About Rawganique.com

• Who we are • Why we do what we do • Our commitment to the earth and you

"More and more, we take the time to enjoy the splendor in which we live and to live in the moment. We also encourage everyone who works with us to do the same. So if once in a while, your package arrives a bit later than usual, or a phone call gets returned a day later than normal, please know that we're doing the best we can to balance our life and our work (which often threatens to take over our life). We came to Denman Island to be happy, healthy, and mindful, and taking some time off goes a long way in keeping that true. We believe in living sustainably in body and mind and whole-heartedly support ahimsa, veganism (for health and for the environment), piece, love, and mindfulness."

Rawganique.com is a human-scale family business c0-founded in 2000 by Thammarath Jamikorn & Klaus Wallner on Denman Island. Here's their story:

We came to Denman Island 9 years ago to do something good for ourselves (taking ourselves off of the rat race and sorting out our assort health problems such as asthma, etc...), for humanity, and the environment (Mother Earth). Based on our life experiences and the many books which had inspired us, we had a very clear idea what we wanted to do with our new lives: tread as lightly as possible in every way on this fragile planet of ours.

We never meant to become business people; we started Rawganique.com as a way to share information on sustainable living. The Rawganique.com website itself was inspired by two events: 1) Thamm's mother died of pancreatic cancer. She had gone on a wheat grass diet, whereupon the cancer "went away". Upon returning to a regular meat-based diet, it came back and she passed away two months later. 2) The Portland Raw Food Festival, where Klaus met many inspiring and inspired people who had set out to do good for their bodies, humanity, and the environment. Rawganique.com was created to spread the word on a simple, sustainable lifestyle that would keep people, animals, and the environment happy and peaceful.

Thamm had a BA in Comparative Literature/Classics from Bennington College in Vermont and an MA in Comparative Literature from Princeton University. He had lived in Manhattan, Bangkok, Paris, Stockholm, and Vancouver before moving to Denman Island.

Klaus holds a BS in Economics from London School of Economics and an MA and a PhD in Economics from Columbia University. He, too, has lived and taught in many cities around the world.

We have both had a successful career in academia but felt dissatisfied with the mounting stress and pressure. We gave it all up to live simply on little, growing most of our own organic foods. We believe in local and organic foods and subsist on a a mostly raw & vegan diet.

What brought us to Denman Island was the slower pace of life, the relatively pristine environment, and the staunch community of unique and feisty individuals who are not afraid to defend the values they believe in.

Some of the people who have inspired us to seek out this way of life are:

• Scott & Helen Nearing for their lifelong work
• Luigi Cornaro for his book The Temperate Life
• Joseph Jenkins for his seminal book The Humanure Handbook
• Victoria Boutenko for her advocacy of the raw organic green diet
• John Tilden for his life work
• Herbert Shelton for his life work
• John Robbins for books such as The Food Revolution and Healthy at 100
• Thicht Naht Hahn for his inspiring life and work on peace and mindfulness

We live completely off the grid, getting our power from solar and wind energy. We collect rainwater for domestic use instead of sucking water from the earth. We compost everything; the finished compost goes into the garden, which thrives year-round in our mild Pacific Northwest climate. We have a solar hot water heater that provide us with plenty of hot water 9 months of the year; we have a hot water jacket connected to our energy-efficient wood stove that yields hot water for the other three months.

We are fortunate to live on a slow island in slow island time. Living on Denman Island has certainly mellowed our city-seasoned souls. We appreciate the beauty that surrounds us and we are thankful for being able to do what we do in such an enchanted place. We cultivate our organic garden, enjoy our pet animals, and go to work with the goal of replacing bad goods in the marketplace with mindful products born of sustainable practices and fair labor.

More and more, we take the time to enjoy the splendor in which we live and to live mindfully, in the moment. And we encourage everyone who works with us to do the same. So if once in a while, your package arrives a bit later than usual, or a phone call gets returned a day later than normal, please know that we're doing the best we can to balance our work with our life.

We feel a sense of freedom for being able to live lightly and be able to tap into the eco-community / eco-web of people who care about the world, humanity at large, all forms of life on earth, and about the environment, especially in light of escalating damages already done to the world.

