Michael Schmidt « Eugene Chapter, Weston A. Price

Michael Schmidt and his efforts to bring fresh, clean raw milk to Canadians continues

This is another message that comes to us from the Weston A. Price Foundation. Michael Schmidt is a farmer in Canada who has spoken eloquently and passionately at several Wise Traditions Conferences.

Dear Members of WAPF:

Biodynamic farmer, Michael Schmidt in Canada, needs help now!

For over 22 years, Michael has been valiantly working to bring fresh, clean raw milk to Canadians. Through years of government harassment, Michael has persevered. Now, the Canadian government is attempting to shut down his farm by their continued criminalization of the herd share at Glencolton farms—this time by targeting the consumer community. Michael, Elisa and the herdshare members have mounted a legal defense but it is costly and the Glencolton community needs help from the external community of those who support organic farming, biodynamic farming, GMO free foods and other community-based food initiatives. We are hoping that we will have a favourable outcome that brings a precedent that creates more food freedom across the US and Canada. Please see letter from Michael and Elisa below.

For additional information and background on the case, this site has comprehensive coverage of the cases and actions against food freedom related to Glencolton Farms. https://thebovine.wordpress.com/the-michael-schmidt-story/

Take action:

Please donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/foodrights

Share and spread this article and ask friends and family to donate http://www.realmilk.com/urgent-update-glencolton-farms/

Letter from Michael Schmidt and Elisa Vander Hout

June 2016

Dear Supporters,

By now you must know that Government is very serious to shut down any attempts of people to make an informed choice about their milk, their food and their individual relationship to their farmer and farmer to their shareholders.

This battle is going on for me now over 22 years. I have been in and out of court so many times that it is impossible to even count. Endless nights are spent on formulating defense, filing papers, responding to new threats.

Our farm has been the focus of at least 3 major raids with up to 25 armed officers.

I have fines of over 100 000 dollars hanging over my head, got a jail sentence in BC for helping a raw milk farm there.

We are now in our last round. There is so much at stake that we at Glencolton Farms might as well pack it in unless supporters of food freedom understand that we cannot do it alone.

We are willing to fight. But we are not willing to worry 24 hours a day how to pay the lawyer to defend that last action.

We keep shelving out money, some money comes in from some members and a trickle here and there from other farmers. That is NOT enough.

We are not able to continue this fight unless we know that everyone will do ALL you can to raise legal funds.

We don’t have the money either, but we have to keep paying and paying and paying out of our last resources.

We are asking all our supporters and all those who want food freedom to please step up:

10 dollars a week, or 50 dollars a month or 500 dollars in one shot.

Unless we raise these funds we will have absolutely no chance of succeeding.

So we might as well pack it in now put a for sale sign up and look back in 10 years how we have miserably failed to bring about positive change.

Thank you for your support. It is through a true community and through our efforts together that we will succeed. https://www.gofundme.com/foodrights

The time is now

Elisa and Michael

We hope you will support the Weston A. Price Foundation in its efforts to restore nutrient-dense foods to the human diet through education, research and activism. westonaprice.org

Wise Traditions Conference 2012 – Thursday

Wise Traditions Conference 2012:

Part 1 – Wednesday
Part 2 – Thursday
Part 3 – Friday
Part 4 – Saturday
Part 5 – Sunday

Thursday:

Sally Fallon Morell at the Chapter Leader Meeting

Thursday morning the conference started with the Chapter Leader meeting. This had up until this year been held on the Monday following the conference, but they moved it this year.

The Chapter Leader’s meeting, where you might think we learn the secret handshakes and other mysterious stuff, was actually taken up with presentations of information for us to take back to our chapters.

Sally Fallon Morell:

Our first speaker was Sally Fallon Morell (president of the Weston A. Price Foundation and author of Nourishing Traditions). We learned that there are now 15,700 members in WAPF! There are 580 chapter leaders worldwide. Ten percent of them are overseas with New Zealand having the highest number of members per capita of any country. Sally keeps saying; This is truly an international organization now.

Pete Kennedy:

Our next presenter was Pete Kennedy, is a lawyer and president of the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund (http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/). The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund was created by Weston Price people to “Protect the constitutional right of the nation’s family farms and artisan food producers to provide processed and unprocessed farm foods directly to consumers through any legal means.” (read the FTCLDF mission statement)

Pete spoke about membership in the FTCLDF. There are 4 membership categories:

Farmer – $125/yr
Consumer – $50/yr
Associates – $250/yr
Artisan Producers – $125/yr

The memberships include free legal advice, and the possibility of legal representation (see http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/benefits.html for more info). They provide a 24-hour 1-800 number for members to call in the case of situations such as the health department coming to your door. We highly recommend everyone join this organization.

