Health Blog

Are there any natural and safe preservatives to use? Since publishing part I and part II of this series, I’ve had an overwhelming response from people wanting to know when part III would finally be out. It took longer than expected, because there are thousands of chemicals out there, and decent safety data for only a fraction of them. But safety alone is not enough. What’s the point of adding an ingredient if it doesn’t actually do the job it was intended to do? In other words, it’s not enough for something to merely sound safer on paper. It also has to work. That meant the research had to be done twice: once for safety, and once for efficacy.1 Continue reading

As laws change to give health conscious consumers more information about what’s in the products they buy, unintended consequences sometimes follow. California’s Prop 65 warning requirements are a good example. The law began with constructive goals, but in practice the way warnings are triggered and displayed can create confusion, especially for supplement and natural product manufacturers.2 Continue reading

In an isle full of candy bars disguised as health food bars it’s difficult to get through all the clutter and junk. Sometimes it’s just downright exhausting and discouraging flipping over every package to read the ingredients only to place the no longer contending product back on the shelf. Continue reading

A lot of trust is placed in the words printed on the front of personal care products. Words like “organic,” “natural,” and “clean” are meant to signal safety, quality, and integrity. But what most consumers don’t realize is that, in many cases, those words have little to no regulatory meaning in cosmetics. Continue reading