The Vermont Traditional Foods and Health Symposium
Come learn the core principles of traditional diets, inspired by the teachings of the Weston A. Price Foundation, and explore how embracing this lifestyle can contribute to one’s health, wellness and longevity.
Hosted at Shelburne Farms, The Vermont Traditional Foods and Health Symposium is a program sponsored by The Forrest C. and Frances H. Lattner Foundation.
Registration is required to attend the Symposium. In order to make the program accessible, the program is being offered on a suggested sliding scale of $0 - $75 per day (includes lunch (Friday & Saturday) and traditional foods tasting (Friday evening) provided by The Farmhouse Group, and more.
Lunches and snacks provided during the event will align with the principles presented by the speakers including nutrient-dense, locally and organically grown vegetables, pastured and grass–fed meat, raw dairy products, and fermented vegetables all skillfully prepared by The Farmhouse Group and the chefs at the Inn at Shelburne Farms. In addition, on Friday afternoon, a “grazing” dinner will highlight the simplicity of eating whole, nutrient-dense foods including charcuterie, grass-fed beef, bone marrow and broth, and more! Lastly, on Saturday, local producers will be conducting hands-on demonstrations focusing on fermented vegetables, fermented beverages, organ meats, sprouted nuts and grains, bone broths, traditional fats, and raw milk (see below).
Thursday, September 25
6:30 - 9:00pm | Film House, Main Street Landing, Burlington, VT | Free
Film Screening: The Greater Good A Film By Leslie Manookian
THE GREATER GOOD is an award winning character-driven documentary that explores the cultural intersections where parenting meets modern medicine and individual rights collide with politics. The film offers parents, doctors and policy makers the opportunity to speak openly, actively listen and learn from one another.
Friday, September 26
9:00am - 7pm | Coach Barn, Shelburne Farms, Shelburne, VT | Sliding scale fee; Suggested donation
Primal Mind: Connecting the Dots Between Nutrition and Mental Health | 9:15-11:15 AM
How do nutrients interact with our bodies and brains to shape our perceptions and experience of what it means to be alive? What actually are our emotions and how do we cultivate our emotional reality by what we choose to eat? How does the brain manage stress and how do stressors form and deform our experience of life and our health? Learn about the myth of the "mind-body connection" and what you can do to maximize your mental,emotional and cognitive function with nutritional influences and easy-to implement dietary changes that can make all the difference. Learn about the nutritional and biochemical basis for depression, anxiety and ADD...and learn about how you can maximize the health of your brain as you age.
Presenter: Nora Gedgaudas CNS, CNT One of the World’s leading experts on Paleo nutrition and author of the international best-selling book Primal Body, Primal Mind: Beyond The Paleo Diet For Total Health and a Longer Life. She is Board-certified in Holistic Nutrition® through the National Association of Nutritional Professionals (NANP) and is recognized by the Nutritional Therapy Association as a Certified Nutritional Therapist.
Nutrition Response Testing to Achieve Optimal Health | 11:15 AM-12:15 PM
Learn more about Nutrition Response Testing and how it can be used to detect nutritional imbalances, chemical and metal toxicities as well as food sensitivities that could be blocking your way to your wellness. Many of the toxicities detected can be coming from your beauty products, household cleaning products, processed foods and whole foods coming from larger farms using less mindful farming practices Health Issues From These Hidden Barriers Can Include Digestive Imbalances, Weight Gain, Migraines, Fatigue, Hormonal Imbalances, ADD/ADHD, Anxiety/Depression, Cardiac Issues, Diabetes. Also discussed will be the whole foods dietary guidance Dr. Harris recommends for those who are clearing these barriers and want to maintain the increased wellness they have acheived.
Presenter: Dr. Suzy Harris, senior clinician at Cedar Wood Natural Health Center in South Burlington, VT
Fueling The Ancestral Athlete | 1:45-3:15 PM
Whether you’re a weekend warrior, an exercise enthusiast or a serious performer, learn how to avoid modern frankenfuels, sports gels, sports drinks and commercial exercise fuels and instead tap into natural ways to enhance physical and mental performance. From foods to supplements to biohacks, discover the best ways to cultivate high levels of physical and mental performance while immersed in a modern living environment. Ben Greenfield is an ex-bodybuilder, Ironman triathlete, Spartan racer, father of twin boys and author of the New York Times Bestseller “Beyond Training: Mastering Endurance, Health and Life”, and during this presentation, he’ll teach you how to use the ultimate combination of gear, foods, supplements, biohacks and lifestyle techniques to optimize performance of the human machine in a safe and healthy way and to fuel your body with the energy necessary for exercise without destroying your gut.
Presenter: Ben Greenfield is a coach, author, speaker, ex-bodybuilder and Ironman triathlete. His science-based approach to discovering a potent balance between health and performance has revolutionized the way thousands of athletes and exercise enthusiasts around the world live, train and eat. In 2008, Ben was voted by the National Strength and Conditioning Association as the America’s top personal trainer. He holds a Master’s degree in exercise physiology and biomechanics from University of Idaho, and is also a certified sports nutritionist (C-ISSN) and strength and conditioning coach (CSCS). He has over a decade of experience training professional, collegiate and recreational athletes from all sports how to be healthy on the inside and healthy on the outside – and also coaches people of all ages and from all backgrounds for performance, fat loss, nutrition, lifestyle management and wellness. In addition to being the head coach and nutritionist for Pacific Elite Fitness and the Rock Star Triathlete Academy, Ben is a consultant for WellnessFX, host of the Get-Fit Guy and BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcasts on iTunes, author of over a dozen programs and books for optimizing health and performance, and owner of EndurancePlanet.com, the world’s top endurance sports entertainment website. Ben also trains and mentors physicians, personal trainers and physical therapists from around the globe via his mastermind Superhuman Coach Network at SuperhumanCoach.com.