We believe in quality, not fads. That is why the organic products we offer will never go out of style: we design our products to be practical, good-looking, and eco-friendly. Eco-friendly means certified organic, sweatshop-free, and without harsh chemicals and heavy metals. Whenever we design a new product, we go back to how it would have been made 100 or 200 years ago, when chemicals weren't the norms of production. With this in mind, we try to replicate heritage traditions as much as possible, resulting in a purer, more sustainable products that people can feel safe using in their homes.

This is why, over the years, we've passed up opportunities to sell hyped-up products that promised to make us more money; opportunities like getting cheaply made clothing from countries that condone sweatshop conditions or toxic chemicals or synthetic fibers that are drenched in chemicals. Or new fibers like bamboo which requires a lot of chemicals to turn them into soft clothing fabrics. We remain committed to three ancient fibers: organic cotton, hemp, and flax linen. These three have allowed us to make almost everything we could possibly need in our daily lives.

We learned early on that cheap isn't everything. Something that's really cheap is probably designed to be disposable, or made using subsidized materials (like conventional cotton, which is killing the environment—conventionally grown cotton accounts for 25% of the world's pesticides while using 3% of agricultural land) or made under unfair labor conditions (as in sweatshop factories). Human rights is important to us. For what it's worth, green cotton is the same as conventional cotton, the only difference being that additional chemicals have not been applied during the manufacturing process. And that is why we do not carry green cotton products.

We don't attempt to get people to buy things they don't need. We are staunch advocates of the "recycle and reuse" lifestyle. If, however, there is a need to buy something new, then do please make it one that is friendly to people, workers, and the environment.

We're not in the business of consuming and discarding. We constantly try to improve the durability and quality of our products. It's a steep learning curve and we're not always successful at it, but we do our best.

We greatly admire the courage we see everywhere around us, the courage shown by people who do something about the state of our environment. People living separate lives come together on a global level to prevent catastrophes and try to undo damages done by big corporate interests. The most rewarding thing about Rawganique.com is that it has brought us in contact with such people, and our lives are richer because of it. Again and again, we get emails from customers who tell us how they've had to save up for months to be able to buy a pair of organic hemp jeans when they could have bought four pairs of conventionally grown, chemically-laden jeans for the same price at the local big box store. This mindful act moves us deeply.

Activism comes in all forms. We are reminded of Rachel Carson's inspired Silent Spring. In addition to warning us of the chilling scenario of a silent, bird-less spring, the title brings to mind the image of a silently running spring: that is how we think of all the tireless activists out there in the world, in small towns and big towns, in the US, Japan, France, Australia, Jamaica, Ireland, Canada, Zimbabwe, and all other countries out there. They are all doing the best they can to stem the tide of corporate greed and destruction and re-direct energy into positive constructive channels, helping to build communities, save the forest, and support healthier and more sustainable lifestyles. Activists from all walks of life have shown us the true dignity and integrity of the human spirit.

Not all activists are famous or rich people. In our own lives, we have come in contact with many real-life activists, some are famous (we hugely admire Woody Harrelson, Alicia Silverstone, Shalom Harlow, Rosario Dawson, and Pia Zadora, among others, for their public and/or private commitments to organic products, the vegan diet, and the environment) but most are everyday heroes, regular people living regular lives the lightest way possible.

To all activists of non-violence, ahimsa, natural living, organic living, sustainability, and the environment: thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

May love, peace, simplicity, compassion, and sustainability prevail. Namaste. Klaus & Thamm.

Rawganique.com is created on Mac G5's and core duo's, completely off the grid -- powered by solar panels & a wind generator -- on an idyllic little island in the Strait of Georgia. It has been our life-long dream to live cleanly and lightly on this fragile planet of ours. Now that we've been living the simple life for a while (going on 7 years now), we can truly say that it's even more wonderful than we thought it would be. Living amidst all the miraculous splendor that is Nature in all her varied moods & creations can't help but inspire one to live simply. Long live solar showers, electric scooters, pristine lakes, fun in the sun, and year-round gardening! May love, light, happiness, sustainability, simplicity, veganism, and peace prevail.

