To hear Dennis Weaver’s impassioned praise for Organic Good Foods is to glimpse the solar core that brings light to the movement.
It’s also a peek at the heated debate he generates.
Years before conventional stores began stocking a full range of organics, Dennis was doing food audits in stores and directing Organic Good Food Shopping Tours, tirelessly striving to raise awareness of the organic advantage.
This spring together we visited the newest Haggen Food & Pharmacy nine years to the day after Dennis had reviewed their then newest Store in Lake Stevens, and were pleased to now discover a wealth of organic products.
Weaver believes that if you Change Your Food, you Change Your Life. Making Organic Good Foods readily available is the first step, he says. The CYF-CYL! organization he founded in Washington State conveys this message in live shows, songs and videos.
“Change Your Food – Change Your Life! re-defines what ‘good health’ MEANS and HOW TO GET IT, actually causing someone to want some of it! ,” says Weaver.
Weaver is the Jiminy Cricket conscious on your shoulder. Except that Dennis speaks with a megaphone: “Hey, wait a minute,” he shouts in response to a media post comparing organic foods to “traditionally grown” foods.
“What IS ‘traditional’ about synthetic poisons and fertilizers and warm, moist sewer sludge? And what IS ‘conventional’ about ‘chemical’ agriculture? Nothing! Organic Good Food is the traditional food, the only kind known for millennia until the boys in the labs with their white coats and rubber gloves started playing around with it. It’s the non-organic stuff that’s UNCONVENTIONAL, NONTRADITIONAL: a man-made, synthesized, chemicalized, laboratory-concocted alternative to traditional, conventional FOOD.”
We correspond frequently and he shares his insights with our readers at www.naturalfoodnet.com. Here is a glimpse of Jiminy at work: “Remember when we talked several months ago about some companies having looked into the future and determining that Organic Good Food was only going to be a bit player, if a player at all, as demonstrated by: The SILK® Soymilk shenanigans, the HORIZON™ ‘Natural’ Dairy plan and UNFI’s ‘NON-GMO Project VERIFIED Seal’ scheme designed to create the perception of ‘natural’ being ‘the equivalent’ of Organic.”
The other day Dennis noticed Trader Joe’s “Fearless Flyer” included no organic offerings.
“NOT ONE Organic Good Food was introduced, mentioned or referred to,” says Weaver, who promises those making 100% Organic Good Food Choices live happily ever after!”
I asked him to pen some advice to grocers that I’ll share:
“The current National interest in HEALTH is in your favor: Health, or the lack thereof, is hot, hot, hot. And the only way to a HEALTHY HIGH is through Organic Good Foods. So, SELL ‘em some! The MORE Organic Good Food, and the GREATER the variety you’re offering, from Organic Carrots to Organic Whiskey compared to your ‘competition’ (if you could then even call them that), the healthier the rush is through your front doors!”
Science doesn’t sell, he explains. “Simply tell the story of the Organic Good Food goodness in your store. Organics are sooo easy to sell when you SHOW their Story,” he says.
Zeal is often misunderstood and zealots confused with fanatics. Weaver is filled with zeal, but his unwillingness to compromise by equating natural products to those grown organically and to accept that “high productivity” justifies genetic modification, is well researched and heartfelt.
Weaver is having the time of his life explaining that FUN is GOOD and feeling healthy and vibrant, well rested and without stress is something we can all attain.
Wiser men than I have described many paths to happiness.
Weaver simply believes “It starts by choosing Organic Good Foods and feeling the way you were designed to feel.”
By Dan Bolton
Editor-In-Chief
Natural Food Magazine
Fall Edition
