WAPF Report - Cheap food has a much greater Cost in the long run!

The Wise Traditions conference had fantastic speakers, experts and topics. There were topics ranging from science research, farming practices, to traditional cooking. Our goal is to give you the highlights and resources for learning and applying your knowledge to make our communities healthier places.

Jeffery Smith is one of the world's foremost authors, educators & activists for spreading information about the dangers of Genetically Modified foods. He has written "Seeds of Deception" and most recently "Genetic Roulette" which clearly spell out why not only buying/supporting organic, non-genetically modified foods is vital for our lives, but why & how we can act to change our future.

His YouTube films are a fast track way to get informed: Just go to YouTube.com and search Jeffery Smith, GMO Trilogy or Seeds of Deception.

Jeffery has also created the "Campaign for Healthier Eating in America" where you can find the "Non-GMO Shopping Guide" and the GMO Health Risks brochure free to download at:

www.responsibletechnology.org. You can also bring these items to your local health food store and they can order them in bulk for free. They also have a "GMO education center" that stores and display to educated consumers why making the "organic, non-GMO choice" is so vital.

As a mother of two children born with severe food allergies, I spent years running crazy trying to figure what they were allergic to. We came up with a list of foods. Ironically, many of these I now find out are some of the first and most widely GMO foods: Soy, Corn, Wheat, Nuts... and had been put into the food system only a few years before I had my children. Why is it they seem to do well on Organic and Farm fresh versions of many of the same foods?

There is no way to determine what "GMO" foods are going to do in our bodies। So the question now becomes are they allergic to the food, or is it the genetically altered protein of the seeds used to grow that food? Is your disease/symptom/syndrome really that or could it be your body reacting to engineered "food" it cannot properly assimilate? (see further resources at the end of the blog)

Cheap food has a much greater Cost in the long run. Don't throw good money after "Cheap" food.

Bottom line, seeds are being manipulated and adulterated in so many ways our bodies are having a heck of a time recognizing the food as food. If you eat food from a seed that has been altered in a lab NOT to germinate or to have bugs not want to eat it...what do you think food from that source is going to do in our bodies?

Non GMO foods

Here is a list of books, websites and resources for you to start educating yourself:

"Seeds of Deception" and "Genetic Roulette" by Jeffery Smith

http://www.seedsofdeception.com

www.responsibletechnology.org

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94d-KVorSHM&feature=related

The GMO Triology (you can watch it on YouTube or order the DVD)

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.com

http://www.healthiereating.org

"The World According to Monsanto" - film by Marie-Monique Robin

"The Future of Food" - Deborah Koons Garcia

"The Unhealthy Truth" by Robyn O'Brien

It's Time to Step it Up a Notch...

I'm here at Weston A. Price Foundation's Wise Tradition's annual conference 2009. For those of you unfamiliar with WAPF, it is a non-profit foundation dedicated to "restoring nutrient dense foods to the American diet through education, research and activism." That is part of the official statement, for more in depth description go to: http://www.westonaprice.org

(photo: Tara & Sally Fallon, WAPF Co-Founder)

My description goes more like this...when my kids and I were so sick after Zach was born I was searching for help and healing, a friend from my yoga class, Sarah Pope (a WAPF Chapter Leader) gave me some general information about what WAPF was all about. Although I'd thought we'd been eating healthy, I soon realized I had a lot to learn. I started learning why buying organic is vital to our health and the health of our community, reason's why my Granny Pearl prepared food the way she did, why supporting our local farmers and using REAL, Non-Genetically Modified, unprocessed food matters. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Over the years I have learned, adapted and added these principles to our family's healthy habits with fantastic success. Many of you ask where & how I learn so much, my answer, in part is attending this conference. It is the most unbiased, research driven, unfunded by "interested parties" source of cutting edge information, research, resources and products you just don't hear about in mainstream press.

In my home we have a great phrase we use periodically, "It's time to step it up a notch!"

This applies to times when we have become complacent with our habits and may be slipping, eating out more, using shortcuts... or when I return from a convention with great new information.

Folks, "It's time to step it up a notch!" We are facing so many obstacles to our health that are out of our control, it is time to get serious about the things we CAN control. I encourage you to start a healthy habit today, right now, don't wait. Strive to be healthier and stronger each day when you wake up, and go to bed at night knowing you will be even healthier tomorrow in mind, body and spirit.

