When it comes to cleaning products, there are no government regulations for listing ingredients on packaging. This doesn’t sit well with us. As a result, we developed our Whole Foods Market Eco-Scale™ rating system to help you make the best choices about the cleaning products you use to do laundry, wash dishes, mop floors and more! By Earth Day 2012 – April 22^nd – all of the household cleaning products in our stores will list full ingredients on their packaging and be rated and third-party verified based on safety and environmental impact.

With the launch of our new standards, Whole Foods Market is the first to require full disclosure ingredient listing on household cleaning products. No one else — retailer, government body or trade association — is requiring full disclosure ingredient listing to the extent that we are.

Here’s a little bit of background:

Many people are surprised to hear that full disclosure labeling is not currently required for cleaning products by the government. Almost three out of four adults (73%) falsely believe that the government requires household cleaning products to provide a list of ingredients on the label, according to a Whole Foods Market survey conducted online in April among 2,483 US adults aged 18 and over. Another two-thirds (64%) believe that many household cleaning brands opt to disclose the full list of ingredients on packaging, when, in fact, few provide this information on product labels.

Why is this important? One word: Transparency. You deserve to know what’s in your cleaning supply products. How can you make good choices if you don’t know what you’re using to clean your homes on a daily basis? We feel it’s important to include this information on actual labels (not just on company websites) so that this information is available to you while you’re shopping.

Here’s the nitty-gritty on what you can expect from products sold in our stores:

• Ingredients must be listed on all products on our shelf by next Earth Day (April 22, 2012). This gives our suppliers time to make the required changes to their labels.

• Ingredients will be listed in INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients), which is already commonly used for personal care products.

• Listing ingredients or ingredient blends as “proprietary” or using a trademarked name without an INCI name is not allowed, except for fragrances and enzymes only. (Note that as part of the audit process, all fragrance and enzyme blends will still be reviewed for acceptability to our standards).

What does all that mean to you? Well, you may start to see some unfamiliar ingredients listed on your cleaning products. The fact is that cleaning supply products are made from ingredients that most people may not be entirely familiar with. I always say that learning about cleaning supply ingredients is like learning a new language.  If you have questions about any of these ingredients, some of which are multi-syllabic or may seem very “chemically,” let us know. For each ingredient, we have an explanation of why we allowed the ingredient in the appropriate tier, or why it was a better alternative than other available ingredients.

It’s important to keep in mind that many conventional products do not contain full disclosure ingredient listings, so it will be difficult to compare conventional and natural products head to head.

Full disclosure ingredient listing is the norm for food, supplements and personal care products. We are hoping that some day the same will be true for household cleaning products.

If you’ve got questions about the potentially new ingredients you might be seeing in your favorite household cleaning products, contact us for further information.

What do you think? Should ingredient listings on household cleaning products be regulated like the rest? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.

This is a reprint of an article featured on GOOD.

By now we’ve already covered a little of how products can affect our health, but it bears reminding that what’s good for us is also generally good for the planet—and vice versa. Because Whole Foods is a pioneer in natural personal-care, even issuing new organic labeling guidelines to their suppliers, we asked them to tell us the top five most environmentally noxious ingredients used in personal-care products, and why we should avoid them.

1.  Antibacterial Compounds
Triclosan and chlorphenesin are often the active ingredients in antibacterial soaps. They do not break down in the environment and may contribute to bacterial resistance. These ingredients are also known to cause aquatic toxicity. A recent FDA advisory panel report even stated that antibacterial soaps are no more effective than regular soaps. Triclosan and chlorphenesin are not allowed in any products sold in Whole Foods Market stores.

2. Synthetic Chelators
Chelators, such as the commonly used trisodium EDTA, are used in personal-care products to remove impurities from low-quality raw materials. They are problematic for two reasons. First, there is environmental research data showing that chelators do not readily biodegrade in the environment. Second, since the function of synthetic chelators is to remove impurities from low-quality raw materials, there is no real need for these ingredients in high-quality natural products to begin with. So shop wisely and you won’t run into this one.

3. Petroleum-derived Ingredients
One-hundred-percent petroleum derived ingredients, such as mineral oil and petrolatum, come with some unpleasant environmental realities. For one thing, they are derived from non-renewable resources. These ingredients are also bad for functional reasons, since they form a barrier when applied to skin that does not allow it to breathe. Finally, they often contain impurities as a result of the manufacturing processes—which is something consumers have almost no way of knowing about, but should guard against. Other ingredients to avoid in this category are parrafin, lily white gel, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, alkyl benzoate, and ammonium polacrylate.

4. Chemical Sunscreens
Chemical sunscreens, such as oxybenzone and octyl methoxycinnamate, have some human-safety concerns, since many have been shown to disrupt endocrine activity. Every year, gallons of chemical sunscreens wash off people’s skin and into the oceans, which can be toxic to marine life. Physical sunscreens, such as titanium dioxide and zinc oxide, are safer alternatives for humans and the environment.