We dedicate our work at Rawganique.com to three very special persons and one very special puppy whose gentle loving spirits continue to illuminate the darkness in which we live: Pehtpahn Jamikorn, Jirapat Jamikorn, Yoshiaki Ao, and sweet Hector Fu Wallner. You are loved and missed by all who've ever known you. And to Earth Workers everywhere who in their own special way give, heal, and empower us all: thank you! May your work continue to blaze a much-needed trail of sustainability, simplicity, slowness, and mindfulness through the hectic jungle and rush-rush mentality of our modern existence and open long-shut doors to let in the light. Namaste.

Heartwarming thanks to Salinas van Rikxoort and Carmen Saunders, who have tirelessly and selflessly contributed so much of themselves. To Andy LePore, Jade Pellerin, Eli Hutchens, S. Chatlaong: thank you! And to all of our customers out there in every conceivable corner of the earth: we feel honored to be able to serve you and bring you unique organic products that are mindfully, simply, and sustainably made.

Taking personal initiatives in what we believed in, we moved to our homestead on Denman Island, BC in 2000 and planted close to 1,000 fruit and nut trees and started growing our own food year-round in our Southwest-sloping garden. Since then, our lifestyle has come together into a more coherent manner, and we wholeheartedly embrace the following:

• We grow as much of our own food as we can. What we can't grow, we first source from local organic sources before going to imported certified organic foods. We find that relying on ourselves for food is great and highly sustainable. Gardening is fun and very meditative. There's so much we can grow the year round, especially in winter in the Pacific Northwest, where it is drizzly but generally mild. Picking food from your own garden in the middle of January and February and March is a very gratifying thing. This way, we know our food really is organic -- it is grown from the labor of our own hands. We also don't have to pay high prices for produce that has to be imported hundreds and thousands of miles from elsewhere via a trucking system that uses fossil fuels. We are greatly inspired by Eliott Coleman's Four-Season Gardening in this respect.
• We live off the grid and generate our own power from the sun and wind.
• We try to travel as little as possible to reduce the impact of our footprint on this planet. We bike whenever we can.
• We do not disturb the soil when we garden. We just pile on lots of organic mulch like spoiled hay, seaweed, bark mulch, and wood chips. It really does work! We owe so much to Fukuoka's inspiring One-Straw Revolution and Ruth Stout's delightful books. It takes about a year for the soil to settle down and become rich -- we just keep piling it on: the wonderful earthworms do the rest of the work. Slugs are only a problem the first year when our soil was still acid from years of leaching from constant rainforest rains and of course the acid rain.
• We wear organic clothes not made in sweatshops because we have learned to value things that are useful. In this culture of cheap throwaways, we have to make a conscious decision to appreciate that things came from somewhere, somebody has to make them out of something. Either we make it ourselves or we respectfully pay others for the labor and time to make these things for us. We refuse to willingly obtain cheap stuff at the expense of others as well as our precious environment which we all share. There's not much time left with global warming, industrialization, and genetically engineered stuff speeding headlong into disaster.
• We save our own seeds whenever we can. Organic open-pollinated seeds are the only way to retain genetic diversity in our foods crops, something that is sadly disappearing at a fast pace. Support organic open-pollinated seeds whenever you can! Genetically modified plants and organisms aren't the answer to world hunger problem. If we learn to garden correctly without artificial fertilizers, chemicals, and pesticides, we'll have such rich soil that can grow enough staple foods for everyone. Instead, right now we're cutting down millions of acres of forest to create pastures for cattle to graze on. It would be a lot cheaper to preserve the forests and eat vegetable foods whole, rather than feed seeds and grains to animals and then kill and eat them.
• We recycle and compost everything that breaks down. We stay away from energy intensive non-renewable products. We owe so much to the Humanure Handbook. We are concerned about the quality of our groundwater, lakes, streams, and oceans. There's only so much waste, toxic chemicals, and heavy metals we and our environment can take.
• We believe in the resilience of humanity and nature: things may yet turn around if we all pitch in and do what we can. Renewable resources such as hemp and flax are versatile and can provide for our food, clothing, and shelter needs. Coir (coconut fiber) is the perfect alternative to peat moss, which is non-renewable and unsustainably harvested from endangered bogs.

