More About Susan Lutz
ATH Editor of Organic Living

As a child, I didn’t realize I was an organic gardener as I walked the long rows of beans, peas and corn, pulling weeds in the hot sun. My father, a transplanted farmer that moved to the city, always found a place to plant crops. As the assigned “weeder” and “picker,” I began a ground roots relationship with the earth that has turned into a lifelong journey of healing and transformation.

Returning to my roots and establishing an organic lifestyle has been a challenge, if not at times an all out “confusing-depressing-ridiculous-hilarious-joyous” failure and success. When doctor’s prescribed test after expensive test to investigate health problems that kept me literally at times curled up into a ball on the floor, I finally looked for another way. I browsed alternative sections in book stores; bothered clerks at health food stores with too many questions; cleansed; flushed; and from that point on, never stopped looking for alternatives.

Along the way, I moved to Costa Rica and had a few kids. Organic living took on a whole new meaning. My first daughter encountered health problems, which through an alternative choice of acupuncture and diet, she overcame. When my son was born with Down Syndrome in 2005, an organic, alternative lifestyle added tremendous healing benefits to his health challenges.

When I looked up the word “organic,” I realized it was a complicated subject. The definition crosses into chemistry, philosophy, law, fine arts and of course living organisms, which is us and everything around us right down to the kitchen table. It is not a simple subject, and can be confusing, overwhelming, intimidating to approach and ever-changing. The intention of my work here is to help unravel some of the mysteries of organic living and make it an accessible choice, that overtime, can become a lifestyle. I’ll provide loads of information that can help you become informed. Yet, I’d also like to show you a bit of the struggles we all go through while trying to eat and live a more healthy way of life. I’m the first to admit a few of my organic dinners have ended up splattered on the wall by my children; spit back on my clothes; and more than once, left uneaten. I’ll also admit to a lot of frustration at the cost. With this site, I’d like to provide some super, simple ways to go organic that are unbelievably easy, cheap and so much better for us and the planet.

My roots are in storytelling. I find "whole living" often a theme that appears in work I am called to pursue. My first documentary film, The Coffee Dance, became a story encompassing human rights and how the use of pesticides make us all toxic, from crop to cup.