Orig­i­nally pub­lished on Care2. 

Maria Rodale is CEO and Chair­man of Rodale Inc., the world’s lead­ing mul­ti­me­dia com­pany focused on health, well­ness, and the envi­ron­ment and the largest inde­pen­dent book pub­lisher in the USA. Rodale reaches 70 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide through brands such as Pre­ven­tion, Men’s Healthand Organic Gar­den­ing; through books includ­ing The South Beach Dietand Al Gore’s An Incon­ve­nient Truth; and through numer­ous dig­i­tal prop­er­ties. She is found­ing edi­tor of Rodale.com, which fea­tures her blog, Maria’s Farm Coun­try Kitchen.

Rodale is the author of Organic Man­i­festo: How Organic Farm­ing Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe, which cuts through the con­fu­sion and mis­in­for­ma­tion to pro­vide an indis­pens­able look at why chemical-free farm­ing unques­tion­ably holds the key to bet­ter health for our fam­i­lies and the planet.

She has won numer­ous awards, includ­ing the 2004 National Audubon Society’s “Rachel Car­son Award” and the 2007 United Nations Pop­u­la­tion Fund’s “Award for the Health and Dig­nity of Women.” She is a board mem­ber of Bette Midler’s New York Restora­tion Project and co-chair of the Rodale Insti­tute, a non­profit that has been ded­i­cated to pio­neer­ing organic farm­ing through research and out­reach to farm­ers, sci­en­tists, and con­sumers for over sixty years.

You are quoted say­ing, “If you do one thing to change the world go organic.”  Why do you believe that’s the case?

Organic food is health­ier and safer for you and your chil­dren and our environment. We now know that toxic chem­i­cals used in the pro­duc­tion of our food are con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing our air, soil, and water and are ulti­mately poi­son­ing our fam­i­lies.  You do not need chem­i­cals to grow food. We have been mis­led into think­ing that adding chem­i­cals is nor­mal, nec­es­sary and that farm­ing with­out them is some­how strange or impos­si­ble. Vir­tu­ally every food in the world has been suc­cess­fully and prof­itably grown organ­i­cally in mod­ern pro­duc­tive and regen­er­a­tive ways.

What’s the biggest les­son you learned from your grand­fa­ther that has served you well as CEO and Chair­man at Rodale?

Courage, patience and per­sis­tence. He had the courage to come up with ideas and prod­ucts that so many peo­ple in the estab­lish­ment laughed at and made fun of him for. But he knew it was the right thing, and due to his per­sis­tence and patience, was able to change the world for the bet­ter. In 1942 when he launched Organic Gar­den­ing mag­a­zine, peo­ple called him crazy. Now, accord­ing to the new study by Thomp­son Reuters and NPR health, 58% of Amer­i­cans pre­fer organic food. It’s taken a long time, but it’s an amaz­ingly won­der­ful change!

What inspired you to make pro­mot­ing the ben­e­fits of an organic lifestyle your per­sonal mission?

As a mother, an activist, a busi­ness­woman and a vocal friend of the farmer, I’ve seen for myself the ben­e­fits of organic — so it’s easy to make it my per­sonal mis­sion. This is an idea that I have grown up with– the same idea that my grand­fa­ther started Rodale with over 60 years ago. Now is the time to bring the mes­sage to the masses– and sci­ence is on our side. A grow­ing body of sci­en­tific evi­dence sug­gests that toxic chem­i­cals that are being used to grow food are hurt­ing our bod­ies and our planet.  These chem­i­cals are being passed on to the next gen­er­a­tion too. Writ­ing Organic Man­i­festo, and spend­ing time with the farm­ers in the field only reaf­firmed my pur­suit of an organic lifestyle. It’s the right thing to do.

One of the inter­est­ing things that is part of the Rodale Fam­ily is the Rodale Insti­tute, can you tell us about that and about some of the excit­ing things com­ing out of there?