5. Aerosol Sprays
Aerosol sprays like those used in hairspray are the gases that propel the product out of the can. Fortunately, since the late 1970s, consumer aerosol products made in the United States have not contained ozone-depleting CFCs. All consumer—and most other—aerosol products made or sold in the United States now use propellants such as hydrocarbons and compressed gases like nitrous oxide that do not deplete the ozone layer. While aerosol spray cans produced in some other countries might still use CFCs, they cannot legally be sold in the States.

Illustrations by Brianna Harden

This is the seventh installment in a series inspired by No More Dirty Looks: The Truth About Your Beauty Products and the Ultimate Guide to Safe and Clean Cosmetics, a forthcoming book by GOOD’s features editor Siobhan O’Connor and her co-author Alexandra Spunt. It will run every Tuesday and Thursday on the GOOD blog.

According to the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), cooking over an open flame produces carcinogens called heterocyclic amines, or HCAs. Carcinogens are substances that might cause, increase the risks of, or promote cancer. While the risks are still being studied, there is concern that high levels of HCAs may increase the risk of breast, colon, stomach and prostate cancers.

In addition to HCAs, another class of cancer-promoting substances, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, are formed when fat from meat drips onto hot coals or stones, causing flare-ups. PAHs are deposited back onto food by smoke and flare-ups.

But fear not! There are some simple things you can do to minimize the formation of these substances – without sacrificing the wonderful flavor (and the joy) that comes from cooking on the grill.

When preparing to grill, remember to:

• Clean the grill – remove any leftover charred bits from your last cookout
• Choose lean meats, and go easy on processed meats
• Try to limit your consumption of red meat to 18 ounces or less (cooked) per week
• Trim fat (and remove skin from poultry) to reduce drips and flare-ups
• Opt for smaller cuts like kabobs, which spend less time on the grill
• Use spices — Kansas State University scientists have discovered that three spices in particular — finger root (also known as Chinese ginger), rosemary and turmeric — seem to direct the greatest amount of antioxidant activity toward preventing the formation of HCAs
• Use marinades (flavor with spices, herbs, fresh juices, wine, beer) whenever possible – the KSU study found that they significantly decrease the formation of HCAs

When you’re cooking:

• Pre-cook meats in the microwave, or oven, so they spend less time on the grill
• Put a piece of foil with a few small holes in it (so fat can drain) on the grilling surface
• Flip meats frequently, this accelerates cooking and helps prevent HCAs from forming
• Grill vegetables (and even fruits) – they don’t produce HCAs
• Use tongs or a spatula to turn food. Piercing the meat with a fork allows juices and fat to drip down onto the coals and cause flare-ups.
• Keep a spray bottle filled with water handy, to keep coals and flames under control

When you’re ready to eat:

• Scrape off any charred parts
• Practice smart portioning; eat a serving that’s a bit smaller than your usual

Happy grilling!

Looking for a great recipe that uses a marinade? Try one of ours:

• Cuban-Style Flat Iron Steak with Lime, Orange, Garlic, Cumin and Oregano.
• Asian-Style Baby Back Ribs
• Mediterranean Kabobs
• Balsamic-Citrus Wild Alaska Salmon
• Chili and Lime Grilled Chicken
• Tuscan-Style Grilled Steaks

For more info on grilling and carcinogens, check out the AICR website at http://www.aicr.org.

When we created our Premium Body Care distinction, our primary goal was to help dispel some of the confusion our customers faced when trying to find personal care products that were truly natural, effective, environmentally friendly and safer alternatives.

Our dedication to this mission has continued to gain strength. There are now over 3000 products in our stores that qualify for our Premium Body Care symbol, and we’ve identified over 380 ingredients unacceptable to our standard.

With many hours spent reviewing products, ingredients and label claims, this has been a great learning process for us. What may be less apparent is the extensive time behind the scenes talking and working with our body care vendors to provide any needed assistance due to the impact of this standard on their products.

Many vendors intentionally decided to formulate or reformulate their products to meet the standard as a way to highlight their products as Premium. Along the way, we have had many conversations with our vendors regarding ways to formulate non-Premium products as Premium. In this sense, Premium Body Care has been a trusted standard that has encouraged and accelerated the trend of reformulation to a more natural product with the collective elimination of many egregious ingredients.

At the same time, Premium Body Care has benefited many of our smaller vendors. We’ve been pleased to see a significant number of small, local vendors with beautiful products that already met our Premium Body Care standards. This program has offered them not only an opportunity to gain recognition that puts them on an even footing with much larger names and product lines, but also to grow their brand within our company.

