We are dedicated to serving people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. IBS is the largest chronic health care problem in the US, affecting more people than asthma, depression, and diabetes combined. There's no known cure. IBS is a leading cause of worker absenteeism, second only to the common cold.
Our mission is to offer education, support, and products that allow people with IBS to successfully manage their symptoms through simple, safe and effective lifestyle changes.
We do it all in our amazing automated state-of-the-art facility outside Seattle with 8 production lines in a robot-driven 25,000 square foot certified organic food processor plant. Our facility is custom designed, built and headed by Heather's engineer husband, Will Van Vorous.
Our support site HelpForIBS.com provides comprehensive diagnostic and treatment information for adults and children with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Our IBS shopping site HeathersTummyCare.com offers tangible help and products for preventing and relieving IBS symptoms. Our corporate name is Heather & Company for IBS, LLC.
Our audience is the 1 in 5 Americans – up to 60 million people – with IBS.
Our customers are rabidly devoted to both Heather and her Tummy Care, and we get emotional testimonials from them every single day.
Heather Van Vorous, an IBS sufferer since age 9, is the company founder, CEO, and author of the two best-selling IBS books in North America, Eating for IBS and the First Year: IBS. She is also the creator of the Help For IBS website. Her husband, William Van Vorous, is the company COO.
Heather's Tummy Care is the largest IBS organization in the world. Please contact Heather's Tummy Care for more information.
Our mission is to offer education, support, and products that allow people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome to successfully manage their symptoms through simple, safe and effective lifestyle changes.
Who's Heather?Read her story "I have had IBS for more than thirty years, beginning in childhood, although I was undiagnosed for the first six years (and told by my pediatrician to "quit whining" as the pain was "all in my head"). I had no choice but to try and learn how to control the disorder on my own, which took many years of (often excruciating) first-hand experience and a great deal of research. I'm now a health and special diet cookbook author, the developer of organic medical foods for managing IBS symptoms, and I have an ongoing personal interest in helping others with bowel disorders.
Video Interview with Heather Van Vorous ~ Irritable Bowel Syndrome: The Importance of Diagnosis
This website truly originated in 1998 as an email letter I sent to other people with IBS, simply sharing what had helped me in the hopes that it would work for them as well. That letter grew to over 200 pages and eventually evolved into Eating for IBS, the only explicit dietary guide and cookbook for people with bowel disorders. Eating for IBS then led to my second book, The First Year: IBS, a comprehensive view of the disorder and every way to successfully manage it. Together, these works have become the two best-selling, best-reviewed IBS books in America. Foreign publication is now in progress as well.
My writing has led to an ongoing Canadian clinical research study of the groundbreaking dietary guidelines in Eating for IBS; this work also led to my inclusion in the 4th edition of Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare. Today's Dietitian has featured my IBS dietary guidelines, and I have exhibited at the international Digestive Disease Week conference to reach gastroenterologists and internists.
I founded the Heather's Tummy Care line of organic medical foods for the dietary management of IBS symptoms in 2003.
Ongoing IBS events, awards, and accolades are detailed here. As a result, I've become recognized as the foremost "patient-expert" on Irritable Bowel Syndrome in America.
I hosted Heather Cooks!, the television cooking show for good digestive health, and I'm currently at work on my third IBS book. I can't honestly say that I'm grateful for having IBS, but I am truly thankful for all of the positive things that have (very unexpectedly!) come from it, and for all of the wonderful other folks with IBS whom I've now met along the way. Thousands of these people, from countries all over the globe, have written personal thank you letters to me, and have touched my heart.
For far too many years I thought I was the only person in the world with IBS - but now I know for a fact that I am not alone."
Who's Will? "I'm the person who first encouraged Heather to turn her ideas and work towards helping people with IBS into a true business venture. Her calling has now become a full-time profession for both of us. I've seen first-hand the devastating impact IBS can have on a person's life, and how dramatic the improvements can be when someone is simply given the information and tangible help they need to control their symptoms. To this end, I feel quite privileged to be part of a company dedicated to helping so many millions of people who have previously had nowhere else to turn."
Our company is committed to caring for the environment and society. To that end, we are an organic certified facility and we feature cruelty-free organic certified products in re-fillable / re-useable containers. What does it mean that we're organic? Among other things, it means that we use:
* no pesticides
* no synthetic or sewage fertilizers
* no herbicides
* no GMO (genetically modified organisms)
* no preservatives
* no chemical additives
* no irradiation
* no animal testing
Organic certification also means that our products are harvested using good ecology, resulting in enriched soil, less soil erosion, and farming which respects the environment. We source materials from vendors who work in cooperation with local farmers to support their communities and promote sustainable agricultural practices.
We use recycled materials whenever possible and our corporate office recycles all paper, glass, plastic, and cardboard. We are in the process of becoming a solar-powered facility. We are dedicated to fair worker policies including livable wages, health care, free public transportation, and safe working environments.
Our goal is to do good in the world - not just for IBS, but for our employees, our customers, our natural world and its magnificent creatures, and both our local and global communities. We contribute to national and international environmental and wildlife protection funds.
Midway albatross chicks starve to death on plastic ocean garbage. Speak Up, Act Now
