Sunday 16 February 2014

The Weston A Price Foundation Conference

The Irish contingent at the WAPF Conference in London
Last week I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Weston A Price Foundation European Conference in London. This was a full weekend of lectures, presentations and workshops on the subjects of real food, traditional nourishing diets and how to take control of your own health. I attended Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride's two lectures. After seeing and meeting her last year in Tipperary, I was really looking forward to hearing her speak again, and I was not disappointed. She was in flying form and had us all on the edge of our seats with her passionate "Healthy Immunity" presentation. I saw Sally Fallon Morell's talk on Nourishing Traditional Diets, where she discussed Dr Weston Price's research. It was a very informative and engaging talk, with some hilarious moments but also some very serious and worrying information regarding the state of our health and the decline in the quality of our food. Another highlight was Philip Weeks' lecture on "Treating Adrenal Fatigue". I'm looking forward to reading his book "Make Yourself Better". There were presentations on the benefits of raw milk, cod liver oil and eating the right fats, and lots of them! There were also workshops on fermentation, cooking with offal, and making sourdough bread. There was great advice about bee-keeping, goat-farming, starting a micro bakery and even how to keep and prepare rabbits!

Personally I feel the conference came about at a good time for me. Oran has been three years on GAPS and I really feel the time is right to try some non-GAPS foods. Obviously Oran will never go back to eating processed food or sugar but I'm looking forward to introducing potatoes and some sourdough bread. I've given Oran some raw milk over the last few days. He's not sure about the taste, it's very creamy in comparison to his usual juice, but he drank it all the same. I've become such a lover of raw milk, at times I crave it, my body must be telling me something!! I'm so lucky to have an organic raw milk farmer within a few miles of me, but I think I deserve this bit of luck! The benefits of raw milk were lauded and celebrated at the conference and some of the attendees are part of a passionate campaign to legislate for its widespread sale.

As well as all the speakers, there was a huge exhibition hall with many stalls, selling probiotic foods, fermented cod liver oil and lots and lots of books. If I wasn't flying I could have bought 100 books, there were so many good ones, and some excellent DVDs. There were also lots of information stalls, including one with a beehive (empty!), some live chickens and naturally a Weston A Price Foundation stall giving out lots of leaflets and information. Some of the Irish contingent were so impressed, we are planning to host a conference in Ireland next year!!

Look, there's even a GAPS cooking DVD, I would have loved this when I was starting!!


The Weston A Price Foundation is a non-profit nutrition education foundation dedicated to continuing Dr Price's research. He travelled the world in the 1930s to study the diets of indigenous populations who only ate their local traditional foods. 

WAPF advocate a healthy diet which is rich in organic fruit and vegetables, grass-fed meat, dairy and eggs, wild fish and shellfish, fermented foods, home-made bone broth and stock, properly prepared whole grains and traditional sourdough breads. You can read about Dr Weston A Price and his research here: www.westonaprice.org.