From Seed to Seal

As I was driving home from my community garden plot earlier today, the car filled with today’s harvest, I thought about what I was going to do with the bounty. Big Brandywine and dark Black Krim tomatoes, Rainbow Blend carrots, and Blue Lake green beans, along with Walla Walla sweet onions from the deer proof garden in our back yard would become soup that I can so we can enjoy it in the months to come.

I grow heirloom plants from seed in my organic garden—some of the seed I save from year to year, others I purchase from a reputable supplier. I know where the seed comes from, I know what fertilizer is used throughout the season on the plants (my own vermicompost), and I tend every plant myself. When the harvest begins we enjoy eating from the garden and I also can and freeze the garden’s bounty—often within hours of when the produce is picked. In the middle of winter when I open a jar of vegetable soup I know exactly what’s in it.

As I thought about this I couldn’t help but think about the essential oils I’ve been using, and Young Living’s Seed to Seal process. There are lots of brands of essential oils on the market but Young Living stands alone in this commitment. They own their own farms (you can even visit them if you choose to); they distill the oils that are then tested in their own labs and third-party facilities; and they bottle the essential oils. They’re in control of the quality from Seed to Seal.

One of my favourite oil blends, and one of Young Living’s most popular—Valor–is out of stock right now due to a poor growing season and subsequent shortage of a couple of oils it contains. Young Living could choose to purchase those oils from another supplier, have no confidence in the quality of the oil but still, conceivably, produce and continue to sell the popular oil blend. Instead, they choose to let it go out of stock until the next harvest produces enough oil to create the blend again.

I get that. I respect that.

I might choose to purchase some of the vegetables I use in my soup too—and, in fact, I do that when I don’t have enough of one thing or another at times. I am, however, fully aware of the fact that the soup I make that contains vegetables exclusively from my garden is a superior product. How could it not be when I’m in control of the quality from seed to seal?

Oh yeah, the other thing I love about Young Living essential oils? They work.