Chapter Leader group photo

Pete also gave us updates on some recent cases they had taken on. You may have heard about one in particular that resulted in a statement by the FDA that made the rounds on the internet. The FDA went on record as saying that (in their opinion) we have no fundamental right to consume or feed our children the foods of our choice! (see more: http://farmtoconsumer.org/litigation-FDA-status.htm) Wow, and who gave them that power? I say its time to take that power back into our own hands.

Chapter Leader Photo:

Next we took a break for our Chapter Leader group photo.

Elisa vander-Hout-Schmidt:

Next we heard from Elisa vander-Hout-Schmidt, who is the wife of Michael Schmidt. Michael is a raw milk farmer in Canada where it is illegal to sell raw milk. Michael has gone to jail and on a hunger strike in order to forward the raw milk movement in Canada.

Gary Cox:

Gary Cox

What to do during a raid

Gary Cox from the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund gave a wonderful presentation on what you should do in case of a farm raid (We also had in the audience Victoria Bloch, a chapter leader from Los Angeles, who went to jail in the raid on Rawsome Foods. She said she was going to have a T-Shirt made that said “I’ve been strip-searched for Raw Milk!”)

None of us like to think of the possibility of a raid happening to our farmer, but the presentation was very good. I am going to try to get a hold of the PowerPoint to show locally. Contact me if you would like more info.

In case you can’t read the points on the What to do during a raid photo, they are (you can also click on any of the photos to view them larger):

Read the warrant
- Specificity of places to be searched
- Specificity of items to be seized
- Demand copy of inventory
Notify all members
Bring Camera/video recorder / take notes
Follow course of inspection
Do not hinder, thwart, obstruct or delay the inspection
Do not make any statements

And of course, if you are a member in the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, the very first thing to do is call the 1-800 hotline and get some legal advice! Gary talked about situations where the health inspector was in the process of telling the farmer to dump all their food in the trash, when the FTCLDF discovered that the warrant didn’t give them the right to do this at all.

Beef Stew, Herb Roasted Acorn Squash, Winter Greens with Shaved Fennel and Celeriac, Sauerkraut and Butter

Lunch:

Lunch was provided by New Trends Publishing (publishers of Nourishing Traditions and many other great books). We had the first of our wonderful meals at this conference.

We had Beef Stew, Herb Roasted Acorn Squash, Winter Greens with Shaved Fennel and Celeriac, Sauerkraut and Butter. The Herb Roasted Acorn Squash was my favorite! Makes my mouth water just to think about it. For desert we had roasted bananas with coconut. It was way too sweet for my tastes, and I wished I’d finished with a second helping of the squash.

Charlotte Smith:

After lunch we had a presentation from Charlotte Smith of Champoeg Creamery (right here in Oregon!). Champoeg Creamery is the first farm to be certified by the Raw Milk Institute (RAWMI). The Raw Milk Institute was launched last year. Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy in California was one of the founders.

Charlotte Smith

She gave a touching account of the situation that lead to her creating the Oregon Raw Milk Producers Association. Charlotte told the story of a farm in her area that had a recent serious outbreak of disease. She had heard that this farm wasn’t clean. She felt so helpless to watch this terrible thing happen, and wanted to do something to prevent future outbreaks. So she got the idea of founding the Oregon Raw Milk Producers Association in order to provide safety, structure and education to raw milk in Oregon. Mark McAfee joined her on stage and she and Mark talked about their common goal of responsible and safe raw milk production. We saw photos of her farm, and heard about her experiences with becoming certified with RAWMI. I was very pleased to hear about the work that Charlotte is doing with raw milk producers. She is also the organizer of the Raw Milk Seminar in Junction City (at Deck Family Farm on November 19th).

Sara Pope:

Sarah Pope

Sara Pope is a chapter leader in Florida, and has contributed many videos on the Weston A. Price website. She talked about introducing raw milk to moms. She started off saying that she was from the South, and they have a saying:

“If Momma ain’t happy… Noooooooobody happy”

She said that the mommas she came into contact with are not happy. More moms are having to work outside the home, run single-family households, take care of their families, and their kids are getting more and more sick. The moms she sees have lost their fear of raw milk, and are desperate for anything that will help their children. She gave some strategies for introducing raw milk to moms. She said to talk one on one. Moms are getting more suspicious of “authorities” telling them what to do. Especially when so much of the info is in conflict with each other. Raw milk is helping children recover their health.