We are so blessed to have such a gung-ho, loving, patient, and committed customer base. We've read every note and email you sent us with pride, even if we don't get to respond to all of them personally (no time!). But make no mistake: we're constantly hard at work dreaming up new ways to use the wonderful plant that is hemp (and flax linen and organic cotton) for your enjoyment. We envision a world that brims over with joy, love, peace, simplicity, sustenance, and happiness for all. Thanks again, from all of us at Rawganique.com: raw, organic, unique since 2000.

Here we extensively quote from Timeless Simplicity, a wonderful gem of a book by John Lane which has sadly gone out of print: I have never inferred that to live simply it is necessary to imitate St. Francis of Assisi, St. Columba or the Amish. We can't, and we won't. I have never sought to preach an anti-democratic, anti-populist form of individualism and elitism, but the ever-more triumphant success of materialism, the utilitarian and hedonistic, does need to be countered. It is leading to a grave distortion: an increasing neglect of the eternal values, the values of soul. I am therefore proposing that we might make the attempt to redress the balance: to reduce our commitment to materialism and increase our commitment to play, to creativity, to the care of our souls -- the wonderful and challenging world within and the community around us. In a word, I am proposing that we spend a great deal more time searching for and developing what really matters to us and, at the same time, making sure we receive fluffiest proportionate to our expenditure of life energy. I am proposing a concentrated effort to simplify our lives; to pare down, to search for sufficiency, to take delight in what we have -- in the small, the accessible, the beautiful and the holy.

From Abraham Maslow: For instance, one woman, uneducated, poor, a full-time housewife and mother, did none of these conventionally creative things and yet was a marvelous cook, mother, wife, and home-maker. With little money, her home was somehow always beautiful. She was a perfect hostess. Her meals were banquets, her taste in linens, silver, glass crockery and furniture was impeccable. She was in all these areas original, novel, ingenious, unexpected, inventive. I learned from her and others like her that a first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting, and that, generally, (un)cooking or parenthood or making a home could be creative while poetry need not be; it cold be uncreative.

Gardening remains a significant occupation to this day for several reasons. First, to maintain a plot where a large variety of vegetables is grown is self-evidently healthier, cheaper and more seasonable than anything transported from overseas. It is natural for anyone seeking to live a simple life to have concern for the cost, origin, and purity of their food.

Second, working in the garden, however modest in size, affords continuous opportunities for contact with earth, with living plants and, in all probability, birds. To watch the growth of, say, a drift of early Lenten lilies pushing through the grass, a bed of grey-green leaved hosta plants or the clouds of slender white flowers that cover a bush of Meanwhile in the spring, can be one of life's greatest pleasures. So too can be the delight of walking in a garden as the sun sets through the branches of a budding tree. The third reason is that, (like preparing meals), the creation of a garden offers continuous and unrivalled opportunities for dynamic creative action... A garden is our opportunity to create a dream-view of the world, and its creation offers an infinitude of choices. A garden -- even a window box or some potted plants -- is so filled wit the possibilities of epiphanies that it must be one of the most important sources for those seeking a solid, palpable appreciation of the beautiful and the sacred.

When all is said and done it is the primal joys that are the most intense. He who conquers a country and rises to great prominence and honour gets out of it not one pleasure more than he who, sitting in the sunshine, watches his first born's efforts to remove a finger, or suck a toe. -- Anon.

Let's go back to basics and remember that all we really have to do is put a roof over our heads and meals on the table. Beyond that our time can be better spent enjoying our lives, being with the people we love, creating things we love that don't harm the earth, and contributing something meaningful to the world. -- Elaine St. James

The mythologist Joseph Campbell, in a series of conversations with Bill Moyers, draws attention to the significance of the last line of Sinclair Lewis's novel Babbit: "I have never done the thing that I wanted in all my life." Campbell comments: "That is a man who never followed his bliss... You may have been a success in life, but then just think of it -- what kind of life was it? What good was it -- you've never done the thing you ever wanted to do in all your life. I always tell my students, go where your body and soul want to go. When you have the feeling, then stay with it, and don't let anyone throw you off... No one can tell you what it is going to be. You have to learn to recognize your own depths."

