December Info Alert

DECEMBER 2011 INFORMATION ALERT

IN THE NEWS:

APPELLATE DECISION FOR CANADIAN RAW MILK HERO AND HUNGER STRIKE

On September 29 Justice Peter Tetley of the Ontario Court of Justice reversed the most favorable court decision on cow share agreements in North America and found Durham farmer Michael Schmidt guilty of 15 of 19 charges for violations of the Ontario Health Protection and Promotion Act (HPPA) and the Ontario Milk Act. On January 21, 2010 Justice of the Peace Paul Koharsky had found Schmidt not guilty of all 19 charges holding that there is a distinction between public and private conduct and that informed citizens have the right to waive the protection of the public health laws.

In his ruling, Justice Tetley held that “the applicable legislation was not given the broad interpretation (by the lower court) it required as public welfare legislation”, and “appropriate consideration was also not afforded to the restrictions inherent in the Act according to their plain meaning.” Tetley also noted in his decision that under the cowshare agreement Schmidt used the legal title remained with the farmer. Schmidt has changed his business model from the cowshare agreement; his shareholders have purchased Glencolton Farm and he no longer has any ownership interest in the farm.

In protest against the ruling, Schmidt went on a hunger strike that wound up lasting 37days. In a Food Rights Declaration Schmidt issued the day he began the strike, the farmer stated, “the latest appeal ruling by Justice Tetley overturning my acquittal from Justice Kowarsky has convinced me that I have to take a very drastic step of a personal sacrifice . . . . This is a turning point because we the farmers, we the consumers, we as concerned people of Canada are officially rejecting those who pass regulations without respecting our fundamental rights, our fundamental freedom to be and act as responsible individuals. We openly challenge and reject those who blindly enforce unjust laws . . . I am calling on farmers and consumers alike to join in, to openly challenge our bureaucrats and put our elected officials to task.”

Schmidt vowed to stay on his hunger strike until he had met with Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. In a letter to McGuinty, Schmidt wrote, “the right to buy food direct from a farmer is as old as our country, yet that right is being taken away from Canadians by a government that insists that only corporate Canada be responsible for feeding our citizens. I respectfully call on you, Premier McGuinty, to meet with me in person, as soon as possible, to find a way of ensuring that this right is respected and that the government renouces in taking away the most fundamental of all our rights – that to choose what we eat.” On November 4 Schmidt met with McGuinty, starting a dialogue that will hopefully lead to changes in Ontarios’s draconian laws on raw milk distribution.

During Schmidt’s hunger strike, he received tremendous support throughout Canada and the U.S., particularly through social media. He received broad coverage in the Canadian mainstream media as well. Schmidt credited pressure from raw milk moms on McGuinty with leading to the meeting with the Premier.

On November 25 Justice Tetley sentenced Schmidt to one year probation and fined the farmer $9150 CAD; in addition, a “victim’s surcharge” of $1945 CAD was tacked on to the fine. In imposing the sentence, the Justice admitted, “the present legislation is inconsistent, at best” but that it wasn’t for him to challenge the law. Schmidt made clear he was not paying the fine and responded to Justice Tetley’s statement by saying, “Sorry to draw the line, but since the Nuremburg trials, ‘doing my job’ is not a justifiable defense anymore for doing something not right.” The farmer’s 17-year fight to legalize raw milk sales in Canada continues on.

LATEST BLOG POSTINGS

KAAYLA DANIEL’S BLOG:  Recovery from Modern Diets
iVegetarian: PETA Honors Steve Jobs

PETA has chosen to honor Jobs’s commitment to animal welfare and the environment without acknowledging the role that his vegan or near vegan diet may have played in his death.  None of us, of course,  knows what caused the pancreatic cancer that led to Steve Jobs’s death or what might have cured him.  The one thing we know for sure is his diet didn’t save him.

CHRIS MASTERJOHN’S BLOG:  Mother Nature Obeyed

Good Lard, Bad Lard: What Do you Get When You Cross a Pig and a Coconut?http://www.westonaprice.org/blogs/cmasterjohn/2011/11/25/good-lard-bad-lard-what-do-you-get-when-you-cross-a-pig-and-a-coconut/This post highlights the recent revision of the fatty acid profile of the infamous lard-based, high-fat rodent diet,  “Research Diets D12492,” and compares this lard to lard from pasture-raised pigs and from pigs raised on a traditional coconut-based Pacific Island diet.  It turns out that the lard used to make rodents fat and metabolically damaged in most high-profile laboratory studies is very rich in polyunsaturated fats, probably because the pigs are fed supplementary vegetable oils on top of a diet devoid of pasture and based on cereals and legumes.