There has also been ample opportunity to educate vendors (and ourselves) as part of the Premium Body Care review process. Small manufacturers who may not have the technical expertise of a larger manufacturer have received guidance from us regarding testing protocols and compliant labeling. In addition, we found that manufacturers may not have known the right questions to ask of their raw ingredient suppliers. For example, surfactants often come preserved with sub-ingredients that are not required to appear on product labels. By encouraging manufacturers to ask the right questions of their raw material suppliers, we have helped draw awareness to some of these practices.

Of course, changing the formulation of a personal care product can be challenging, often requiring time, expertise and persistence to be done properly. When a personal care product is reformulated with natural colors and fragrances and with safer preservatives, it can affect the stability and viscosity of the entire formula—it is not just a simple one to one substitution. Formulators need to skillfully adjust each formula to account for these more natural ingredients, which can be as much an art as it is a science.

Previously, it was easy and customary to formulate with powerful yet questionable preservatives, like parabens. These were a known quantity and easy to work with. In contrast, reformulating with natural ingredients can take some work to develop effective alternatives, but we believe that the end result is worth it when it comes to safety and environmental impact. With time, we hope that the natural way will become the norm.

Since we first launched Premium Body Care, the availability of natural-based ingredients has expanded significantly — specifically with natural surfactants, emollients and fragrances. For example, fragrance houses are trying to use natural fragrance components more and more, while surfactants are being made from a larger quantity of natural materials. It also used to be difficult to find surfactants that did not contain preservatives as a sub-ingredient, but now preservative-free surfactants are available that were made to meet our standard. There are also natural quats (quaternary amines) made from sugar cane, and natural thickeners for hair styling products.

Wherever possible, we are encouraging our manufacturers to formulate with the abundance of natural ingredients that are becoming more readily available. Over time, this will mean more good choices for our customers, which is what we set out to do when we launched Premium Body Care. We look forward to increasing our selection of Premium Body Care products, and at the same time, continuing to educate about truly natural, effective, environmentally friendly and safer personal care products.

The first in a series, this post breaks down the basic anatomy of a shampoo, helping to decipher the key ingredients that comprise the shampoos that you use on a daily basis – and what you may want to think about when choosing your next one.

What’s in my shampoo?
A basic recipe or template for a shampoo most likely includes the following kinds of ingredients:

• Surfactants: Also known as surface active agents, surfactants are necessary for the lathering, cleaning and degreasing effects of a shampoo. Because of these degreasing effects, surfactants have the potential to be drying and irritating, so it can be a delicate balance to create a shampoo that cleans the hair without stripping away beneficial components. Shampoos usually contain a cocktail of surfactants, artfully combined to strike the right balance.
• Water: Along with surfactants, water is part of the basic foundation of shampoos and liquid cleansers, which are more than 50% water.
• Preservative: Preservatives, whose main function is to prevent microbial growth and to ensure shelf life, are required for the formulation of shampoos. When it comes to preservatives, none are truly benign, since the main purpose of a preservative is to prevent growth of microorganisms and keep products fresh. However, preservative systems are a necessary component of personal care products, in particular water-based ones such as shampoos.
• Active and Other Ingredients: These are the ingredients that nourish and beautify – making your hair shinier, smoother, softer, thicker and more manageable. Natural actives include herbal extract, vitamins, amino acids and proteins, and antioxidants. Other ingredients, such as thickeners, humectants, pH control agents or chelators, may be added to stabilize the formula.
• Fragrance: Along with functionality, fragrance is one of the key attributes that makes personal care products stand apart from each other, and fragrance has a very strong influence on our personal product choices.
• Color: In basic shampoos, color is added for decorative purposes only and is unnecessary for functionality.

Comparing conventional shampoos with our basic and Premium Body Care shampoos found at Whole Foods Market.

While our basic standards already set us apart from the conventionals, our top-tier Premium Body Care goes above and beyond. It took our experts more than two years to meticulously examine each and every personal care ingredient in Whole Body. Using the most current safety and efficacy data, research and resources available, they evaluated each product ingredient in four key areas-results, source, environmental impact and safety-searching for the excellence that we believe makes for a premium product. Here’s how shampoos compare:

As you can see, it can be fun to review the ingredient lists on the personal care products that you use on a regular basis in order to discover the kinds of ingredients they contain. How does your shampoo fit the recipe?

Shampoo is one of the most challenging products to make truly natural because functionality is so important for hair care products. We applaud the work of our Premium Body Care vendors, who have worked to develop natural alternatives to the most common synthetic ingredients found in shampoos. It is possible to make many good improvements in the area of natural shampoos, as can be seen by the blossoming numbers of Premium shampoos on our shelves, including those from Depth, Ikove, Alaffia, John Masters Organics and Aubrey Organics.

