Elements for Life: A New Superfood Company Disguised as an MLM
When we first heard of the new superfoods distribution company, Elements for Life (EFL), we were very hesitant. After all, the company has structured itself as an MLM (multi-level marketing) type of distribution company, which is a turn-off for a lot of people who have been burned by MLM companies in the past or who don't like potential pushy salespeople.
After being approached by about 15 or so people who pushed us to join the Elements for Life MLM in an overbearing fashion, we were even more turned off, to say the least. These people who approached us had no interest in building a relationship with us. A pushy "Sign up with me!" is not a very good sales approach. They had no idea who we were, no idea that we've been raw for 5 years, they didn't even know anything about our blog. They just knew we hadn't joined yet, so that must mean we didn't know about Elements for Life, but they were wrong. We've known about it since it first went live - but it just didn't seem like our kind of thing, so we kept quiet.
So we put EFL on the back-burner for a while and decided to keep our distance watching it unfold...hoping that this company wouldn't split the raw food movement into two segments: one for EFL and one against it. We don't want raw food factions out there.
Finally, we were approached by one man who could break through our resistance and connect to us as a real person should. At that point, we softened our view on the company, were sent some products to review, and are excited to share our thoughts with you.
Instead of EFL becoming a sticking point in the raw food world, we hope that we can solve that potential raw food faction problem with this review...read on...
MLMs Aren't Evil, But People Can Be
After watching EFL for several months quietly from the sidelines, we started slowly opening up to the idea of having a superfood MLM as part of our overall raw food community.
In fact, it took a particular person to contact us and build a real relationship with us before we were able to look past our MLM prejudice and take a fresh, new look at the company and it's values and goals from a new perspective.
Let's face it, MLMs might not be for everyone, and it's possible that certain EFL distributors may offend some people. We've already talked to countless people "way up" in the raw foods chain and other "average raw folk" that have been completely and disgustedly turned off from EFL because of some overbearing and pushy new EFL distributor. These people have turned these people off so much to EFL, that irreparable damage may have been done. We can tell that there are people who have turned away from raw foods and superfoods due to negative experiences with pushy people. We have heard directly from these people, this is no joke.
We're going to briefly state this: if you are an EFL distributor or thinking of becoming one, please read some classic books on sales, marketing, and social communication before starting to sell these products.
You will tarnish your name, EFL's name, superfoods, and the raw community if you sell these products incorrectly. There is no maybe. You will hurt other people and turn them away if you don't handle yourself with honesty and integrity.
With that said, let us also say this: if done right there are quite a few benefits to this type of business structure for the raw and superfoods community.
Enough talk, let's get down to business...
What About the Actual Products?
The main benefits to EFL for those already experienced in eating superfoods, is that EFL has some exclusive products that can't be bought anywhere else that make the company a viable force in the raw food and superfood world.
After eating superfoods for a few years, we've learned quite a bit about how to work with them. It's quite a different experience than working with something like cucumbers and apples.
Superfoods require a little more education and experience to use effectively. Not only do you need to educate yourself about what each superfood does inside of your body, but you need to take it at least a few times for your body to understand how to utilize it.
Superfoods are designed for those who have learned to really listen to their bodies. Once you understand the difference between a craving and a true desire from your body, you will be able to more effectively utilize superfoods to your advantage.
Now that we've got that caveat out of the way, let's go on to the actual food part of the EFL superfoods review.
Our Elements for Life Care Package sent by LiranGold Rush:
An exclusive product. When we first heard of EFL, we saw them pushing a product called Gold Rush as one of their premiere, exclusive products. We've known for quite awhile about various "gold" products out there, but we didn't know much about EFL's gold product.
We will let EFL co-founder Chad Ashley Vandenberg talk about out how colloidal gold helped save him from becoming crippled the rest of his life in this powerful testimonial video for Gold Rush. It's pretty amazing to learn about his journey.