HEALING QUEST SHOW

Healing Quest is a magazine-style show containing several segments per episode.  We are very excited to announce that the upcoming series of seven Healing Quest episodes, to be released next March, will feature one or more stories on WAPF in all seven of the new episodes.  Among the topics to be covered are soy alert, raw milk, the healing power of cod liver oil, bone broth, healthy fats, grass-fed meat, sustainable salmon, organ meats and a profile of the Foundation.

Here’s How You Can Help: Healing Quest is in its ninth season on public television and although it is seen on PBS stations covering nearly 65 percent of all U.S. TV households, it is not available in many areas.  Each station decides on its own whether to include Healing Quest in its broadcast schedule and Healing Quest’s producers have limited resources for contacting stations in behalf of the series.

In addition Healing Quest’s producers say calls, letters or emails from local viewers requesting the series are one of the most powerful ways of influencing local station programmers to add the series to their schedule.

In other cases where the series is being broadcast but in an undesirable time period, requests from local viewers can be important in securing a schedule upgrade for the series.  And in cases where the series is on the air in a good time period calls from local viewers thanking the station can be critical in helping the series maintain its good position on the schedule.

And as they complete WAPF-related segments in the next few months they’ll post them on their YouTube channel as ‘sneak previews’ of the major content in the shows coming next spring and I’ll pass those links along to you.  Please feel free to blog about and pass these stories along to friends and family.

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

CONFERENCE NEWS

The conference was a huge success with over 1500 in attendance.  You can order conference recordings from 2006-2011.  See the link on our homepage or go directly to:

Mark your calendars for next year’s conference in Santa Clara, California, November 9-12, 2012.

SOY CASE

We have received a few questions asking why we have taken on a soy prison case. Several have expressed criticism that we are “helping criminals.” We need to stress the fact that our efforts regarding soy in prisons are not directly or primarily aimed at changing the prison or legal systems.  We will be able to show in the trial that feeding soy in such large amounts constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, and creates intractable health problems that ultimately place a burden on medical and social systems.

Our goal is to obtain an injunction against the serving of soy, so that we can then focus our attention on removing soy-laden meals from other institutions such as nursing homes, hospitals and, most importantly, schools.

NEW VIDEOS ON OUR WEBSITE

We are pleased to announce that the Wise Traditions Beginner Video Series is now complete and available for viewing by clicking the “Videos” tab in the header of the Weston A. Price Foundation website!

We’d like to thank Sarah Pope, chapter leader and board member, for her good work on our new video series.

This 12-part series covers all aspects of Traditional Food Preparation and is an ideal starting place for the visual learner who is new to the teachings of Dr. Price. Please feel free to use these lessons to introduce your friends and family to the travels and research of Dr. Price (see video #2) and the basic techniques of Traditional Cooking.  Send someone a link to all or just one particular video.  Thanks for sharing this information with anyone you can.

See the link:

GIFT MEMBERSHIPS

Give a gift that is twice blest, it blesses the recipient and the Weston A. Price Foundation too!

With the holiday, gift-giving season here we ask you to consider giving someone a membership.  It is a great way to support the work of the foundation while educating another about healthy, traditional foods.  We think it makes a perfect gift for a wedding, baby shower, retirement, birthday, college graduation, even a ‘no-occasion’ gift.  Many people have offered a gift to their local or college library, a practitioner or farmer.

To request a gift membership, please mail, fax or phone us with the gift recipient’s name and address and yours along with payment.  You do not need a special form although you can find one online at:  http://www.westonaprice.org/store/give-a-gift-membership

We appreciate the generosity of our growing membership and the efforts to share this journal with others.