The happiest are those who have made a profession and a lifestyle of being in touch with their bliss; the most frustrated are those who have accepted one job or another because they didn't know what else to do, and once employed have never had the time to figure how to get out. To ignore, subjugate or forget your inner being, your destiny, can lead to a gnawing dissatisfaction. Human beings are unmeasurable; the imprisoned spirit only chafes against the bars of its cage.

There can be no joy of life without joy of work. -- Thomas Aquinas

Life without work is robbery; work without art is brutality. -- John Ruskin

"Work is Love made visible...

And all work is empty save when there is love...

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit..." -- Khalil Gibran

I hope my message is clear: don't put up with a soul-destroying job because it buys you opportunities for holidays and doing what you enjoy in the evenings and at weekends. Don't believe you can't make a change, and don't prevaricate. A great many people have already taken the plunge, and feel the better for having done so. It isn't easy to do so, but nor is it easy to live inauthentically.

We sure second that notion from our experience of having done just such a thing.

So here's to the human spirit, which is above all resilient, hopeful, imaginative, full of miracles & love, kind, simple, patient, inventive, resourceful, and the most important instrument of change any of us has in our quest to make the world a better place for all, one mindful thought and action at a time. -- your friends at Rawganique.com.

Who we are

We are longtime raw foodists setting out to make a difference one little ever-widening circle at a time. Touch homesteads on beautiful Denman Island in the Strait of Georgia. Klaus makes Jersey City, NJ, the site of his abode. Meanwhile, Boonsert and Supasorn make Bangkok their home so they can pluck an endless array of the most tempting tropical fruits in the world right from the tree. Now that's what we call living!

At Rawganique.com, new world efficiency and technology proudly meet old-world customer service. Ordering with us is 100% convenient and safe; we utilize state-of-the-art SSL-encrypted technology to transmit your information to our servers. We maintain a sizable inventory and are able to ship in-stock items out the same day they are ordered from our New Jersey, California, Oregon and/or BC warehouse.

Our extremely low overhead allows us to offer very affordable prices to our customers. We are meticulous about personally seeing each order through until it is completely fulfilled. We stay on the ball with our customer correspondence and are prompt about getting back to our customers, usually within an hour. In short, Rawganique.com is here to stay and we look forward to serving you time and again. Click here to read what our customers say about us.

Among the many faces and directors of Rawganique Eco Apparel Ltd are:

Klaus Wallner,
PhD & MA (Economics) Columbia University, NY
BSc (Economics) London School of Economics, UK

Touch Thammarath Jamikorn,
MA (Comparative Literature) Princeton University, NJ
BA (Literature/Classics/Music) Bennington College, VT

News! Rawganique Store Downtown Denman Island opened its door in May of 2006. It's an eco boutique full of organic products: organic produce (local organic produce, supplemented by certified organic produce from elsewhere), organic cotton, linen, & hemp clothing, bed, & bath products, organic groceries, organic juice, smoothie, soup, and wrap bar on Denman Island, BC. Finally, a totally organic store on Denman Island. If you wish to come and view products, please be sure to email or call us a day or two before so we can have items in your size from the warehouse to the store (the showroom in the store has limited space so not everything is on display). More info on the Contact Us page.

Why we do what we do

We are 100% committed to the environment. We believe that hemp, raw veganism, sunshine, pure air, pure water, positive thoughts, and ahimsa awareness can transform the world and make it a safer, happier, and better place for us and our children to live in. We aim to do all we can to help make hemp and raw veganism mainstream, so that the world's economy thrives on sustainability and renewal rather than terrorism, fear, and depletion. Rawganique.com wasn't created to make us rich; rather it was created with love to make sure we're doing the best we can to stop disintegration and to build trust, peace, love, and health for all, one ripple at a time.

