Every Essential Element

Resources for the media

Supporting Documents

Full transcript of official proceedings of the Congress on Medical Quackery, 1961

Summary description of Every Essential Element:

This triumphant memoir of guts, family and bucking the establishment traces a fifty-five-year journey that mirrors not only a movement but the nation. Beginning in a time when Wonder Bread® was health food, Gaye and Hartley Anderson left security to pursue a crazy idea they could not ignore. Their friends snickered and the U.S. government bullied them, but they inspired each other through poverty, disasters, and the trials of family business. Starting at the kitchen table, they and their contemporaries grew into a multi-billion-dollar industry. Every Essential Element is the true story of the author's parents: a quirky, lovely reminder of how two people can make it—in marriage, business and life.

Bio for Rhonda Lauritzen:

Rhonda Lauritzen is the youngest of seven in the Hartley and Gaye Anderson family, and the only girl. The Andersons founded Mineral Resources International (MRI) before she was born so she had great adventures scampering around the natural health movement, taking naps under their booth table and sampling all carob-tofu delights a kid could enjoy. During her teenage years she watched the industry mature from mom-and-pop operations into the likes of Whole Foods. At age 23 she became general manager of the company and later became the CEO. She is now a vice president for a Utah technical college.

About Mineral Resources International, Inc.:

Founded in 1969 by the Anderson family, Mineral Resources International, Inc. (MRI) (www.mineralresourcesint.com) specializes in developing, manufacturing, and distributing nutritional supplements and trace elements harvested from Utah’s Great Salt Lake. MRI manufactures a complete line of innovative dietary supplements ranging from multi-vitamins to targeted nutritional formulas using all-natural ionic minerals. MRI’s products are sold worldwide through a variety of distribution channels including natural products, specialty retail stores, and natural health care practitioners. (801) 731-7040.

Presented by Like Rain Publishing: email customerservice@likerainpublishing.com

Graphics and photos:

Link to Anderson family photo album slide show

Cover, Every Essential Element .jpg format

Cover, Every Essential Element, PDF format

Bio picture of Rhonda Lauritzen, black and white, .jpg

Photo of author Rhonda Lauritzen speaking

Photo of Gaye Anderson, subject of Every Essential Element, speaking

Vintage photo of a young Gaye Anderson with infant son, Corey

Wedding picture of Hartley and Gaye Anderson

Photo Anderson family at the time they started the business

Logo, Like Rain Publishing .jpg format

Logo, Like Rain Publishing, .png format