SERVING LOVE
The Secret Ingredient in the Future of Food
Hilary Hart
Food is a gift.
It’s a gift from the earth; it’s a gift from a mother to a child, to those we love and are getting to know, and from those wanting to show gratitude and reverence.
Most of us have forgotten food’s significance beyond physical health or sensual pleasure. But a number of small companies are working to not only remind us of food’s sacredness, but to improve its capacity to nourish through the power of human intention.
Intention enhanced foods are taking the trend of organics and fair-trade one step further – moving beyond nutritional, healthy and ethical food production to using food as a vehicle for love and blessings.
Natural Zing (www.naturalzing.com) a health food company based in Maryland, nourishes people with more than healthy food and ethical growing practices, by offering love and care through community gatherings and educational events at their non-profit farm, Spirit Bliss.
Natural Zing founder Helen Rose also wants her business to serve others. She makes sure their goji berries are grown by the Goji Farmers Co-op, a group of Tibetan wildcrafters who work to save endangered plants used in Tibetan Medicine. All Natural Zing and Spirit Bliss promotional and educational materials are printed on recycled paper with soy-based ink. Their warehouses are fueled by solar power, and they only hire people with “a sense of service to the community.” All their products are mailed out with a stamp declaring, Packed with Love (“When the shippers remember!” Helen laughs over the phone). Helen even offers free, raw, vegan Thanksgiving dinners at her family’s home for anyone that wants to come. “The first year we had 20 people. Last year it was almost 90,” she says. And these aren’t people she knows! They’re mostly strangers who respond to “notices with on-line groups and local vegetarian groups.”
“We’re here to serve the community,” is Helen Rose’s attitude. “We will grow if the community wants us to grow. Our business in the last two years has had a steady increase of 65% from year to year sales revenue,” Helen says. “And we’re expecting a 70% increase this year over last year’s sales.”
Helen says her life before Natural Zing and Spirit Bliss Farm was a “success” but only from a “financial point of view.” “My husband and I had done the corporate thing,” she says. “But we just felt there has to be more meaning in life. We wondered, Are we really helping people?”
Wondering how to serve, they acknowledged how they had been helped through raw food prepared with attention and care. Offering that to others was a natural step.
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