Before we became vegan raw foodists, we had been combating health challenges of one kind or another all our lives. Touch suffered from severe asthma, fatigue, and acne. Klaus had allergies. Sup was prey to cataract, migraine, and knee aches. Boon had some weight to lose. We were all pretty miserable. Entered the rawganique lifestyle, which changed all that. To say the least, the transformation was dramatic, bordering on miraculous. We were literally given a new skin, physique, and mind with which to appreciate all life has to offer. We found that we looked better than we ever had prior to becoming raw foodists; we also started to feel a constant surge of energy that had been lacking before. We began to see the world with new-found eyes and have been in awe of Mother Nature since.

We're the kind of people who have to experience it to believe it and once we've experienced it, we're hooked on it, for life. Numbers and tests and findings mean nothing to us if we don't see it with our own eyes and feel it in our bodies. As we said elsewhere, we ain't dumb! We do what we do because the things we do make us feel great. They also make eco-sense! We don't know where our symptoms disappeared to and we don't care. All we know is that the vegan, raw, and organic diet we're on makes us perpetually tingle with energy, joy, and good karma; we're happy to leave the theorizing to others and to Mother Nature. She knows best why things are as they are. But truth be told, it's not such a big mystery after all. Really.

Think about it. Every other creature on earth (outside of us humans and the animals we domesticate) subsists in great health on a raw natural diet suited to their digestive systems. So why should we be different? It stands to reason that we're no exception to the rule, not when it comes to diet anyway. Raw is our life, and Rawganique.com is what we've learned and want to share. With you. And you. And you. We want to shout it out on the streets. Live! Love! Be happy! Be healthy! Be mindful! Remember, there's no substitute for health and happiness and definitely no shortcuts.

Rawganique almond milk

Why eating raw food is essential but not enough

Making wise choices about what we put in our bodies is absolutely essential for long-term good health. However, it’s not everything. Fresh air, sunshine on your naked body, exercise, mental and emotional poise, and organic clothing and household products, unbleached and undyed (or at least vegetable-dyed) are as essential to total well-being as eating the right foods.

The human skin is porous and can absorb toxic gases and chemicals, especially on prolonged contact, as in chemically bleached and dyed clothing and bedding, which keep outgassing toxic fumes for years. And wearing anything other than natural fibers like cotton or hemp doesn't allow the skin to breathe; the skin's ability to regulate temperature is thus handicapped, often with disastrous consequences.

Why Raw Foods?

Why not? The rest of Earth’s myriad creatures survive and thrive on only raw natural foods. They are one and all--without exception--beautiful, healthy, and vibrant. Why do people insist that human beings are different? Just because cooking has been around for years and we've done it ever since we could remember doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

It’s time we start afresh. A new beginning, out of the box. And raw is where it starts. Raw is where it all began. Raw and organic. Let's go back to the good old times and salvage what we can so a better tomorrow can be had by all. Let's do it now. Let's eat raw, be raw, wear raw, & live raw. Rawganique.com--it's where it starts.

Rawganique.com in a nutshell: Klaus Wallner received his BS in Economics from London School of Economics in London, England, before proceeding to complete his Master's and Ph.D. degree in Economics at Columbia University in New York City. Touch Thammarath Jamikorn (Thamm Jamikorn) has a BA in Comparative Literature (Classics) from Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, as well as an MA in Comparative Literature from Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. And these are just two of the forces behind the scene that make up Rawganique.com.

Rawganique.com carries quality hemp goods: hemp clothing, hemp footwear, hemp bath, organic cotton bedding accessories, and organic hemp foods made especially for us as well as products by Ecolution, Mum's Original, Jus Naturale, EcoDragon, Blue Canoe, Under The Nile, and so much more. We are also your source for vegan living: vegan clothing, vegan shoes, vegan sandals, vegan bed and bath accessories, and raw organic vegan foods. On top of that, we can also probably get you any hemp stuff organic cotton goods you could possibly want. Please click here to email us. Green living & natural fiber clothing superstore (with emphasis on hemp fashion and organic cotton clothing): we offer only ecologically & environmentally sustainable products of the highest quality.

Rawganique was founded by Thammarath Jamikorn & Klaus Wallner in 2000. Rawganique.com Hemp Products calls Denman Island, British Columbia, home but has shipping centers in Washington state and California as well as BC. For more information on Denman Island, BC, visit: denmanisland.com. AKA Rawganic.com Rawganic.ca Rawganics.com Raworganic.com

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