There are differences in how essentials oils are distilled, and when they are extracted artfully with hydrodistillation methods, according to Jack, you are going to get a full spectrum of fragrance components that cannot be achieved with CO2 and steam-extracted essential oils and absolutes. Jack calls these minor fragrance constituents of the plant “soul components” — components that transfer the plant’s intelligence and the intact life force. It is due to these soul components that natural fragrances are so complex, that the scent keeps changing as you smell it. When you breathe it in, it is like being in nature or like smelling the ocean. Through this poetic vision of essential oil extraction, distillation is seen as the art of releasing the plant’s soul into the oils.

Jack says it is easy to understand essential oil extraction when you consider the parallel to food processing. For example, olive oil can be extracted with a hexane solvent (which is not allowed at Whole Foods Market for stand alone oil) or it can be expeller pressed, and the same is true for essential oils. Fragrance, when extracted properly, is alive and can be compared to the highest quality olive oil.

Jack’s foundation for learning about natural fragrances was a natural silk dyeing business that he owned years ago. Through the dyeing process, Jack noticed that the natural colors had a smell, which planted the seeds for Jack’s current business, Scents of Knowing.

When Jack decided to start extracting his own essential oils for Scents of Knowing, he designed his own equipment. Jack only distills in pure glass (in ancient times, it would have been ceramic) and only uses live flame. He uses the ancient principles of hydrodistillation for crafting his oils, where plant materials are extracted in water, gently heated over the course of hours, and then cooled so that the plant will release itself.

Extraction can be an art, and the extraction process is a little different for each plant material. Flowers, for example, contain a high wax content, so in Jack’s process, he uses 100% natural jojoba wax to extract the flower oils. And frankincense undergoes 13 different temperature changes over the process of its distillation. Jack describes this process as peeling the layers of an onion. The end result is that Jack’s oils are “in tune” — telling the whole story of the plant.

Jack likes to point out that there is a connection between how we smell and how we feel. This is why some traditional Chinese medicine doctors diagnose by smell. In this vein, Jack has observed many people smelling through the fragrance guides that he conducts (similar to a wine tasting), and it gives him much joy to train people and attune them to natural, harmonic scents. Often times, people are only used to smelling synthetic fragrances, so that they need to “re-train” their nose to recognize and appreciate natural fragrances. As Jack likes to say, listen to the smell, the natural plant fragrances are trying to tell you something. Even after all these years, Jack claims he is still learning to listen.

One of the most challenging areas for us to research has been fragrances, primarily because there is no official definition in place for natural when it comes to fragrances. Furthermore, the testing and verification of fragrances is quite complex, which has made it difficult for us to determine if a fragrance in a product is 100% natural or not. To help us better understand these issues, we decided that we needed to see the process of distilling 100% natural fragrances (essential oils) firsthand.

Memorable among this experience was the beautiful opportunity this summer to witness the rose harvest and the subsequent distilling of rose essential oil. As the days start to bring a chill in the air, my mind wanders to the misty field in Bulgaria where Rosa damascena plants grow seemingly to the horizon. It is early morning because the peak hours for rose picking are from 5am to 10am when the plant oils are strongest. There is a noticeable scent of rose in the air, and workers — many with blossoms in their hair — are scattered throughout the field with huge sacks of pale pink flowers. We attempt to help with the harvest, and quickly realize that we must develop the skill for grasping the blossom at the precise place and pulling with the right force to collect the delicate flowers. We are painfully slow novices, although our hands become faintly scented with rose and we are happy (as it seems are the other workers) to be in that field, on that morning.

At the manufacturing facility, this morning’s harvest, all 60,000 kg of it, is strewn in sacks surrounding the copper distilleries. Unbelievably, it takes 3000-4000 kg of rose blossoms to make 1 kg of rose oil. This year, conditions are dry, so the yield will be lower. Although the steam distillers run 24/7 during the harvest season, the oil is released only once a day. In what seems to be a special daily ritual, we are allowed access to the locked room where we get to see the release of the gallon or so of rose oil that day, a magical event akin to uncorking a special bottle of wine.

At the end of it all, here is what I am most struck with:

• Wonder, gratitude and respect for how hard people work to produce the products and ingredients on our shelves.
• Awe over the immense amount of flowers needed to make a small bit of essential oil. This, and all other essential oils, are concentrated plant essences, to be used wisely.
• Visible realization that if everything in the process is carefully tended to—from field to manufacture to storage—the end result will be a high quality product. This tenet could be applied to all kinds of products, in body care products and throughout the store.

As we continue work with Premium Body Care—we recently hit the mark of having approved over 2300 products that meet Premium Body Care—we hope to be able to offer a greater selection of products that are filled with such high quality ingredients, including natural fragrances.

Jody talks to us about the specifics of Superfoods, she will tell us about certain Superfoods and their makeup, where you can find them and tips on how to get more into your diet.