About Tropical Traditions
The founders of Tropical Traditions are Brian and Marianita
Shilhavy.
Brian W. Shilhavy, BA, MA
Brian earned his
Bachelor of Arts degree in Bible/Greek from Moody Bible Institute in Chicago,
and his Master of Arts degree in linguistics from Northeastern Illinois
University in Chicago. He is currently the CEO of Tropical Traditions, Inc., and
the Editor of Health Impact News.
Marianita Jader Shilhavy, BS, CND (Certified
Nutritionist/Dietician in the Philippines) earned her bachelor of science degree
in nutrition in Manila. Understanding the nutrition of Filipino foods, Marianita
worked for over eight years as a hospital dietician and nutritional counselor in
the Philippines.
In 1998 Brian and Marianita returned to the Philippines
with their three children and renovated Marianita's old family farmhouse. By
this time the coconut industry was severely depressed due to the negative U.S.
campaigns against tropical oils in the 1980s and 1990s. Coconut farmers could no
longer support their families on the income generated from harvesting
coconuts.
How We Started the Coconut Oil Revolution
Our family moved to the Philippines in 1998. We renovated
Marianita's old family farm house up on Mt. Banahaw, in a rural farming
community. We learned much about the way Marianita's parent's generation
approached health, using native herbs and fruits to deal with common illnesses.
One thing that intrigued me was that the older generation was very active, often
still farming, and yet their only dietary oil was coconut oil, often hand made
the traditional way. This led me to investigate the whole issue of fats and
oils. I soon discovered that coconut oil had a long tradition of being a healthy
oil, and that it was wrongly accused of being bad in western countries simply
because it was a saturated fat. Politics were the main reason coconut oil fell
out of favor in western countries like the U.S. - not science. So we started
making it ourselves using the traditional method her parent's generation used.
We put these products up on the Internet in 2000, thinking that the Philippine
herbs would be our most popular product line. Before long, however, demand for
our traditional method of making coconut oil by hand overwhelmed us. The coconut
oil revolution had begun. Read more
here.
Do you know the
source of the food you
The
Tropical Traditions Line of Organic Foods and Healthy Products
Later, when our family was forced to leave the Philippines,
we had to adapt our eating and lifestyle from living in a rural agricultural
area of the Philippines, where we had access to a local public market and fresh
farm goods produced in our community and the areas surrounding it, to buying
food on the shelves of stores where we had little or no knowledge of those who
produced the food. As we settled back into life in the United States, I sought
out healthy food sources that I felt we could trust to meet the nutritional and
health needs of our family.
Finding good food sources and healthy products is an ongoing
endeavor, and the products sold through Tropical Traditions are the products I
have trusted to meet the needs of my own family. I won't sell you products that
I won't use personally or give to my own children. With meats and dairy
products, it is not enough to simply be "organic." We believe that animals
raised on pasture are preferable to animals in feed lots eating organic grains
and organic soy, and so we give preference to animals raised on grass and sunshine, and farmers
practicing sustainable agriculture.
How are Products
Chosen for Tropical Traditions?
We have a strong commitment to family farming and organic
standards. We stand firmly against genetically modified foods (No GMOs). But the organic label is
not enough for us. We research and find out where the products are produced, and
how they are produced. We find that some organic standards too loose for our
trust, so we look beyond what is claimed on a label. We find out as much as
possible about those who provide the products. And if a certain quality of
product does not exist, we will work with others to produce that product and
offer it to our consumers. We did that with Virgin Coconut Oil in the
Philippines, and we have done the same thing since coming back to live here in
the US.
One of those is our Pastured Poultry chickens raised on
Cocofeed. When we began looking for a good source of chicken raised on pasture,
we found that all the organic chickens available to us were fed a high
concentration of soybeans, and this concerned us. So after two years of
research, we finally came up with an organic feed that was soy-free and utilized
the coconut pulp that was left over after the coconut oil was extracted from it.
In May 2006 we introduced these chickens to
our customers, and the following year we also raised turkeys on this
feed which are now also available.
Then in 2008 we were asked to provide some of our Cocofeed
to a study being done at Ohio State University as it was the only soy-free
chicken feed available to be used in a study that showed soy protein was passed
into the yolks of eggs from chickens fed high concentrations of soy. We found
out that egg-laying chickens fed our Cocofeed had the soy protein in their egg
yolks disappear within 10 days of being on our feed. So we worked with farmers
in Wisconsin to raise egg-laying chickens on our Cocofeed, and in 2010 we began
offering soy-free organic
eggs to our consumers as well.
We want you to feel safe when shopping in our online store,
so we have a commitment to you to not sell anything that is harmful to the best
of our knowledge. All of our foods are either certified organic or meet quality
standards that are equal to or higher than organic certification. This includes
no GMOs. This is quite different from most health food stores, where you have to
be "on your guard" as most of them offer conventional products right alongside
organic products, because they want to offer a full selection of products to
compete with regular grocery stores. We would rather offer fewer products, and
stick to our high standards, so that you can feel safe when shopping here.
Fats and Oils
We believe strongly that there is much confusion in the area
of fats and oils in the US today. We believe that there is too much soy in the
American diet (soy was not a major component of our diet prior to World War II),
so we do our best to make sure that soy is not an ingredient in any of the
products that we sell (other than fermented soy sauce as a seasoning). We also
believe that there are too many polyunsaturated refined oils in the American
diet, and as a result an overabundance of the Omega 6 fatty acids in our food
today. We believe the traditional fats and oils that have been consumed in
traditional cultures for hundreds if not thousands of years are still the
healthiest fats and oils available to us today, including coconut oil, olive oil, palm oil, sesame oil, and butter from the
milk of pastured animals.
