Dave Card is a well-known and well-respected figure in the Salt Lake City alternative health community.
by Alice Bain
The two Dave’s Health and Nutrition stores here in the valley offer more than just vitamins and supplements for sale; customers can also avail themselves of herbs, homeopathics, essential oils, books and audio, healthy body and beauty aids, flower essences, and Dave Card himself.
Originally from Canada, Dave is a long-time resident of Utah and graduated with his Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from the University of Utah. “After graduation I joined a network marketing company that sold herbs and nutritional supplements, and that’s what got me fired up with helping people,” says Dave.
“I worked at a couple of health food stores, and I got my Certified Nutritionist’s degree, and my certification in homeopathy and my Master Herbalist’s degree.” He was good at his job, and very popular and often requested by customers. When he received an offer to go into business he and his wife instead decided to have a look at what running their own business would take, and so as Dave says, “on a wing and a prayer we started our first store on six credit cards and mortgaging our house.”
That initial gamble has paid off, both for Dave and for his customers. Dave’s Health and Nutrition currently operates out of two locations, one in South Salt Lake and one in West Jordan, and free classes are available to the public at both stores. One-on-one practitioner sessions are also available in aromatherapy, homeopathy, body-mind-spirit work and the like, and Dave himself is also available for face-to-face or phone consultation by appointment.
Dave has devised his own herbal formulas and is also the author of three books, available online or at his stores. Two are handbooks on cell salt homeopathy—a discipline that Dave got into after reading German-language resources unavailable in English—and the third is about planetary astrology and the Vedic astrological tradition as it relates to health issues. The Dave’s Health website is full of resources for the customer looking to achieve a better state of health. Free class notes are available in PDF format, and information on natural remedies for common ailments for everything from allergies to high blood pressure is also provided.
Healing is absolutely Dave’s passion. “I eat, live, and breathe it,” he says. He has been in demand ever since he entered the business because people seem to immediately trust him, and they intuitively understand his strong desire to help them heal themselves. “I was guided into this work and brought along this way, I just didn’t know it in the beginning,” he says. “It’s one of those things where you look back and say, ‘oh, that was my path! I was looking for it, and I was on it all along!'”
—Alice Bain