PRESS RELEASES & SOCIAL MEDIA

Fan us on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/westonaprice

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/WestonAPrice

View our YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheWestonAPrice

SEMINAR ON NOURISHING TRADITIONAL DIETS – SALLY FALLON MORELL

Please check our calendar page for upcoming events:  http://www.westonaprice.org/calendar/calendar

Sally will be speaking at the Fourfold Path to Healing Conference scheduled for February 3-5 in Baltimore, Maryland.  This is an excellent conference with Sally, Tom Cowan and Jaimen McMillan.  See:  http://newtrendspublishing.com/conference/

UPCOMING EXHIBITS

Please visit them if you attend.  For some volunteers are still needed:

GrassWorks 2012

Wausau/Rothschield, Wisconsin

January 12-14, 2012

Exhibit staffed by Chapter Leaders Pat and Cindy Bice

Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture (CASA) –

Farm-to-Institution: Making Local Food Economies a Reality

Lansdowne, Virginia

January 13 – 14, 2012

Exhibit staffed by Chapter Leaders Elaine Boland and Susan Blasko.

Northeast Organic Farming Organization of Massachusetts (NOFA Mass)

25th Annual Winter Conference

Worcester, Massachusetts

January 14, 2012

Looking for volunteer exhibit staffers. Contact outreach@westonaprice.org if interested.

Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (SSAWG)

Practical Tools and Solutions for Sustaining Family Farms

Little Rock, Arkansas

January 18 – 21, 2012

http://www.ssawg.org/jan12-conf/

Looking for volunteer exhibit staffers. Contact outreach@westonaprice.org if interested.

Vermont Grass Farmers Association

Nourishing the Northeast by Educating Ourselves

Fairlee, Vermont

January 20 – 21, 2012

Exhibit staffed by Chapter Leaders Stuart and Margaret Osha.

Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA NY)

The Cooperative Economy

Saratoga, New York

January 20 – 22, 2012

Exhibit staffed by Chapter Leader Laura Villanti

Pennsylvania Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) –

Breaking Ground for a New Agriculture: Cultivating Versatility and Resilience

State College, Pennsylvania

February 1 – 4, 2012

http://pasafarming.org/our-work/farming-for-the-future-conference

Exhibit staffed by Chapter Leaders Carrie Hahn and Maureen Diaz.

CAUSTIC COMMENTARY

SOMETHING’S ROTTEN

In September, Denmark became the first country in the world to impose a fat tax on all foods that contain saturated fat, including butter, bacon and cheese. Hungary has also passed a fat tax and the UK, Sweden and Norway are considering similar measures. The tax is billed as an attempt to convince Danes to eat “healthier” but it is hard not to suspect the long arm of the vegetable oil industry behind the measure. The tax is a complex one, in which rates will correspond with the percentage of fat in a product. The value of the tax is about three dollars for every kilogram of saturated fat. For example, a burger will increase in price by about fifteen cents, and a small package of butter could cost around forty cents more under the new plan. The tax was approved by a large parliamentary majority as a move to help increase the average life expectancy of Danes—which has fallen below the international average of seventy-nine years—by three years over the next ten years. Time will tell whether the measure brings the predicted benefits, but in the meantime the government expects to collect over two hundred sixty million dollars per year from the tax, so it’s unlikely to be rescinded even if no health improvements ensue. What the tax is sure to do is put a nail in the coffin of Denmark’s major agricultural industries—the production of butter, bacon and cheese. Something is definitely rotten in the state of Denmark.

QUESTIONS ANSWERED by Sally Fallon Morell

Q.  If protein powders are harmful, what do you recommend using instead?

A.   We recommend real, complete protein from food (meat, dairy, eggs, seafood) WITH the fats that proteins naturally come with.  Read the article “Guts and Grease” on our website ( http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional-diets/guts-and-grease ).  Lean meat and protein powders rapidly deplete vitamin A. You do not need to supplement with extra protein as long as you are including protein-rich foods in your diet.

Q. Do you have a suggestion regarding pre-natal vitamins?  My doctor recommends me taking them; do I need to take them?

A. Rather than synthetic vitamins, we recommend getting the vitamins you need with a nutrient-dense diet, one that includes cod liver oil for vitamins A and D (cod liver oil is a food).  For our recommended diet, see http://www.westonaprice.org/childrens-health/diet-for-pregnant-and-nursing-mothers

Q.  I’ve noticed that after I make my stocks, the bones crumble easily- I am wondering if they are safe for consumption?

 A. Yes, in fact some people put the soft chicken bones in the blender to make a bone paste and eat that.  Primitive people ground up small bones and added them to their food.

Q.  For about fifteen years after menopause I couldn’t sleep well and the books and websites on sleep never helped.  But I found coconut oil with cod liver oil helped.  Do you think this is what did it and why?

A.  Yes, this makes sense.  These fats supply what the brain needs to function properly, including sleep.