Judith McGeary:

Judith McGeary

Judith McGeary is a lawyer and organizer that has been instrumental in fighting back the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). She said that for a history of the farm bureau, etc. a great book was called “Dollar Harvest”. She also said that in the 2008 campaign Obama made a promise to label GMOs. She said there is a good YouTube video of this.

I found this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqaaB6NE1TI

We ended the Chapter Leaders meeting with a panel discussion. In years past we had breakout sessions, in which we meet in small groups around tables, and each table discusses a different subject. I was kind of disappointed not to have one this time.

Thai meal at restaurant in San Jose

After the day’s events my traveling companions and I drove into San Jose to find some dinner. We ate at a Thai restaurant. We had some roast duck, a chicken thing (that I can’t remember the name of), salad, and a couple of sauces. One side dish was a pineapple chutney-type sauce that we figured had traditionally been fermented. Jasmine rice was served in a cup made from a piece of real bamboo.

Wise Traditions Conference 2012:

Part 1 – Wednesday
Part 2 – Thursday
Part 3 – Friday
Part 4 – Saturday
Part 5 – Sunday

Wise Traditions 2011 (Lisa) Friday

Friday

Wise Traditions 2011, the 12th Annual, Weston A. Price Foundation Conference. November 11th to 14th, 2011. The theme of this conference was “Mythbusters”.

Visit Sponsors

Oatmeal Bar Breakfast

The conference began on Friday with an “Oatmeal Bar”. Breakfast was not included in the conference registration fee but was provided as a fundraiser for the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund. I know from experience that I don’t do well with oatmeal for breakfast, even when it is properly prepared. So I bought two boiled free-range eggs and the sausage and biscuits. There were also blueberries, crispy nuts, butter, and cream for the oatmeal, and tea, kefir, local grass-fed milk, fruit and other items for sale.

Tracks

The conference was broken into several “tracks” that were all running at the same time. This made choosing which one to attend difficult. On Friday the tracks were:

I. TRADITIONAL DIETS
Part 1, 2, & 3 by Sally Fallon Morell
II. GUT & PSYCHOLOGY
Part 1, 2, & 3 by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
III. NUTRITION & METABOLISM:
Part 1, 2, & 3 by Stephanie Seneff, PhD
IV. BIODYNAMIC FARMING:
Part 1 – The Biodynamic Preps by Hugh Lovell
Part 2 – Biodynamic Bovine Care by Michael Schmidt
Part 3 – Biodynamic and Practical Bee Care by Christy Hemenway
V. FOOD PREPARATION
Part 1 – Traditional Cooking by Tara Rayburn
Part 2 – Broth Based Soups and Stews by Jessica Prentice
Part 3 – Gluten-Free Sourdough by Sharon Kane

During the first session I was so excited about being at the conference, that I found I couldn’t sit still to listen to any one speaker, so wandered the sponsor’s tables and peeked in on all the talks.

Traditional Diets by Sally Fallon Morell

Sally’s six-hour presentation is well worth attending. You owe it to your self to see it at least once. We have shown a version of this presentation at our Popcorn Review DVD showings, and will show it again sometime in the future.

Gut And Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) by Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD, HMC, CCH

Gut & Psychology Syndrome - Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD

When I attended my first Wise Traditions conference in 2007, hearing Dr. Natasha speak was the highlight of my trip. The basis of her talk is that the brain is intimately connected to what is going on in the gut, and that healing the digestive system can clear up many so-called psychiatric or neurological (and physical) disorders. We have shown her presentations at our Popcorn Review in the past, and will probably show this presentation, as I understand that there was new information presented that was not available a couple years ago.

Nutrition and Metabolism by Stephanie Seneff, PhD

Nutrition and Metabolism - Stephanie Seneff, PhD

Stephanie’s presentations are very in-depth and interesting. We have shown two of Stephanie’s presentations at our Popcorn Review. She makes a clear biological case for needing such nutrients as cholesterol, fat and sulfur in the diet.

Biodynamic Preps - Hugh Lovell

Farming Track

This year I didn’t stay in any of the Farming track presentations. In 2009 I spent most of one day in the farming track. I find the farming tracks very interesting even though I am not a farmer. I like to know what good farmers are doing, and what I, as a consumer of farm products should be looking for. I would love to show some of the DVDs from this track to local farmers and consumers.

