By Anne Ihde, Wellness Team Member
The Wellness Department here at Harvest Market is excited to offer some of our favorite products from the Gaia Herbs line.
As an herbalist, I am incredibly judicious with the brands of herbal products I choose to consume and companies I support. Gaia Herbs meets my standards not only in overall quality, but potency, ethics, transparency, sustainability, and growing practices, to name a few! They have an amazing program called “Meet Your Herbs”, with a traceable ID number on each bottle that allows you to see the source, journey and historical uses of the ingredients within. Gaia products are DNA tested to ensure exact herb species, and “validated to Full Spectrum Potency which ensures that the entirety of a plant’s unique phytochemical makeup is intact. By extracting a plant’s entire range of beneficial phytochemistries and concentrating them to a predetermined level, the resulting product retains the beneficial chemistry identical to the original plants, yet prepared to a guaranteed potency every time. [They] never purify or isolate any properties of the herb, but instead make herbal products that mirrors nature.” (from Gaia’s website)
Founded in 1987 by herbalist Ric Scalzo, Gaia Herbs was started as an answer to the lack of availability in selection of quality herbal supplements. 30 years later, their product line continues to grow and mature.
At their organic and biodynamic farm in North Carolina, Gaia goes above and beyond in their dedication to positive impact on people and the environment. They provide employees with organic produce grown on site, use biofuel from recycled cooking oil waste in their farm equipment, and use solar heated hot water at their facilities and offices. Furthermore, the company supports and donates to important causes, such as native habitat protection, natural doctors, renewable energy, advancement of botanical sciences, organic farmer network, and donates some of their fresh organic produce to local foodbanks.
In addition to their expansive selection of superior single herb extracts and fabulous combination formulas, they’ve launched some of the first daily wellbeing herbal formulas (not multi-vitamins!), designed specifically for men’s and women’s whole-being vitality.
Gaia changed the world of encapsulated herbal medicine when they introduced their Liquid Phyto-Caps™, “a patented delivery system for liquid extracts. This exclusive technology delivers a concentrated liquid extract in a vegetarian capsule. One Liquid Phyto-Cap™ equals as much as 75 drops of a Gaia Herbs Liquid Extract, which equals as much as 375 drops of other brands’ tinctures. The net result is a much greater health value and strength at a lower price per milligram.” (from Gaia’s website.)
We could go on about how great a company Gaia Herbs is and how much we appreciate their products, but there’s nothing like experiencing them for yourself.