business farming, with newly developing chemical fertilizers and
pesticides, and the other was the organic movement. Sir Albert
Howard may be one of the earliest “organic” farmers — he was from
a British farming family but learned about natural soil production
and organic gardening in India in 1905.
With the influence of Howard’s writings — he called the intro-
duction of chemical fertilizers and pesticides a great threat to the
future of human health — there was a clear separation of the organic
movement and conventional farming. His writing spread throughout
Europe and eventually to America.
By the early 1900s, American food manufacturers, as an integral
part of the “modern farming” movement, began mass-producing the
first packaged foods. This coincided with a major change from the
farmer’s markets with its many single food stands, to one store that
would sell all types of food — a “super market” — complete with the
latest technology of packaged foods. Small groups of concerned citi-
zens immediately and openly protested against the mass packaging
of food. Some, including Dr. Royal Lee, began growing high quality
food with natural composting, and in 1929 he began manufacturing
the first dietary supplements in America using these foods.
By the 1930s, with the influence of Howard’s writings and others
in America, the organic movement was organized, albeit small. One
person who jumped on board was an engineer named Jerome Irving
Rodale. He not only bought a farm and began organic gardening but
started publishing a magazine on organic methods in the 1940s —
and Sir Albert Howard would contribute articles. Rodale also started
a printing business that would also publish books — a business that
thrives today as a multi-million-dollar corporation.
I was introduced to Rodale’s books on organic gardening in the
1960s, and soon after planted my first organic garden. As a student
working part time in a health-food store, and, having studied basic
chemistry, I realized almost all the vitamins on the shelves were syn-
thetic, not natural as they claimed. Seeing a growing market in the
organic industry, the pharmaceutical companies had quietly jumped
on board by producing virtually all the synthetic vitamins for the
health food industry, a problem that continues today.
108 • IN FITNESS AND IN HEALTH