Every year at its annual
meeting, the National
Nutritional Foods
Association (NNFA) recognizes
individuals for
their contribution to the
natural foods industry
with Lifetime Achievement Award.
This year a recipient of this prestigious
honor is Elwood Richard, president of
NOW Foods.
In 1948, with the natural food and supplement
industry in its infancy, Elwood’s
father, Paul Richard, bought Fearn-Soya
Foods, a manufacturer of grain and
legume-based products in the Chicago
area, for $900 and began a six-decade
legacy of supplying consumers nationwide
with high-quality, affordable nutritional
products.
Paul carefully nurtured his fledgling
business until his death in 1960. At that
time Elwood Richard inherited part ownership
in Fearn and became the company’s
president. Elwood adopted his
father’s ideals concerning health and
well-being, including his vision of
making quality supplements and natural
foods available to the public at prices
they could afford.
As the industry grew, Elwood began
manufacturing his own supplements.
These products were labeled under the
NOW brand, which stands for Natural, Organic and Wholesome, values that
define the original vision of Paul Richard
and holds true today.
For the past 44 years Elwood Richard
has been at once a believer in, student
and researcher of, and cheerleader, missionary
and advocate for the benefits of
natural health foods in preventing and
overcoming disease.
He is also recognized as a committed,
highly visible advocate for the public’s
right to access quality supplements and a
champion of the independent health
food store.
A member of the NNFA since 1962,
Richard has been critically involved in the
industry’s goals to establish high standards
for manufacturing and marketing
nutritional supplements. As a corporate
member of this industry Richard has
been a leader in supporting the outreach
of Citizens for Health, The Campaign for
Better Health, the Natural Health
Research Institute and other organizations
devoted to educating the public of
their rights and opportunities as consumers
of both natural health food products
and health care in general. Under
his leadership his company, NOW Foods,
has also gained recognition for their
commitment to providing natural health
oriented educational materials for both
health food store personal and their customers,
as well as their support of
independent research and community
outreach programs.
As a cofounding member of the
Campaign for Better Health, I have had
the opportunity to interact with Elwood
Richard on a number of occasions. He is
a dynamic, candid and committed individual
whose energy, endurance and
physical countenance are a testimony to
the age management benefits of a
healthy diet, regular exercise, comprehensive
nutritional supplementation and
active spirituality.
TH: Elwood, congratulations on your well
deserved NNFA Lifetime Achievement award.
ER: Thank you.
TH: Having been a student of natural
health for nearly half a century, what do
you consider the critical elements in confronting
the dietary environmental and
lifestyle challenges of the 21st century?
ER: Obviously diet, exercise and nutritional
supplementation, coupled with spirituality
and a positive outlook, are the cornerstones
of any comprehensive program.
For ages we have been aware of the
health promoting benefits from the food
we consume and as we have matured in
our understanding of our human nutritional
needs, the basic food groups and recommended servings of each group
have changed to better suit those needs.
Over the past 40 or 50 years it has been
accepted that vitamins are substances
the body must have to survive, and that in
order to assure the adequate intake of
those substances, we need to supplement
our daily diets with health food
products. Over the past 20 years science
has also demonstrated the imperatives of
nutritional supplementation in preventing
or lowering the risk of contracting
specific diseases, with folic acid and its
proven effect on preventing spina bifida
in infants being the breakthrough, as well
as their benefits in treatment of those diseases.
The necessity for adequate exercise
in establishing and maintaining optimum
health is universally accepted and its
impact on healthy aging is essential.
Spirituality is a wonderful safeguard
against stress. Everyone needs to learn to
protect himself against both the external
and internal stress that invades their
lives. Spirituality also gives you a center to
branch out from. If your life has no
meaning to yourself or anyone else, you
are like a bug on the sidewalk; you live and
you die and that’s it. Everybody needs to
see how they fit into all this. Spirituality
gives a person something to base his/her
goals and actions on.