I will be posting on this blog resources, links, books, etc to give you places to start. You can also go the resource page of the Nourishingyourfamily.com website. Pick one thing, and go at it will all your heart, even for just a week. Become a ripple of healthy change in your circle of life... don't sink with the rest...go beyond swimming...lead the way for surfing into better health!

Peace & Be Well,

Tara

Making Time for Nutrition Pays Off

If I had a nickle for every person who said, "Well, I just don't have time to cook...or It's too expensive to eat organic foods"
I'd be purchasing a new house right now. (with an awesome kitchen)

My reply is always the same..."You pay now, or you pay later. Do you have time to be sick? What would having a chronic disease cost you?"
These are not meant to be scare tactics, but some reality checks. If you keep putting junk or genetically modified foods into your body, it is eventually going to catch up. If you really don't think there is a problem with our foods today, please read the new book out called "The Unhealthy Truth" by my friend Robyn O'Brien. She spells it out very clearly in plain, easy to understand "Mommy Language" but with the expertise of her background as a Market Analyst. If you do read it, know she explains the problem very well, but I challenge you do go much further with nutrition solutions than she is able to in the book.

Hmmm, I guess that is where Nourishing Your Family comes in. Next time you find yourself thinking "I don't have time to cook" think about the story I'm about to tell you.

In one months time my family decided to move across country to Las Vegas, sold almost all of our furniture, rented our Virginia home out, rented a home in Las Vegas, allowed our kids play dates with all of their friends as much as we could with healthy snack/lunch in hand, ran both our home businesses, taught classes up until the night before moving, and most importantly cooked everyday. We ate out only 3 times in that month.

Let me paint this picture a little more for you. On one side of the country my husband, Mike, for two months was living with 4 other guys, opening their show in Vegas called "AMAZED", away from his family, running his career, traveling, and Skyping with us at night. He did this and still shopped for organic foods and cooked most of his meals. I was very proud of him. He also now knows how hard it is to do, but how worth it was to invest in his health. Priceless lesson!

This isn't to sing our praises, but to give you the perspective check. Our family was under huge pressure and time constraints. Friends and family were great in pitching in. The time/cost of eating healthy was big, but the payoff was even greater. In times of stress and lack of sleep we would have most likely gotten sick in the past. What was the difference this time? Eating healthy throughout this time.

As I was trying to let our food supply dwindle and use what we had, I found beef soup bones I'd not used. Having never actually made beef bone broth (I usually make chicken) it would have been easy to give them to one of my friends to use. The thought occurred to me....I'd better practice what I preach. So I made a huge, beautiful pot of bone broth, and sipped on it through a couple of all nighters I had to pull in our final week of preparation. Not only did I feel energy and no fatigue, I was able to give Quart size jars of this healing broth as final farewell gifts to some of my dear friends.

So, next time you start to say you don't have time to cook, I encourage you to think again,
or at least send me that nickel for my new house.

Peace & Be Well,
Tara Rayburn

Nourishing Your Family in Ecuador

Hello All,

I am currently in Ecuador for Young Living Essential Oils training. There are people from all over the world here. It is amazing to learn first hand how Natural Medicine is becoming increasingly more popular with people. The "old ways" are coming back, only with so much money invested in pharmaceuticals, big money and governments with seemingly good intentions are trying to take away are rights to buy, grow, use, sell organics, and natural options.

I'm not crying "conspiracy", but seeing this first hand from countries all over the world. Please write your representatives and let them know you want to keep your rights to purchase healthy, natural products. I'll write more later.

To read about my experience go to my Young Living Blog

 http://tarasyounglivingessentialoils.blogspot.com

Chow for Now,

Tara

Hard Times, Hard Choices

In this day of many economic unknowns many people tell me "oh, I can't afford to buy organic food "or "don't have time to cook for my family."

I guess I just don't have patience for these excuses because I was thrust into changing our lifestyle because our "buckets" had become so full and we had become so sick. The truth is, at the time we were actually doing a lot of healthy things, but it was the accumulation of the "little bit's" of let it slip here and there, and the "unknowns" that were tearing us down.

Nourishing Your Family spends some time with the problem, but focuses on spending the majority of time on the solution to where we have found ourselves. If you want an EXTREME look of where things are going, and I know this is a risk to show the

extreme, but I guess I really want people to understand that their individual "health problems" can really be linked to much more "global concerns" than they really are aware of.