What's Ahead?
When Abraham Lincoln served as president of the United
States in 1862, about 48 percent of the people living in the U.S. were farmers.
Today, that figure is less than 1%. Along with the age of industrialization and
technology we have, by and large, lost many of our community family farms and,
with that loss, also the loss of many traditional farming skills. Few would
argue that our food sources here in the U.S. have suffered as a result, as a
consumer-driven economy seeks to support its lifestyle of ease and comfort with
cheap foods produced by fewer people providing the labor back on the farms.
But there are new market trends and demands from consumers
who are now placing greater value on traditional skills, and healthier food
produced "the old fashioned way." The 21st century sees a whole
generation of "baby boomers" heading into their senior years, with complex
health problems that did not plague their parents' and grandparents'
generations, in spite of all the "medical advances" the 21st
century brings us. Traditional ways of producing food are coming back into the
spotlight, as some are questioning whether those responsible for filling the
shelves of our grocery stores and supermarkets truly have our best interest in
mind, or represent our core values.
Tropical Traditions is constantly adding more products to
offer its customers as we move forward and find people producing products that
meet our high standards. We are already working with farmers and drop shipping
products directly to your home from the farm, and we will continue that trend.
In time, we also hope to setup regional centers where you can pick up local food
produced close to your community. In early 2006 we launched our Healthy Buyer's Club that
allows individuals and families to purchase bulk retail products for a
significant savings. Join us today as we seek to restore traditional ways of
producing healthy food and healthy products!
Sincerely,
Brian & Marianita Shilhavy
Founders
Tropical Traditions, Inc.
Peace With God
When I first read about the wonderful benefits of coconut
oil, I asked my wife Marianita, who grew up on a coconut plantation in the
Philippines, if there was a more natural way to extract the oil from the
coconut, so that we didn’t have to buy the refined coconut oils found in all the
stores in the Philippines. She said there was a method the older generation used
to extract the oil by grating the fresh coconut, extracting the coconut milk,
and then letting the coconut milk stand in a covered container for about 24
hours. After about 24 hours, the oil naturally separates from the water
producing a crystal clear oil that retains the full scent and taste of coconuts.
So we started making our coconut oil that way and using it for our cooking needs
with our three children. We couldn’t believe how wonderful it tasted, and how
great we felt. We had been living on Mt. Banahaw in the Philippines for almost
two years by that time, and in the year 2000 telephone service was provided to
our rural farming community, allowing me to put up a website about our
Philippine Herbs. I decided to also put our Virgin Coconut Oil up on the
website, not really expecting people to order it because it was a bit expensive
since we had to hire people to make the oil, and shipping cost a lot because of
the weight. We were so surprised when people started ordering, and then
re-ordering it because they felt so great after using it! They told us there was
no other coconut oil like it on the market. (See a sample of testimonies below.)
Before long we had businesses contacting us asking how to
order it in bulk. So we discussed how we could mass produce this kind of oil,
and almost abandoned the product because we didn’t want to lose the traditional
way of making it. In the end, we decided to just keep making it the same way, by
having others in our coconut community also make the oil the traditional way.
Many of our producers are in areas so remote, that if they did not use their
coconuts to produce Virgin Coconut oil for us, no one would buy their coconuts
because it would cost too much to transport them to manufacturing plants. In
these areas, the coconuts generally just fell to the ground unused until we
started training people to make our Virgin Coconut Oil. We were the first ones
to export Virgin Coconut Oil from the Philippines to the US market. The success
overwhelmed us.
Today, more than 10 years later, there are other companies
now selling coconut oil again in the US, most of them mass-produced by machines
from dried coconut. But we are committed to time-honored traditional practices
that have produced healthy coconut oil for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Our Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil is still produced by hand, using the
wet-milling process of extracting the oil from fresh coconuts. Our producers
have learned a lot of things over the years, since most of them have been
producing this oil for over 10 years now. They have learned how to pick out the
best coconuts from each harvest that produce the best quality oil, for example.
Independent laboratory analysis shows
this to be one of the highest quality coconut oils on the market, having the
highest levels of
antioxidants. This enhanced Virgin Coconut Oil is now in the US market
under the Tropical Traditions Gold Label brand. It meets our strictest standards
to earn this designation. Today when you buy Tropical Traditions Gold Label
Virgin Coconut Oil, you are buying the highest quality coconut oil we have to
offer, and it is still made by hand and benefiting families in the rural areas
of the Philippines where the coconuts grow.
OUR REVIEW
i love to use tropical traditions coconut oil. i use it for many things. i used the cocnut oil for cooking as well as for brea's hair. my husband also uses it in his hair. the last review i did for tropical traditions cocnut oil i used the oil as a deep conditioner and moisturizer for brea and my husbands hair. this time i decided to cook with the coconut oil. i made shrimp fried rice and used coconut oil in place of the vegtable oil. i was hoping it would turn out just as good. my husband and girls loved the shrimp fried rice i made so much. chris didnt even know the diffrence. you couldnt even taste the coconut at all. i love tropical traditions coconut oil so much. head over and check out all of the tropical traditions products. they carry all sorts of awesome stuff.
yummy coconut shrim fried rice.
disclaimer:i was given a sample product to try. i wasnt compensated in any other way for this review. these are all my own opinions.