The next element I would add to the
equation is confronting and avoiding the
dietary and environmental pollution
which is rapidly becoming an overwhelming
factor in jeopardizing our
health. One of the facts I will always
remember from my days at Indiana
University in the ‘50s was at that time just
breathing the air in a major metropolitan
area was equivalent to smoking two packs
of cigarettes a day.
Today we all need to learn to protect ourselves
from the plethora of toxic elements
that bombard every aspect of our lives. Not
only the air we breath outdoors but the
indoor pollution from carpeting, lumber,
walls, cleaning materials, the water we
drink and tragically, the food we eat.
At this juncture the average American
is taking in 17–18 pounds of food additives
per year, 100 pounds of hormone
ladened meat a year and an unbelievable
140–145 pounds of sweetener per year,
including the corn syrup which goes into
soft drinks. Also I just read that 40 percent
of all meals are eaten out of the
home—20 percent of them in the car.
Unfortunately junk food has become an
unquestioned way of life in this country.
People don’t think of the consequences,
they just accept it and it’s killing them.
TH: Most of us consume nutritional supplements.
How would you suggest an individual committed to establishing and
maintaining the nutritional needs of his
or her body learn about organ or condition
speci.c nutrition, potentiating their
immune system or age management nutrition?
ER: First of all we are discovering that life
is more complicated than was thought
when we went to school. Things get more
complex each year. Roger Williams wrote
a great book about biochemical individuality
that showed what a signi.cant need
there is in people with respect to their
needs for certain vitamins and everything
I’ve seen agrees with that. All metabolisms
aren’t the same. We are all individuals.
I think .rst that a person has to get
to a point where s/he realizes there is
something s/he can do to in.uence their
health.
You really need to be a student of your
own body but you also need to understand
you can access good solid assistance
from nutritionists, your health food
store and other professionals who can
give you help and directions on your
journey.
TH: I understand that in 1973 you and
your brother were cofounders of the
NNFA’s Standards Committee. Will you
please give us an overview of what precipitated
that action and the chronology
of the relationship between the FDA and
the natural food industry?
ER: One of the highlights and best
attended events of the annual NNFA
meetings is the keynote speakers; nearly
everyone attends. In 1973 Adele Davis,
one of the true pioneers in natural health,
and popular actor Eddie Albert, a strong
proponent of natural foods, were the
speakers. Both speakers were emphatic
in their suggestions that the natural food
industry needed to clean up its own
house or the government would step in
and attempt to do it for us.
Their exhortations provided the wakeup
call. Since 1938 the FDA has been
strengthening its ability to take actions
against supplements. In 1941 RDAs were
published and they began to bring hundreds
of court actions against dietary
supplements for what they considered
false and misleading nutritional claims.
Through the ‘60s and early ‘70s they published
proposed new restrictions for
labeling and content of dietary supplements.
In 1973 they published final regulations
classifying any supplement stronger
than 150 percent of RDA as drugs.
After hearing Ms. Davis and Mr.
Albert, my brother and I immediately
realized this was the year to take action
and institute a comprehensive standards
program, which led to establishing a
formal standards committee. While my
efforts were mainly behind the scenes,
my brother served as head of the food
division of the committee for 12 years
and overall chair for one year.
In 1975 the FDA attempted to ban the
use of the words “natural,” “organic” and
“health food.” Then in 1976, prompted by
over one million letters from consumers,
Congress passed the Proxmire Bill prohibiting
the FDA from regulating vitamins
and minerals as prescription drugs. After
nearly another two decades over two million
consumers contacted their legislators
in favor of passing the proposed
Dietary Health and Education Act
(DSHEA). The bill passed in 1994 and created
a new framework for regulation of
dietary supplements by the FDA.
TH: The 1976 Proxmire Bill helped. Then
in 1994, when DSHEA was passed, it
seemed we had established an acceptable
framework for regulation of dietary
supplements, but the DSHEA provisions
were never really followed through by the
FDA and FDC.