In case the link I've posted fails, Google GMO Trilogy - Unnatural Selection. Watch the whole thing or nothing at all.  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4499930634181592531

Most importantly whether you view the link on Genetic Modification or not, know that our world is changing in more ways than any of us can know. Your seemingly individual issues are global for many reasons. It is ultimately up to you to find out why. 

I believe ignorance is NOT bliss, and that positive solutions must be created even in the most challenging of times.

Peace & Be Well,

Tara Rayburn

The "But I Don't Like It Excuse..."

Michael and I have come to a realization over the years, the older you get, the more things you eat because they are good for you, not necessarily because you "like" them. The great thing is, sometimes if you just accept that and stick to it, usually your body and your taste buds change, and you end up liking the things that actually make you feel better instead of worse.

Our kids' food allergies ended up teaching this in a huge way. We had to keep "food diaries" and note what happened to them not only physically but emotionally after eating foods. One big "a-ha" was that it was not always an immediate reaction, but rather a cumulative one. Days of high grains and high sweets (even fruit and dried fruit) would present major concentration loss, irrational behavior, irritability, congestion.

Seeing these patterns on paper, started causing me to think about and notice what had been happening in me, to a much lesser degree over the years. The bigger key is that sometimes they are more of a cumulative thing. One shot of most things aren't going to hurt most folks, but daily, but couple times a week, or even weekly in some cases can really add up to symptoms.

What really caused me to "blog" on this particular topic was a weekend with a niece and nephew. By the end of three days, if I heard the phrase "But I don't like that" used as a validating reason for why they would not eat a food put in front of them, I thought I was going to hurt myself with a kitchen appliance.

At first I got defensive (my natural instinct of course...) then I got frustrated and authoritarian, then I tried covert operations and bribery....finally, I resorted to just plain honesty from my heart.

It went like this:

Well, why don't you eat any vegetables and fruit? Don't you know you have to give your body and brain the tools (nutrients) they need to get the job done? If you never give it what It needs, it won't be able to do a good job for you.

It felt like I was in the old Far Side Comic where the person is talking to the dog and all the dog really hears is "Blah, blah, Fluffy, blah, blah, blah, fluffy...."  But you know what? When you least expect it kids do hear you, and in some way they may choose to take that advice.

You know, for me, I had to see my unhealthy eating habits, allergies, sensitivities through my kids first, before I really stepped it up a notch.

TIP: Notice how you feel after eating foods that give you a "high" and then drop you low and add to your list of symptoms. Create a Physical/Visceral anchor in yourself that this "Indulgence = X Symptom" ie:
When I eat sugar, my face breaks out or I become very irritable with my family. It's like Pavlov's Dog... when you equate a negative over and over to something you've previously deemed positive, it can cause a much greater impetus for change.

So in a very big nutshell, the "But I don't like it." response goes like this...

Sometimes liking it is not what it is about. Sometimes we eat it just because our bodies need it to grow healthy. And you know, many times we even grow to like those other things too.

Peace & Be Well,

Tara Rayburn

Healthcare Welfare

A realization just hit me...healthcare in the United State is a form of welfare. It is very clear it is set up to pay for illness instead of reward or encourage proactive wellness habits. People are choosing convenience and cost over quality of life. It is almost as if people would rather play Russian Roulette to get a diagnosis, instead of investing in their health. There is an ill-fated belief that "someone" will pay for their sick bills, but not their wellness habits like organic, non genetically modified, and farm fresh foods.

The truth is you either pay now, or you pay later. To stick your head in the sand about what is in the foods you eat, to say " I can't afford to eat that way" or "I don't have time to cook" are all very short sighted beliefs. In this day and age of chemical bombardment, stress, the departure from old wise nutritional habits to not educate yourself about what you eat and how it affects you is a recipe for illness.

As far as the "cost" of eating fresh, pure, organic foods, let's look at the "cost" of getting a chronic illness...days missed at work, costs not covered by insurance, family stress, pharmacy bills, poor quality of life, possible job loss...

An amazing thing happened recently, my 7 year old daughter just received an attendance award at school. You see for a long time, my kids missed a lot of school due to being sick and having major allergic reactions. Yes, we now spend more on food and essential oils each year... but how priceless is it to see your family's health improve and your child get stronger and stronger each year. An attendance award, two years ago I would have told you there is no way.

We live in a culture ready to pay huge bucks for extra activities and pre-paid college for our kids, why not be willing to invest in their health from the start? If you love them...Nourish them!

Peace & Be Well,
Tara