Saturday, September 27
9:00am - 5pm | Coach Barn, Shelburne Farms, Shelburne, VT | Sliding scale fee; Suggested donation
Traditional Foods and Home Remedies for the Modern Child’s Chronic Disorders | 9:00-11:00 AM
Learn how nutrient-dense foods such as those found in the Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) Diet can bring healing to a myriad of disorders that plague the modern child. This presentation will focus on the important role the gut and live bacteria play in setting the stage for wellness of mind and body. We will also look at home remedies that assist in gently detoxifying and restoring balance where it has been lost. Come be inspired by real life stories of health restored.
Presenter: Kim Schuette, CN, Certified GAPS Practitioner, WAPF San Diego Chapter Leader
What are Symptoms? Chinese Medicine and Health and Healing | 11:15 AM-12:15 PM
How we approach symptoms speaks to how we view health and healing. In Chinese medicine, symptoms of all kinds are messengers, trying to tell us that something is out of balance. Rather than waging war on symptoms, we can wage peace to promote physical, mental and emotional well-being. Brendan will briefly discuss diverse clinical case studies including childhood fevers and cancer as examples of the importance of listening to what symptoms are telling us.
Presenter: Brendan Kelly has a master’s in acupuncture degree and teaches about Chinese medicine at schools, colleges, universities and conferences around the country. He is a faculty member at Johnson State College in VT and the Academy for Five Element Acupuncture in FL. He has 20 years experience in natural medicine, with 12 years in acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. He practices acupuncture and Chinese and western herbal medicine at the clinic he co-founders, Jade Mountain Wellness, in Burlington, VT. He also researches and writes about the connection between personal health and environmental sustainability. In the Fall of 2015, North Atlantic Books will publish his first book “The Yin and Yang of Climate Change", which presents the deeper, root causes of our warming planet.
Clothes don’t make the hunter-gatherer: reconnecting with our ancestral microbiome | 2:15-4:15 PM
After 3.5 billion years of dominating life on earth, microbes are finally having their day. Until recently, it was not known that more than 99.9% of the genes that make up the human body are in fact microbial in origin. This important little piece of information means we are more microbe than mammal. Advances in next generation sequencing and computational tools has begun to shed light on the role of microbes in common disease such as obesity, irritable bowel disease, autism, kidney stones, celiac disease, a vast array of autoimmune disease – and the list goes on. But these are early days and a lot of work needs to be done. One important area of interest is trying to understand what a balanced and healthy microbiome actually looks like at various stages in life. Increasing evidence suggest that populations in the western world have lost a third or more of the microbial diversity we once enjoyed at this simple reduction in ecological diversity may be in the base of what ails us in a modern world. In this presentation we will discuss our attempt to recapture our ancient microbiome through our work with one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer groups in Africa.
Presenter: Jeff Leach, Jeff’s interest in modern diet and the gut microbiome began almost a decade ago when his daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. As with other autoimmune diseases, an underlying genetic susceptibility must exist for type 1 diabetes to manifest but an environmental component (trigger) is necessary. With advances in metagenomics and huge government initiatives like the recently completed Human Microbiome Project, its becoming increasingly clear that the gut microbiome plays a significant if not causal role in the development of type 1 diabetes, other autoimmune diseases, and modern (ecological) diseases in general. In an effort to raise awareness about the changes in human ecology that have given rise to diseases of the modern world, Jeff launched the Human Food Project to blur the line between the science and the general public. See also our recently launched crowd sourcing project American Gut. We hope you can join us as we look to the past to better understand why we get sick. Research interests include the impact of acculturation on the gut microbiome among traditional groups in Africa, public health policy, ethnography, indigenous rights, hot-rock technology, site formation processes, foraging and pastoral societies, and evolution of the human microbiome from our Mio-Pliocene ancestors to modern primates and humans.
TRADITIONAL FOODS LEARNING STATIONS | Saturday, September 27, 12:15-2PM
Fermented Beverages, Jason Frishman, Folk Foods
Fermented Vegetables, Kara Buchanan
Sauerkraut & Kimchi, Doug Flack, Biodynamic Farmer, Flack Family Farm
Traditional Fats/Rendering Lard, Eric Garza, Burlington Chapter Leader, Weston A. Price Foundation
Organ Meat Preparation, Colin Driscoll, Butcher, Healthy Living Market
Beef Bone Broth, Common Roots
Raw Milk Cheese, Cheesemaker, Shelburne Farms
Mozarella & Yogurt making, Kalyn Campbell, Family Cow Farmstand
Sourdough Bread, OBread
Kombucha, Mike Kin, Aqua Vitea Kombucha
Herbal Medicine preparation, Colleen Dando, Urban Moonshine
Grassfed butter, buttermilk & ricotta, Lindsay Harris, Mountain Home Farm
Many thanks to our Sponsors:
Aqua Vitea Kombucha
Burlington Chapter of WAPF
Cedarwood Natural Health Center
Common Roots
Edible Green Mountains
Family Cow Farmstand
Flack Family Farm
The Farmhouse Group
Healthy Living Market
Intervale Center
NOFA-VT
Nutritional Therapy Association
Rural Vermont
Shelburne Farms
Urban Moonshine
Vermont Fresh Network
Weston A. Price Foundation