Extraordinary Health Magazine Extraordinary Health Vol 21 | Page 24

By Jeffrey Brams

On the Road is a recurring series in Extraordinary Health, taking
you with us as we travel to see our different partners and suppliers.

W

here do you go to reinvent pills? After all, the
technology to make medicinal pills dates back
to ancient Egypt. Over the centuries, we moved toward
larger-scale production and it was ultimately American
ingenuity that led to the invention of the modern pill
press in the late 1800s. Powder was poured into a tube
and then pounded into metal-case dyes where individual
pills were “punched.”
Today, the same basic principle of pill manufacture
remains; powder, poured into tubes, is compressed
through immediate, intense pressure against a metal
dye—and out pops a pill. Since the 1800s the vast
majority of technological advancements in pill making
have occurred around speed and quantity. We’ve made
bigger, faster machines that could punch more pills
at a time.
The other area for “innovation” has been the
development of “better” chemical binders, such as
stearic acid and magnesium stearate (vegetable
lubricants) as well as methylcellulose and various
dicalcium and tricalcium phosphates—all invented to
support manufacturing efficiency.
No thanks.

Up For the Challenge
Kind Organics was going to be a special line of vitamins.
These vitamins were entirely new—from Organic and

Non-GMO Verified foods. Garden of Life® didn’t want a
pill that was invented to support better machines; we
wanted one that was invented to support a better body.
We knew we were in for a challenge. After all, we had
to create an entirely new technology for making pills.
Every manufacturer I spoke to across the industry would
boast of their ability to run faster, stronger, better gluedtogether pills. No one knew how to slow down their
technology and reinvent the chemicals used to make the
pill (and the press) run. What’s more, very few were even
interested in taking on that challenge. Build it faster,
better, stronger. That was their motto.
Well, we didn’t want it faster. We wanted it healthier.
We didn’t want “better” to mean bright and shiny
new colors. We wanted “better” to mean that the
ingredients used to bind our tablets were Organic foods.
That’s the project that took me to a facility in
Missoula, Montana.

Missoula, Montana—Somewhere Special
Montana is the fourth largest state in the USA with
the 44th smallest population. There’s approximately
one million people scattered throughout the mountain
ranges, parks, cattle ranches, mining operations, grain
farms and college towns that fill the state. Missoula
is a college town with clean streets, a vibrant healthoriented culture and more mud-covered, four-wheel