There are so many excit­ing things going on at the Rodale Insti­tute, and I highly sug­gest check­ing out the web­site to find out what work­shops, events, tours and projects we have going on. Recently, we were very excited to open our Water Purifi­ca­tion Eco-Center, an on-site bath­room and waste­water treat­ment sys­tem that that cap­tures rain­wa­ter and uses it sev­eral times before return­ing it to the soil as clean water. Con­structed wet­lands are a little-known, yet incred­i­bly effi­cient way to deal with all those things we flush down our pipes. Less in your face than a com­post­ing toi­let, this method for sewage treat­ment cycles nutri­ents and water through the land­scape to cre­ate greater fer­til­ity, eco­log­i­cal vibrancy, and cleaner groundwater.

We are also spear­head­ing pro­grams to raise funds for causes that pow­er­fully align with Rodale Institute’s goals.  In the U.S., we need to be find­ing, edu­cat­ing and sup­port­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of organic farm­ers, so we are elated to be start­ing Your 2 Cents, a pro­gram that unites pro­duc­ers, con­sumers, researchers and edu­ca­tors to reach that goal. The pro­gram is designed to raise funds to sup­port stu­dent schol­ar­ships for sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture degrees, mil­i­tary vet­er­ans estab­lish­ing careers in organic farm­ing, and new organic farm­ers while estab­lish­ing research grants for farm­ers in the Your 2 Cents net­work. Our inau­gural pro­gram part­ner Uncle Matt’s Organic, a com­pany that offers organic cit­rus juice and pro­duce, is kick­ing off sup­port by donat­ing two cents per case good of their organic juice sold to the fund.

What are some con­crete actions our read­ers can do today to help push towards a health­ier and greener life?

The first thing peo­ple need to know and believe when pur­su­ing a health­ier, greener life is that they are NOT pow­er­less– this is the main point I wanted peo­ple to take away from my book.  The most pow­er­ful thing we can do for the health of our fam­i­lies and our planet is not just to choose organic (though that is very impor­tant) – but also to go out and demand organic as well. This can be as sim­ple as a con­ver­sa­tion with your local grocer.

If I am shop­ping for milk or eggs– or any­thing really– and organic options are not avail­able, I always ask why not?  As con­sumers we always have the power to vote with our dol­lars; if we buy fac­tory farmed meat– peo­ple will con­tinue to pro­duce it.

A huge piece of this is also edu­ca­tion– edu­ca­tion of our friends and neigh­bors, our chil­dren and our­selves. We need to arm our­selves to be bet­ter, savvier shop­pers, and to under­stand labels and lan­guage. Over time, com­pa­nies can really change lan­guage to make it mis­lead­ing. For exam­ple, “con­ven­tional” pro­duce should not equate to nor­mal– it means it was grown using chemicals!

Any part­ing words?

Liv­ing an organic lifestyle is fun, reward­ing, and can truly be acces­si­ble to fam­i­lies of dif­fer­ent sizes on vary­ing budgets.  Small steps are key. It can be started just by buy­ing organic beans and grains in bulk, or by select­ing just a few organic “no-compromise” items to switch into your diet. But once you start, you won’t want to go back. You’ll be amazed at how your health and hap­pi­ness change by liv­ing organically.

My blog, Maria’s Farm Coun­try Kitchen, is where I work to share the plea­sures of sim­ple, deli­cious organic liv­ing. Recipes needn’t be elab­o­rate– but they can incor­po­rate great things you can grow in your own back­yard. I am a mom, so I know that the best recipes are often the people-pleasers– and it is a great bonus when they are easy, organic and good for you.

Sum­mer is tomato sea­son, so recently I have been shar­ing some of my favorite tomato tips and recipes – per­fect for last minute enter­tain­ing or as a sim­ple snack. A new, instant clas­sic at my house this sum­mer is Toma­quet– Cata­lan tomato bread. I really rec­om­mend giv­ing it a try: Toma­quet recipe, Recipe page

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