Our personal experience with taking an entire bottle of Gold Rush was pretty powerful. We were skeptical at first, but after taking it every day for about a week or so each, we noticed some acute improvements in our mental functioning and overall sense of well-being and connection to our spiritual source.
We haven't purchased any more Gold Rush, but we plan to in the future, and experiment with it further, specifically with experimenting with Gold Rush and lucid dreaming.
Immune Detox:
Immune detox is a zeolite product, much like Natural Cellular Defense. If you aren't familiar with zeolites, they are a naturally occurring volcanic substance that are able to remove heavy metals, pesticides, and a host of other environmental toxins safely from the body.
The Immune Detox product appears to be a re-labeled bottle of Super-Z-Lite from Omica Health. We've both noticed significant benefits from consuming Immune Detox and Omica's Super-Z-Lite. We like interchanging which Zeolite product we use on a daily basis.
One more thing: this is a liquid zeolite product, not a powder. Read up on liquid zeolites to find out why suspended zeolites in liquid form are more easily utilized by the body than the powdered stuff. If you're interested, we can do more in depth posts on zeolites in the future.
Cacao Nibs:
These are much like your basic cacao nibs, but the "cut" on them is a little larger than most nibs you will run across. These are great nibs for eating straight. The quality is absolutely incredible as well. We've had a lot of nibs over the years, and you can tell a bad one from a good one in a single bite.
These are awesome nibs, we love them. Very high quality, even nicer than some of the Sunfood Cacao Nibs we've had in the past.
Cacao Powder:
Near perfect quality, if not perfect. This is the ideal cacao powder for those who know what good cacao powder is. The best aspect of EFL's cacao powder is that it tends to be a darker, richer quality than even Sunfood's, in our experience. This powder will go a lot further since you need a lot less for your smoothies, drinks, and chocolates. This cacao powder is dark and rich with a complex flavor and creamy powdery texture. Highly recommended.
Cordyceps:
For those not familiar with medicinal mushrooms, cordyceps is considered a Chinese longevity mushroom that used to be prized for its rarity and has an incredible host of benefits. We won't get into the details of cordyceps in this post. We have been using other medicinal mushrooms for the past 6 months, but this was our first pure cordyceps experience, so we can't vouch for the quality compared to other brands.
However, the benefits we received from throwing this product into smoothies definitely follows the classic benefits as laid out in most Chinese medicinal texts that talk about the power of cordyceps. Ounce for ounce, the price is much better than most capsule versions of cordyceps that we've seen on the 'net. This is actually a great value with an excellent quality.
Also worth noting is that we have heard that the cordyceps are made using vegetarian procedures, something that is quite uncommon in typical cordyceps production.
Goji Berries:
We'll be straight with you: the goji berries were perfect. The taste, the size, the color, the moisture, texture, the softness...everything.
The ultimate test for goji berries, however, is a batch per batch consistency. We've had multiple batches from the same place, with very different results. We've only had one batch from EFL, so we can't vouch for their consistency of quality.
However, from what we have heard from EFL members is that the goji berries have been extremely consistently high quality batch for batch.
If you love goji berries, they seem to have an excellent source.
ReVitaPhi:
Oh man, we LOVE products created by Jameth Sheridan over at Healthforce Nutritionals. ReVitaPhi is his latest creation. We especially love ReVitaPhi because it's an excellent mix between a more dense green superfood powder like Vitamineral Green, and a more herby mix like Roots Magic Elixir. ReVitaPhi works great in both green smoothies or superfood smoothies or elixirs. We absolutely love it and a little goes a long way.
Right now, this is another exclusive EFL product and is another reason to place some orders with EFL on a regular basis. If you like Vitamineral Green, you will probably love ReVitaPhi.
Island Fire Noni:
Taste the Experience.......Have you tried Noni? It's kind of a buzz superfood lately; even mainstream news has mentioned it. But getting high quality Noni can be very difficult to find on the mainland or in other countries. That's where Elements for Life comes in.
