News

Last weekend  I participated in  the Wellness Gathering at Mt. Currie. This was the first event of it's kind- a super successful and inspiring event, bringing the 2 communities together with a focus on an expansive view of health. The  intent being  bring to light the  knowledge, skills and available services to support individual, family and community health.  This is a really progressive approach from town and band councils!  Though, I am not surprised that the Pemberton Valley would cultivate such a cool concept. I was there for the Slow Food Cycle tour this summer and was really impressed with the abundance of  wholesome living/eating interest and the warmth and positive vitality of the community.

So I was happy  to be asked to do some workshops on naturopathic medicine, and nutrition for this gathering at Mt. Currie.  I presented some talks and demos on "Food as Medicine". To my surprise, when I entered  one of the workshop rooms, it was filled with a huge pack of kids occupying almost all of the chairs-- they  were that  fully entrenched in prime time  adolescent world of accessorizing with permanently afixed earphones in the ears -- the  well-worn look of  " I could'nt be bothered to care" semi- perma-scowl especially if Justin Bieber is mentioned.  I was  worried that word got out there was fod happening in this room and they were expecting pizza.   And pizza wasn't being delivered in my show.  I was planning to talk about diabetes prevention, blood sugar, and  the nutritional profile of  some high fiber foods like chia seeds, hemp seeds, low glycemic agave, complex carb high protein grains like amaranth.... you get the picture.  What is amazing, is how the room transformed once we got to the hands on cooking part-- I got some of the coolest guys up there stirring the pot,  "stripping" kale from it's stem and spinning greens-- and they GOT INTO IT!! At the end, I asked who liked which dish best- the crispy kale chips or the brown rice crispies squares  and got full vocal enthusiastic  votes, half and half,  I thought wow - this worked! and when one said who likes both put up your hands I thought this was the biggest success-- food is medicine if it can get kids riled up about greens and seeds!