I mostly attended the Food Preparation track.

Lunch

Friday Lunch

Friday Lunch featured some very interesting coconut wraps, cheese, veggies, salsa, chicken and baked apples for desert.

View the conference menu.

Broth Based Soups and Stews

Broth Based Soups and Stews - Jessica Prentice

After lunch I attended Broth Based Soups and Stews. Jessica Prentice, owner of Three Stone Hearth in California and author of Full Moon Feast, is a wonderful speaker. She has a great way of grouping together different recipes so that you can see the patterns behind them. In this presentation she talked about how traditional cultures all over the world used similar techniques to make soups and stews. She gave examples of recipes that fell into different categories of cooking techniques. This gave us the opportunity to look at recipes that we decide to make not simply as instructions to follow, but allows us to see the pattern it fits into, and this gives us flexibility to modify the recipe.

Gluten-Free Sourdough

Gluten -Free Sourdough - Sharon Kane

For the third session of the day I continued with the food preparation track and attended Gluten-Free Sourdough. Sharon Kane described her experience of learning to make traditional sourdough breads only to discover that she was severely gluten intolerant. She was told on all the sourdough-making sites that gluten-free sourdough was not possible. Through her own perseverance she discovered the process needed to work with gluten-free grains and seeds. She uses kefir (?) to start each batch in order to get the fermentation process going quickly enough to work with these alternative grains. She does not keep a sourdough starter going at all times, but instead usually starts each batch with fresh starter.

Gluten -Free Sourdough - Sharon Kane

At the end of the session Sharon Kane gave us all samples of her Teff-Carob bread. Yummy! She had helpers toasting pieces in the back of the room and the smell was simply wonderful.

I bought her book and hope to be able to teach these recipes sometime in the future.

Friday Dinner

Friday Dinner

Pork sausages, pulled pork, baked beans, garlic sauerkraut, potato chips fried lard, bread and lots of butter. For a sweet treat there was watermelon slices drizzled with balsamic vinegar. The sausages were a little too dry by the time I got any, but otherwise fairly good food. I thought the balsamic vinegar on watermelon was a strange combination, but it was nice.

The meals are all eaten at large round tables that hold at least I had a lovely conversation with someone I met at the table. She said she was going to blog about it. I took a picture of her “butter with a little bread”.

We WAPFers like our butter! This was my neighbor's bread & butter

Evening Activities

Sally said that at previous events they used to wonder what people wanted to do in the evening, and tried organizing social events. When conference reviews came back, they found that what attendees wanted was more education!

So in the evening we had the choice of five more activities:

Radical Medicine: “Removing the Obstacles to Cure” by Louisa Williams
Film: The Greater Good by Leslie (Bradshaw) Manooklan
Obesity Myths by Ben Pratt
Cod Liver Oil by David Wetzel
Real Food – Bloggers Panel

Cod Liver Oil

The History of Cod Liver Oil - David Wetzel

I attended the presentation on Cod Liver Oil. David Wetzel is the owner of Green Pasture, the first cod liver oil bottler in modern times to make cod liver oil through the original technique of fermentation.

His presentation covered the history of cod liver oil including many photos of original packaging and advertisements for cod liver oil. He outlined the change that occurred when industrial processes of refining, bleaching, deodorizing the oil took over the market. Instead of the advertising focusing on the health benefits of cod liver oil (that were well known at that time) they focused on the tastelessness of the product. They claimed how easy it would be to get your children to take it. They didn’t seem to know or maybe care, that the tasteless product lost most of its nutritional value.

I thought it was a great talk. Unfortunately this presentation was not recorded. I spoke to David Wetzel after his talk and found out that he is willing to come to Eugene (from Nebraska) to give this presentation to us if we have 25 people who are interested in hearing it. Please let me know if you would be interested in hearing this talk.

Traveling Light

This was the first year I attended the conference without my son along. He went to his first conference in Virginia, when he was just barely two, and slept through most of it in a carrier on my chest. He is six now, and had a great time spending the weekend with his grandparents, aunt and cousin. The conference provides childcare and activities for children for a reasonable extra fee. My son did fine in childcare, but I enjoyed “traveling light” this time.

Stay tuned to the Eugene Chapter Newsletters for more highlights from the Wise Traditions 2011 conference.

Wise Traditions 2012

It is not too early to start planning to attend the 2012 conference, which will be in California! Several of us from Eugene will be attending, and I am sure there will be opportunities to carpool, caravan, travel by air, or share rooms together.

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