If you've never tried Noni juice (more like a fermented "wine"), then you're in for a "treat". This Island Fire stuff is powerful, and tastes terrible to most people. This is the first Noni product either of us have ever had, and yes, it does live up to its name. But if you've ever looked into the benefits of noni, even a small shot of this stuff can do you some major good...if you can get it down.
The first night we tried it, Heidi was feeling particularly low in energy, which is rare for her. We decided to take a shot of Island Fire and see what happens. Immediately after drinking 1-2 ounces of Island Fire, Heidi had immediate energy, which shocked both of us! Oh, and the taste is out of this world...maybe in a good way, maybe not.
Seriously though, after trying this for a few weeks in a row, we definitely got used to the flavor. Heidi loves the taste, but Justin still makes a funny face when taking a shot.
You have to try it at least once. We'll leave out the flavor description in this post and let you try it for yourself for the first time...
We will say this: it is an "experience".
Golden Inca Berries:
When we first bit into these, we were expecting an incredibly tart, sour flavor. With the other golden berries we've tried before, we either had a very sour batch, or had a source that is of a regular sour consistency.
The Incan berries from EFL are still sour, but have a fabulous sweet undertone that rounds out the flavor and makes them excellent for munching with some goji berries. These also work great in smoothies and teas.
Very high quality. If you want sweet AND tangy Incan berries, these are the ones to buy.
Marine Phytoplankton:
What can we say about marine phytoplankton? We're not going to dive into the benefits of this absolutely incredible newcomer to the raw food world, we'll leave that research up to you. Look it up and read up on it.
This marine phytoplankton appears to be from the same source as Ocean's Alive Marine Phytoplankton and is just a re-branded bottle. But don't let that fool you, Ocean's Alive is the marine phytoplankton to get.
Goes great under the tongue if you can handle it, in water is even better. Start with one drop, work your way up to 15 drops or so.
Once again, similar to Island Fire, Marine Phytoplankton is an "experience". Totally wild.
Blue Green Algae:
Blue Green Algae is an excellent source of nutrition, and can be added to superfood smoothies, or even green smoothies. Tastes great with Vitamineral Green too.
Best of all? It sparkles!
Sparkles!We took over a dozen photos to try to capture the brilliance of this blue-green algae. This photo is the best we could create, but doesn't do it justice. When you eat it, it feels like you are eating fairy dust! This product is a great example of how raw food can be nutritious AND fun.
Excellent quality. Highly recommended by both of us.
Maca Powder:
EFL sells an excellent, full-bodied and flavorful maca. Top-notch and very high quality. Recommended by both of us very highly.
If you have tried a few different brands of maca, you may notice that there is a wide range of quality. This batch of maca that we recieved from Elements for Life is very comparable to Sunfood Nutrition or Matt Monarch's over at The Raw Food World. High quality. Very tasty.
In fact we've noticed that we've been using more maca lately thanks to this batch of maca powder.
Other EFL Products:
There are a few other products that EFL carries right now that we didn't get a chance to try:
- cacao beans with fruit
- sacha inchi oil
- any of the music/books/movies/etc. available on the website
We cannot vouch for these products, but we are both very interested in trying them in the future and are sure their quality matches the rest of what EFL has to offer.
The One Big Thing EFL is Missing
Ok, so the products are amazing quality, but there are some things lacking that could be worked on to make EFL more successful.
One thing that we feel EFL is really missing is more education about the correct ways to utilize some of these products. We've seen that people are joining EFL with no prior knowledge of raw food or superfoods. Now all of the sudden they are buying cacao and goji berries and they have no idea what to do with them! For us, Elements for Life is another superfood superstore that carries some of the highest quality superfoods around. For other people they are completely newbies who need guidance. If Elements for Life is going to succeed, they need to help those newcomers with real education on what superfoods are and how to use them in their everyday lives.
