The other day I did an interview with Jimmy Moore for his podcast (it won’t be up for a while, I’ll let you know), and he asked about how I started down the road of healthier eating. As I explained my “food conversion” story to him, I was reminded again at just how much the Weston A. Price Foundation means to me.
In the beginning…
I owe a huge thank you to my friend, Kathy, who first told me about the WAPF back in early 2004. When I began reading their website something in me “clicked” and I haven’t been the same since! I’ve always been drawn to finding the Truth, and what makes sense with whatever it is that I’m researching at the time, and at that time in my life I was curious about dieting and how best to go about it. Below are some of the wild and crazy things I learned that day…
Huh?
- Butter is actually good for me?
- Red meat is nutritious if you buy from a farmer who knows what he’s doing?
- Dieting should not include “fat-free sugar-free” (FAKE) foods?
- Soy is not a health food?
Those topics and all the “politically incorrect” information there blew me away. It made sense and I knew I’d found what I was looking for.
Why I hope you’ll become a member, if you’re not already…
(By the way, I do not receive any compensation if you do sign up, I’m just trying to bring more awareness to this great organization.)
Since that day when I first found the WAPF site, that is where I go first when researching any topic. Their articles are highly referenced and researched. As a member you get their quarterly journal, Wise Traditions, which I happily read cover to cover. (Here’s a pic of Ann Marie & I on the beach reading them when I went to see her last spring. Yes, that’s how we relax!) By becoming a member you also help support all they do and help them to continue. For us Real Foodies, this is no small thing. (Read more about the man, Weston Price.)
Click here to find the Weston Price link where you can become a member.
Now I hope you’ll tell us what the WAPF means to you!
Real Food Wednesday is at Cheeseslave.com this week, see you there. 
- Buy the above book and many other good ones on my resources page.
- Did you read my notes from the FUN Oprah show with Michael Pollan last week?!
- Need fermented food starters?
- Do you have a family favorite meals list? Find out why it’s so helpful with my meal planning.
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Kimberly Hartke 02.03.10 at 3:48 am
Hi Kelly, I too feel like I have been a truth seeking person, and I feel much the same way about discovering WAPF. Within 10 minutes on the website I was “in” and within 3 months I became a chapter leader.
This is a great way to make many new friends, learn how to become a wonderful cook, and pick up sound nutrition info to share with your friends and family.
I agree, take the plunge and join today, you won’t be sorry.
My darling disclaimer: I am now the WAPF publicist!
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KitchenKop 02.03.10 at 8:49 am
Do you guys want to hear something funny? Just a couple hours after I scheduled this post, I got an email last night from our local chapter asking if I’d like to be on the board. Of course I’d LOVE to, but I’m praying about it, not sure if I should do one-more-thing. I’m sure you all know how that is! But the WAPF is so important to me, I’d love to help get more people involved who live right near me…!!
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Kelly Scanlon 02.03.10 at 9:19 am
Hi Kelly!
WAPF is wonderful and I literally feel like its a mini-Christmas when I open my mailbox and there lies the quarterly journal! I also would like to be involved one day (and I do not live too far from you…well on the other side of the state but still!). Thanks for all the great info!
Your post could have been the exact words from my mouth!! I have always been “searching for the truth”. I could not understand why I spent most of my 20s overweight with no energy when I ate low-fat and exercised like crazy! Even still I am kind of amazed that I can eat so much healthy fat and maintain my weight (I lost 50 pounds since those days and have maintained it for years). I like to use myself as an example when people look at me crazy when I mention butter and eating chicken skin.
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Motherhen68 02.03.10 at 9:38 am
Kelly, I feel the same way when I tell people I lost 65lbs and drink whole cream & eat butter every single day! They look like their heads want to explode. My mom is still in denial that I cook foods in lard and still lose weight. You know that old saying “seeing is believing”? People still don’t believe, even though they’ve seen! I mean, my mom watched me lose the weight and she just can’t believe that what she’s been spoon fed all these years (low fat=good) is wrong and what I’m doing is right.
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Lisa Imerman 02.03.10 at 10:26 am
Yeah, it is sort of like finding a big fat gift of truth and common sense when you discover WAPF. I first heard about it and Nourishing Traditions from the owner of our CSA. I had joined the local CSA and while doing work hours in the garden kept hearing folks discussing NT and WAPF. I finally asked the owner what it was all about as it sounded interesting. She gave me some brochures and I started researching. I was blown away, I shared it with hubby and we started replacing things with organic, we eased the kids out of fast food, cereal and the like and wow, it was awesome! We bought some local, pastured poultry and beef that first year and never looked back, as soon as we tasted it, we said that it was all we would buy as soon as we could order more for the next season! It took us a year to get to the raw milk. Got us all a lot healthier and our kids off of Acid Refluz meds. Plus it just all made sense and they back up their articles with sites and research, etc.
I went to the local Festival that year and was blown away, I joined the local chapter and offered to help and ended up on Leadership team. I am still on the Metro Detroit chapter’s Leadership team and it is such a blessing to be involved with WAPF. Kelly Scanlon if you are interested and live in the Metro Detroit area, Healthy Traditions Network is the chapter I am involved in and we can always use new people to volunteer. We just changed over to a new director and are looking for a new location for our meetings, but we are a dedicated bunch and the rewards are so much more than you think when you volunteer, the people are the best!! I am like Kelly and am over committed and always looking at my commitments but I just can’t let go of being involved in HTN as it is so awesome!
