Youngevity is a multi-level marketing company that has numerous products under their label. It was started in the 80’s by a veterinarian named Dr. Joel Wallach. They sell a product that is called “Plant Derived Minerals” and if you have been around Youngevity distributors, you’ve probably heard them say something like “We own the rights to these minerals. You can’t find them anywhere else”. If not, now you have because they do say this and believe it.

However, it’s false and I’m happy to show you. But first, a history lesson…

Back in the 1920’s, a cattle rancher by the name of T.J. Clark was ill and the story goes that a local Indian tribe around Emery, Utah gave him some water that healed his ailments. While this story was never substantiated by the local tribes, it is the one that the T.J. Clark company sticks to. This company mines what is known as [humic] shale in central Utah. They claim that the mining operation extracts minerals from a 60-million-year-old hole in the earth, approximately 30 feet below the surface. This hole was once an ancient rain forest deposit the claim goes. The mining operation appears to is still be open today.

In 1985, a rival mining operation opened up next door. This one was called The Rockland Corporation (TRC). The Rockland Corp “currently owns 1,000 acres of shale leases in Emery County” also “a new production/bottling facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Its reserves are estimated to be 320 million metric tons of shale, enough for 950 billion gallons of product.” according to James Pontolillo who wrote this extensive article. While Mr. Pontolillo’s piece is a bit outdated with some broken links, it was an enjoyable read if you want to understand his position on the health claims. Joel Wallach boasts about TRC and the minerals amazing abilities here. According to Pontolillo, Wallach originally used the minerals from T.J. Clark’s mine but he and the Clark’s had a falling out so he switched his scientific position and began purchasing from TRC. Youngevity continues to use the mineral deposits from The Rockland Corp mining field.

Since the beginning of TRC, numerous companies have used the shale extracted under different labels. One of Wallach’s original companies was named American Longevity but the web address redirects you to their current home page. Another website that I found interesting was here. Wallach says “Only a small portion from various parts of the deposit are used to insure a balance of the over 65 various minerals and trace minerals that form the exclusive Majestic Earth product that meets Dr. Wallach’s quality standards, the rest is sold to bulk processors and distributed under various no name labels. Only the Majestic Earth products represents the true plant derived product.” But the newest version has 77 minerals now. And did he say that they sell the rest in bulk? Selling it implies they have the right to what is mined there. Does Youngevity have the right to sell what is extracted from the TRC mine?

The bombshell occurred when I researched The Rockland Corp. TRC manufactures out of Tulsa, OK and you can buy some of their products here. This product is called Liquid Life, and it has 75 minerals and 38,000mgs so it’s double the amount Youngevity claims. But this appears to be a newer version. Or maybe this one because when I type ‘http://www.trccorp.com‘ into my web browser, it redirects me to Vita Logic. Don’t forget to click on any of the other products at the top of that page to see all of your choices. Now, are you ready for this? The Rockland Corp is a subsidiary of Nutra Inc, and Nutra is the manufacturing division of General Nutrition Centers, also known as GNC! So here is a link to buying mineral rich products from GNC. Most of them probably come from The Rockland Corp anyways.

Oh but it gets better. Or worse. It depends on how you feel thus far.

Do you recall T.J. Clark? What ever happened to the minerals mined at his site? There was this company named Soaring Eagle Ventures. Soaring Eagle had the exclusive rights to sell TJ Clark products. This letter from C&M Laboratories certified their authenticity. Thank you, C & M Labs, for making that crystal clear. Soaring Eagle Ventures name was changed to just ‘Eagle’, and the history lesson continues: “In May, 1991, Peter & Jacqueline Holliday purchased a company named “Eagle” for $100 and a debt obligation of $820,000. At that time Eagle was a small struggling company with 350 active Distributors. While Eagle carried a basic range of nutritional supplements, its flagship product, Mineral Toddy™, was the pioneer in liquid trace mineral products. Mineral Toddy™, in fact, is where the mineral revolution began!”. So it was a failing MLM carrying the product Mineral Toddy. Cute name huh? Miraculously in 1997 Eagle became a debt-free $30M dollar MLM company. It was formed into a holding company named SupraLife International. (I will get to that in a few minutes.) The archive search pulls up this showing that in 1998, this was the Eagle company website and at the bottom it shows the ‘Soaring Eagle Ventures’ contact information in case you needed further evidence their one in the same.

Going back to SupraLife, I was surprised to find that SupraLife is (or was) another product division of Youngevity. So Eagle, formally called Soaring Eagle Ventures, was formed into the holding company SupraLife International, and has the exclusive rights to the TJ Clark mine. Did Wallach seriously use both mining companies? It looks that way to me. This website was for SupraLife – with Youngevity’s name all over it!

If you’re entirely lost right now, I will spell this out for you…SupraLife products came from T.J.Clark’s mining operation and what is the present day Plant Derived Minerals come from The Rockland Corp, aka GNC! So Youngevity was double dipping into both mines and selling them under different labels? Looks that way to me!

Lets add insult to injury, shall we? The basis of Joel Wallach’s position on mineral depletion is derived from ‘US Senate Document 264‘. You can find this reference half way down the page under the heading of “Minerals Before Vitamins”. I found out that this document is not written by the US government. In 1936, a senator from Florida, Duncan Fletcher (D), asked for this document to be put in the record. This happens all the time and it does not mean the document is an official government document. Ed Zimmy, MD debunks it here.

What Mr. Fletcher actually put into the record was an article from Cosmopolitan. I read the article and I would like to draw your attention to the last page. Author Rex Beach appears to quote someone at the end and it reads “The growers will quickly respond. They can put back those minerals almost overnight, and by doing so they can actually make money through bigger and better crops.” Clearly Joel Wallach picked the wrong business. If Wallach uses Document 264 in reference to our soils being so depleted of the minerals we need, did he not read to the end of the article? If he had, he should have been able to see that the farmers could put minerals back into the soil overnight and we’d all be healed. Sounds like they can fix our soil so rapidly, we have no need for shale drilled 30ft below the surface.

I know this post has been a bit long but there was so much to get out. I think the worst part is knowing that GNC holds the keys to Youngevity’s minerals, – yet they want to declare proprietary rights to something that they don’t have. Save yourself the pocket-book pain and pick up a bottle of minerals next time you’re near a GNC, if your arsenic is low.