Goji berries and cacao nibs are an easy sell, but getting someone educated about the rest of the products may take some convincing. Superfoods are only as effective as your ability to use them intelligently.
What would the average person do with cordyceps, blue-green algae, and maca? Of course, if they are familiar with making smoothies on a daily basis, no problem, but just throwing these in water and downing them is, let's just say, less than fun.
However, this is an excellent opportunity for EFL and their distributors to find new and innovative ways to educate their potential customers about these products. Create some recipes, give out smoothies at EFL parties, etc. Teaching people to effectively use these powerful products is going to be the lifeblood of this company.
We will see in the coming months and years as EFL and their distributors mature, there will be more and more information, recipes, and different ways to take these specific superfoods for optimal results.
Pros and Cons Breakdown of Elements for Life
Here's a Recap of Elements for Life:
Pros:
- Exclusive products like ReVitaPhi, Island Fire Noni, and Gold Rush.
- Excellent income opportunity for the right type of person with the right type of friends/clientele.
- Easy way to order superfoods if you consume just a few things on a semi-regular basis.
- Products are top-notch quality.
- Excellent product design; uses glass jars whenever possible. Looks very professional- is something you could introduce to your friends and family.
- Built by a company with a high ecological and spiritual ethic.
- MLM-style company can be a turnoff for a lot of people.
- Not the right type of income opportunity for everyone.
- Prices can be high if you are an astute superfoods shopper (but the quality it worth it).
- Limited selection, but room for growth into other products is available.
How Does RFRN Fit Into All of This?
To make this review as honest and with as much integrity as possible, we have chosen not to sign up with EFL as distributors right now. If you are interested in finding out more, we recommend working with the man who introduced us to the positive side of EFL: Liran Hirschkorn.
Liran's (pronouced Li-RAN) passion and commitment to these products is unbounded. The best part about Liran, is his passion shines through in a completely positive, non-pushy manner. Liran is just as happy to get to know you no matter if you are interested in Elements for Life or not. He's just there to share his knowledge and experience with these products for those who are interested.
Contact Liran here if you think EFL may be a good fit for you:
- Liran at Elements for Life
- info@superfoodliving.com
- Cell # 917 916 2484
Will we eventually sign up? Probably. We want to offer all options to those who are into this incredible new way of living. If/when we decide to sign up we'll let you know. Maybe we can host some informational parties so we can educate people on how to use these superfoods properly, because we'd hate to see people wasting delicious superfoods! Besides, Heidi wants to see the reaction on people's faces when they try Island Fire for the first time!
Elements For Life is Not the Only One Out There
We also have many other options to share that have different pros and cons than EFL. Expect reviews on these other stores and superfood sources very soon. Just know that there are now many, many places to buy superfoods, but Elements for Life is truly a great resource for the right person.
As always, we want to offer our readers the very best of what this community has to offer, in whatever source it comes from, with honesty, integrity, and complete joy.
We hope you have enjoyed this review.
So? Tell us:
- What are your thoughts about Elements for Life?
- Do you have an EFL story to share?
Let us know in the comments!
~ Raw Food Right Now
P.S. On another note, one of our other favorite EFL distributors is Lenette over at Go Raw Chicago. If you don't vibe with Liran or you want a female perspective, Lenette is passionate about EFL and maintains a high amount of integrity as well. She's totally committed to the raw food movement and has quite a following in Chicago!
Bonus: Here are some YouTube videos on Elements for Life if you want to learn more, or if you just want some fun videos to watch:
- David Wolfe Talks About Elements For Life
- David Wolfe Talks About the "Fractal Marketing" aspect of Elements For Life
- Superfood party with Raw Chef Dan and Chad Ashley Vandenburg
Part 1
Part 2 - Liran's friend Paul tries Island Fire for the first time! Hilarious!
- Lenette films David Wolfe at the Elements for Life launch at Raw Spirit Festival
