USDA Organic
At least 95% organic ingredients, excluding salt and water. “Made with organic” means at least 70%, and that product cannot carry the seal.
USDA labeling rules ↗Education & resources
Learn to readwhat you're buying.
Nobody taught me any of this. It is what I check now — on a supplement bottle and in a grocery store — with the source for every fact, so you can check it too.
Supplements
Four questions I ask before I take anything.
Is it made from food, or assembled from isolates?
The Supplement Facts panel names the form. Vitamin E is the clearest example: d-alpha-tocopherol is naturally sourced, dl-alpha-tocopherol is synthetic. One letter.
Watch me test itWho makes it, and to what standard?
A company that publishes what it tests for has to keep testing for it. A company that doesn't publish anything is asking you to take its word.
What NeoLife publishesHas it been studied in people?
Not a mechanism in a dish, and not someone else's ingredient study borrowed for a label. The product, in humans.
Can anyone else check that research?
Published, named and linkable. For what I carry, NeoLife posts a Clinical Support document for each product — here is the one for Vitamin E Plus.
Vitamin E Plus clinical support (PDF)
Why I bother asking
Most people take something. Very few check what.
75%
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REAL FOOD, SAFE FOOD
The grocery store
How I shop.
Shop the perimeter of the store.
Produce, meat, fish and eggs live around the edges. The middle aisles are mostly packaging.
Fresh, organic, non-GMO.
Where the budget runs out, the produce lists below tell you where organic matters most.
Skip what comes in a box, packet or can.
If it needs a long ingredients list to survive on a shelf, I leave it there.
No seed oils, refined sugars or refined grains.
Read the ingredients, not the front of the pack — they turn up in things that are sold as healthy.
Wild-caught fish, grass-fed beef, organic pasture-raised eggs.
How the animal was raised is part of what ends up on the plate.
Seals worth knowing
A seal is someone else vouching — not the brand.
Non-GMO Project Verified
Verified by the Non-GMO Project, an independent nonprofit. It covers genetic modification only — it is not an organic certification.
Non-GMO Project ↗The certifier’s name
Names like CCOF or Oregon Tilth on a pack are the organisation that inspected the farm under USDA rules. On imports you will see the EU organic leaf, Japan’s JAS mark or Australian Certified Organic.
The sticker on the fruit
A five-digit code starting with 9 is organic — the usual four-digit code with a 9 in front. Stickers are optional, so a missing 9 does not prove anything either way.
IFPS produce codes ↗Where organic matters most
Buy these organic. Save money on these.
Every year the Environmental Working Group ranks produce by pesticide residue in USDA testing. If you can only buy some of it organic, start with the first list.
Dirty Dozen™ 2026
Most residue — worth buying organic
- Spinach
- Kale, collard & mustard greens
- Strawberries
- Grapes
- Nectarines
- Peaches
- Cherries
- Apples
- Blackberries
- Pears
- Potatoes
- Blueberries
Clean Fifteen™ 2026
Least residue — conventional is fine
- Pineapples
- Sweet corn (fresh & frozen)
- Avocados
- Papaya
- Onion
- Sweet peas (frozen)
- Asparagus
- Cabbage
- Cauliflower
- Watermelon
- Mangoes
- Bananas
- Carrots
- Mushrooms
- Kiwi
Source: EWG’s 2026 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™. EWG updates the rankings each year — see the current guide ↗
At the sink
How I wash broccoli.
Before it goes in the pot, check the sticker: a five-digit code starting with a 9 means it was grown organically. Then wash it properly.
Why the spray stays put
Crop sprays are often mixed with additives called “stickers”, made to hold the spray on the plant. In Cornell Cooperative Extension’s words: “Stickers increase the adhesion of solid particles to a target surface. They can help reduce evaporation and the amount of pesticide that washes off during rain.”
Cornell Cooperative Extension — Using Adjuvants in Your Pesticide Program ↗In the film I soak the head in a bowl of water with a little of NeoLife’s Green, then rinse it — watch how differently the water runs off afterwards. It is a demonstration at my counter, not a lab test.
What’s in the bowl
Green – Liquid Cleaning Concentrate · SKU 4194
All-in-one liquid cleaning concentrate, made with pure aloe vera juice and plant-derived protein. — NeoLife
View Green in my storeAt home
The plants NASA actually tested for cleaner air.
Most “houseplants for clean air” graphics trace back to one 1989 NASA study — then add plants it never tested. These are the ones it did.
Snake plantSansevieria trifasciata ‘Laurentii’
Peace lilySpathiphyllum ‘Mauna Loa’
Bamboo palmChamaedorea seifrizii
English ivyHedera helix
Chinese evergreenAglaonema modestum
DracaenaFour varieties testedRed-edged, cornstalk, ‘Janet Craig’ and ‘Warneckei’
Weeping figFicus benjamina
Gerbera daisyGerbera jamesonii
ChrysanthemumChrysanthemum morifolium
Keep learning
Where I send people to check for themselves.
- National Institutes of HealthNIH dietary supplement fact sheetsWhat each vitamin and mineral does, how much you need, and which forms exist. The most reliable free reference there is.
- Environmental Working GroupEWG Shopper’s GuideThe full Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen, with how the testing was done.
- USDAOrganic labeling, explainedWhat each organic label on a package legally means.
- Non-GMO ProjectNon-GMO ProjectLook up whether a product is verified, and what verification covers.
- International Federation for Produce StandardsProduce sticker codesSearch any PLU code to see what it is and whether it is organic.
Everything on this page is general education, not medical advice. If you have a health condition or take prescription medication, talk to your physician before changing your diet or adding a supplement.
Ready when you are
Everything I take, in one place.
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