Your questions are stimulating to me so I want to take time to answer them in real articles, but I thought I would do this in full length articles.
My Ayurvedic studies began when I was with the State Department in India in the 1960s. I guess that dates me. I have been reading books and taking seminars ever since. I will discuss some of the key tenets of Ayurveda on the web site, but here, I just wanted to discuss the herbs and the brands. When Ayurveda was first being exported, it was a challenge to obtain the herbs and formulations, but now the first obstacles have been solved by most of the importers and the next goal for many companies has been to go organic. Banyan Botanicals made a simply enormous commitment to this. Instead of expanding their product line, they concentrated on sourcing organic herbs.
For me, this is so important. I lived in India for three years and watched the pressure put on farmers to use chemicals that were prohibited here, dreadful things such as DDT. Thanks to common sense and serious political activism, India has been fighting to protect itself from further encroachment by Monsanto et al and some very dedicated people have assured a market for herbs that are produced in conscientious and non-toxic ways. The next step is to be 100% certain that everyone in the chain, from the farmers to the exporters, importers, formulators, and producers all make a fair living. I am trying to support the people who have this commitment.
So far as the Ayurvedic formulas themselves go, most are traditional, historic, ancient so while there are variations in ingredients and proportions of ingredients, I have tried to put my attention on purity and quality. I hope you appreciate this emphasis.
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Ingrid Naiman and Seventh Ray Press, publisher of this site.
