly responsible for reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 140 tons each year! Numerous Synergy employees have also signed up for the Blue Sky program in their own homes. Yes, like organic ingredients and foods, wind power is more costly, but we could not justify saving a relatively modest amount of money each month at the expense of the entire planet, and we believe we have an ethical obligation to conduct business in a manner that creates no harm.

Our second program is equally significant. Despite all our efforts to be environmentally responsible, there are still unavoidable environmental costs to doing business, so The Synergy Company, in cooperation with Plant-It 2020, has created SynerTrees™ — a reforestation program to annually plant indigenous trees in the United States at a rate that exceeds our own consumption. To create the program, we first calculated our use of all paper and cardboard, as well as the paper and packing materials used by our vendors to send us our raw materials. We then converted that figure to harvested trees and added the number of trees necessary to offset the carbon dioxide emissions associated with all of our work-related activities (such as incoming and outgoing shipping via truck and air, our vendors’ activities in creating and supplying our materials, commuting to work, and work-related air travel). We then added another 25% to that number to determine the total number of trees we will plant annually with Plant-It 2020.

Inspired? The opportunities for participating in sustainable solutions are numerous, and the Internet is a fantastic resource for gathering information about the areas of greatest interest to you. Type in a few words and go! If you would like to learn about tree-planting programs, you can go to www.plantit2020.org/contribute.html, and for information about wind power, please visit www.awea.org (the American Wind Energy Association site, promoting wind energy as a clean-energy alternative for customers worldwide). Click the Utility-Scale Wind link for a list of established programs in your area.

THE POWER OF ONE

In defining ecology, the late philosopher Alan Watts wrote that “the special branch of science which studies the relation of living beings to their environments shows beyond doubt that the individual organism and its environment are a continuous stream, or field of energy.” Accordingly, individual actions can directly affect the well-being of the natural world, just as individuals are affected by the conditions of their environments.

Today’s governmental and business practices are challenging and threatening our health and the health of the planet as never before. The impacts are far reaching and often interfere with basic human needs and rights. Creating and supporting solutions to these concerns is empowering and deeply satisfying, and many people and organizations are finding ways of making a positive difference in the world. The use of one’s active choice and commitment is a potent tool for both individuals and businesses to foster change for the betterment of humanity and our planet. The powerful ripple effect created by just one person’s conscious choices is great enough to help shape the fate of generations to come — this is the power of one.

We are all “healing spirits,” especially when we utilize our individual power to commit and invest wisely with our choices. We all have the intelligence and power to help steward the earth with the way we choose to live and the way we choose to invest our personal resources. In fact, one of the most effective ways we can exercise our power of one is by choosing products from companies committed to good stewardship of the earth — those companies making a positive difference by authentically following environmentally sound and ethical business practices in every aspect of their organization. We want to thank you, our Synergy family, for choosing to support our work and helping us make a difference in the world — we could not do any of this without you!

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