2025 Year in Review
In 2025, we spent nearly one hundred days on the road doing shows — from the Parke County Covered Bridge Festival to the Havasu Balloon Festival on the California border.
We met thousands of people face-to-face.
We watched our salves work in real time.
And we were reminded again and again why we started Vancoction.
Our Mission
Helping people feel better has always been our mission.
Doing shows is powerful. Someone tries a salve, and within minutes they can feel the difference. There’s nothing quite like that moment.
But over time, we began asking deeper questions.
Could we do this work without being so busy?
Without such a large carbon footprint?
Is constant travel the highest and best use of our time?
We also realized something important:
We know our salves help people.
But are we doing enough to teach what we’ve learned?
Is there a way to get our salves into people’s hands…
Limit our shows…
Simplify what we’re doing…
And expand education at the same time?
Education & A Turning Point
At the end of the year, we stepped back and re-examined our mission.
If inflammation is at the root of so many chronic struggles, then understanding inflammation had to become central to our work.
So in July 2025, we threw ourselves into studying what truly drives systemic inflammation.
What we discovered changed the direction of everything.
Membranes
As we dug deeper, we realized we had been looking at the body from the wrong angle. Instead of focusing only on what the body needs in large amounts, we began asking a different question:
What does the body require in very small amounts to stay organized and stable?
What we found was striking.
Nearly every chronic condition involves some degree of membrane disruption.
Healthy membranes are not optional — they are foundational. They form our skin, line our organs, surround every cell, and even enclose the mitochondria — the tiny energy centers inside our cells.
When membranes lose integrity, inflammation follows.
Lecithin, vitamin B12, and folate form a structural backbone that allows membranes to be built, repaired, and renewed properly.
The articles below explain this in clear, simple language.
You may find yourself returning to them again and again.
Albert and Vanessa Wilking
Gentle Membrane Immunity
https://www.vancoction.com/news/gentle-membrane-immunity
Nutrients of the Estuary: Feeding Life
https://www.vancoction.com/news/nutrients
Lecithin and Feeling Good
https://www.vancoction.com/news/lecithin-feeling-good
Balancing Oxygen, Blood Glucose and the Immune System
https://www.vancoction.com/news/balance-oxygen-sugar-immune