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My Weston A. Price Conference 2010 Experience

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I attended the Weston A. Price Conference this weekend in King of Prussia, PA, and what an experience this was! The entire weekend was an overwhelming, wonderful, rewarding mix of meeting people, attending lectures, and learning new information…oh, and the food. Did I mention food?

Our morning started out with the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund breakfast, which I was told was an oatmeal bar. Now for someone who doesn’t eat many grains, I wasn’t sure I would find much to eat. I was told there were other things to eat like eggs too, so I decided to go anyway. What I found was an amazing offering of a huge variety of foods. I got so full, I nearly rolled out of the dining hall afterward. Here’s what I had:

Pasture-raised sausage, a hard boiled pastured egg with butter, yogurt from raw milk with blueberries and maple syrup, organic herbal tea, beef broth (from pastured cattle), and a glass of raw milk. It was delicious and filling!

Then I attended some lectures with Sarah Pope (The Healthy Home Economist) and Elizabeth Grange (Nourishing Creations). We saw Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D. speak on holistic cancer treatment and Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride, M.D. talk about GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) – and the connection that what we eat has EVERYTHING to do with disease and illnesses – from autism to ADD and ADHD, to other mental disorders like depression, anorexia, bulemia, schizophrenia, and bi-polar to digestive ailments and respiratory problems, as well as asthma, osteoporosis, allergies and food intolerances.

Then we went to lunch. Every meal we had at the conference was incredibly filling and satisfying (and delicious!). Amanda Love (The Barefoot Cook) is the amazing chef who led an exceptional team of others who prepared all our food. All I can say is WOW – thank you Amanda for all your hard work and efforts to make the food as spectacular as it was! I’d also like to thank Cathy Raymond – what a magician she is! I can’t even imagine how much time she and her staff spent making sure every detail was just right and thought of – they are incredibly efficient and marvelous group of people who work for one of the best causes I can think of. I am so grateful for their efforts!

I can’t write this post without saying how much I loved meeting and appreciate every one of the bloggers in Real Food Media. What a wonderful bunch of motivated, inspiring, and great people. It’s so great to be part of such a fantastic group of people who I consider to be like my family.

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You are all supportive and caring in a way that I can’t express my gratitude for sufficiently in mere words. I’m so lucky to be able to work with people I like and respect so much, and have the chance to make such important changes with for our food and health environments.

Here are some of the other great bloggers I met: Lisa Rose from Real Food Digest, Kathryn Garson from Kat’s Food Blog, Kelly The Kitchen Kop, Alex Lewin from Feed Me Like You Mean It, Kim Knoch from The Nourishing Cook, Lydia Shatney from Divine Health, Jenny McGruther from Nourished Kitchen, Kimberly Hartke from Hartke is Online!, and Jo-Lynne from Musings of A Housewife.

Two bloggers from Real Food Media also received activist awards this weekend from Sally Fallon Morell at the Awards Banquet on Saturday Night – Ann Marie Michaels (of Cheeseslave) and Sarah Pope (of The Healthy Home Economist).

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These amazing women are two of my friends and people whom I admire very much. Ann Marie has worked consistently for the past couple of years to make Real Food Media what it is today, and without her the real food movement might not be as far along as it is. Sarah writes amazing content for her blog and she has a large following of readers. Both of these women and all the other bloggers inspire me to do the work I do – and I just want everyone to know how much I appreciate them!

All weekend there were people to meet like Kaayla Daniel, David Wetzel, Stephen Guyanet (of Whole Health Source) Mark McAfee, Sally Fallon Morell, and so many others who make it their mission in life to produce sustainable products or travel to give seminars, and work constantly to educate and inform the world about a better way to maintain health and eat food. These people do amazing things and I am so thankful they are there, doing what they do to return our ways of producing and eating food to how they used to be, as well as helping to shape the way people view health.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the Saturday dinner event and awards banquet where Joel Salatin (one of my biggest heroes) spoke about how we need to be the change that’s necessary to alter the way we think about food and how we grow it, prepare it, and eat it. Watch this short excerpt from his speech:

Joel runs Polyface Farms in Virginia, and is a farmer, statesman, scholar, and activist. He is helping to change the way our culture thinks about raising animals for food, and being in harmony with the land while doing it. Thanks Joel and all the other folks at the conference this weekend who made this event one of the most fantastic I’ve ever attended in my life.

17 replies on “My Weston A. Price Conference 2010 Experience”

Raine, it was so awesome getting to know you this past weekend. Please let me know when you are going to arrive in my neck of the woods next month and what local goods you need .. I will get everything taken care of for you. Can’t wait for you to come over too and we can do some canoeing!

Hi Sarah – I had such a wonderful time visiting with you, and I am really looking forward to our trip to FL – and very grateful to be able to find a good source for milk, butter, etc. My husband and son are excited to go canoeing (me too)! Many thanks Sarah! 🙂

Hi Jenn, I am glad to hear from you! I kept hearing about you being in various places at the conference, and hoping we’d meet up, I am also sorry we missed each other! I really hope you had an enjoyable experience, and I’m going to put you on my list of people I’d like to definitely meet next year in Dallas. There were dozens of people I didn’t get to talk to, but it’s also true that the whole weekend is quite a whirlwind experience and most of the interactions we have there are probably limited to just a few minutes at a time. You have to take what you can get, but I feel like I had many nice encounters with people I was meeting for the first time and also with those I have known from online conversations for many months to a couple of years. I’m so thankful that an event like this exists – it’s a great environment for us to all come together and celebrate the work we do, and learn more! 🙂

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