ER: That’s correct. At times I think the
FDA has been antagonistic to the whole
concept of natural foods. I think they look
at our industry as a criticism of their
organization. The FDA has sort of painted
themselves into a corner saying everything
in this country is good. We have the
best food supply in the world and as a
sort of corollary, we don’t need help from
the health food industry.
I really believe if they would survey the
nutritional value of the contents of a typical
shopping cart leaving the supermarket,
or the contents of the food they
serve in most school cafeterias, it would be a real wake-up call to the need for a proactive
national nutritional awareness program.
One which would embrace the
potential of natural health foods as an integral
inclusion in restructuring America’s
health profile.
One bright aspect of the growing public
awareness of the health problems confronting
our children is an awakening of
the need for change in school cafeteria
menus. In an effort to help parents, school
personnel and communities understand
this problem and the need for proactive
solutions, the Campaign for Better Health
will be distributing 500,000 educational
booklets on improving children’s nutrition,
through health food stores beginning
this September.
Also I think you are aware that our
company just sponsored a National
Health Research Institute in cooperation
with Citizens for Health dealing with the
10 leading causes of death and how to
reduce these by cost effective natural
means. The research is there. I think one
of the things that legislators don’t know
is how solid the information is.
If you look at the hundreds of thousands
of scientists worldwide who are
working (many of them in universities that
have no ax to grind whatsoever) in developing
all this information showing the
benefits of good nutrition, good supplementation,
good healthy lifestyles, it
seems incredible that legislators would
not form some sort of technical committee
to take advantage of this. But they
tend to go toward the AMA and other medical
organizations looking at the hazards
of supplements rather than looking at the
undeniable benefits.
The amount of good solid research is
really overwhelming. Unfortunately the
media in this country is not inclined to
report these findings. That is the traditional
media. I think the health industry media
does a fairly decent job. But the mass
media doesn’t seem driven to educate the
public. They are out there to sell space in
their newspapers or on their radio or television
programs.
My hope is that the Campaign for Better
Health, at some point in time, can begin to
rate the media because they have such an
opportunity to influence our lives. The
public should know who they can trust for
valid information. People who do a bad job
should be exposed—people who do a good
job should be applauded.
TH: Where does the health food store fit
into all of this?
ER: Allow me to preface my answer with
the following statement: “Unfortunately
the state of the health care crisis in
America continues to worsen day by day
as the health freedoms enjoyed by
people of a free society continue to
erode. As this directly impacts the wellbeing
of millions of citizens, it is of the
utmost importance that consumers
work together for a sound health care
system that preserves a citizen’s right to
be in control of his own health. Without
this inherent right, our freedom to select
our own modality to better health will
continue to diminish in favor of medical
orthodoxy, which focuses on treating the
symptoms rather than the root cause.”
Independent health food stores are
the soul and conscience of the health
food industry. They are the natural health
resource centers in virtually every community
in America. They work hard and
believe in the benefits of proactive wellness
through a healthy diet, nutritional
supplementation and a regular exercise
program. They encourage the consumer
to be an educated captain of his or her
own heath care team.
With the support of the NNFA, Citizens
for Health and The Campaign for Better
Health, the health food store can provide
the education and inspire the motivation
at the grass roots level needed to preserve
access to supplements and organic
foods in the prevention of disease and
maintaining good health, as well as to
embrace natural healing modalities as
alternatives to allopathic medicine.
Currently American health food stores,
in cooperation with the Campaign for
Better Health, are distributing millions
of educational flyers encouraging consumers
to take action to make a difference
in their communities and on the
national level.
I encourage anyone committed to protecting our right to natural health and nutritional supplementation to visit
www.betterhealthcampaign.org to learn how they can become involved.
TH: Thank you, Elwood. Again, congratulations
on receiving NNFA’s Lifetime
Achievement Award. We look forward to
your continued contribution to the
natural food industry.
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