Our chapter has a website and e-newlsetter at http://www.htnetwork.org
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Julia 02.03.10 at 12:42 pm
Another who has been searching for the nutrition “truth” but stopped the search as soon as I found the Weston A. Price Foundation. It is so great to have a group of people who don’t think you are crazy! Thanks Kelly and all other bloggers. Love to read your blogs!
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Sheri aka Mom 02.03.10 at 1:22 pm
I had been eating ‘healthy’ for years and most of it was wrong. We used canola oil (although thankfully always butter and not margarine) and tried to eat low fat.
Then I got very sick from the CA fires of 2003 – I’ve been dealing with bad lung problems since then. Once I found Nourishing Traditions and we added many things from the book – broth, kefir, kombucha – as well as changed our diet accordingly I have been greatly improving. I’m not totally off the meds yet – but am getting close and just got through being really sick with bronchitis without any lung relapse which was amazing! I am so grateful we found WAPF.
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Aggie 02.03.10 at 1:27 pm
I also heard that “click” when I first read Nourishing Traditions! It was as though everything finally made sense out of years of struggling with health issues and trying to solve them with nutrition.
I wish I knew then what I know now! (Hey, isn’t that a song?)
Hopefully, through blogs like yours, we can help people before its too late.
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Ellen@BodyEarth 02.03.10 at 2:12 pm
Kelly, that’s wonderful news that you’ve been asked to be on the board of your local WAPF chapter — congratulations! You would bring so much to them and to your community. It’s an honor that you really deserve. But, you do such a fantastic job of posting on Kelly the Kitchen Kop that I can definitely see how you might not have enough time. Whatever you decide, you’re a wonderful resource.
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Raine Saunders 02.03.10 at 2:34 pm
Kelly – that is a big commitment for you since you are already so busy with this web site, but ultimately you will have to decide for yourself what you can and want to do. Our local chapter leader here in Boise is a friend of mine, but during the time I’ve known her, there are have never been any monthly meetings or gatherings at all. She is a colon hydro-therapist and has many other efforts/projects going, so I it makes me wonder if she just over-committed herself. I think it would be great if there were meetings, but I don’t honestly know how involved I could be in them at this point in my life.
It’s easy to want to do more, especially when the cause is so important. There are so many more things that I’m not doing that I wish I could do but just don’t have the time to actually do them – especially on my own blog. The best I can do is simply try to write a few articles each week – I barely have time for anything else as I am home-schooling full-time and that is where most of my efforts go. Also, our family has a full-time brand new solar and green technology business that keeps me busy too. I am grateful to be able to do what we are doing by working for ourselves and doing something ethical and positive for the earth, and of course spending that time with my son. But those are essentially the reasons I don’t do more on my blog.
There’s really never enough time everything we’d like to do, and I think you just have to honestly ask yourself if you have room for that additional thing and how it will impact your life and your family if you commit to doing it. Good luck and keep praying for the right answer!
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Laurie N 02.03.10 at 8:57 pm
It’s been a long, slow journey, but I’m getting closer every day. I’m in the process of re-reading Nourishing Traditions, and it’s helping me to remember just how much these ideas just “clicked” the first time I read it several years ago. I’ve finally been able to source a lot of my food locally and/or find sources for the things I need that I can’t get locally so that I can really start using it (NT) in earnest. (Not an easy task.) The kids are getting to the point where they understand more, too, and are coming around to the idea of changing our way of eating. Not that was ever ate horribly, just that we can eat better. I haven’t yet tracked down a local WAPF chapter, but I’m seriously considering it. I’m just suffering from the “one more thing” dilemma, too. Still, it would nice to talk to more other local people (instead of just online friends) who don’t think I’m nuts. I’m hoping that as my weight loss becomes more obvious and my skin gets clearer (both things have been noticeably improving along with my diet) that the results will speak for themselves.
As for you joining the board, pray about it and make the decision that’s right for you and your family. We love what you do here and know you would make a great addition, but there are only so many hours in a day.
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Avivah @ Oceans of Joy 02.04.10 at 12:07 am
I had a similar experience when I first read the WAPF website four or five years ago – at first disbelief that all that I thought was healthy, wasn’t, but it all felt right as I read, it just made sense. We started off with just raw milk and bit by bit have done more and more, until now we’re pretty much integrating almost all of the principles almost all of the time.
Kelly, I had a tendency to overextend myself – most people think me at my slow point is doing a lot! I’ve had to repeatedly remind myself that I have limits and that there are lots of great things to be involved in out there – and maybe one day I can do more – but now I need to practice saying ‘no’ to many of the requests for my time and help that take my time and attention away from the things that matter most.
Good luck making the decision that’s right for you!
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Julie 02.07.10 at 9:07 am
I appreciate WPF . What is great about this foundation is that it is research backed. I just read an article in their website about Cod liver oil–I had some questions, and I needed clarification — it was good to get the information in a clear way. It is high quality.
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