open house report

[Guest guest]

ok. i think i'm all recovered now

we had 200 people come by!! we gave out tons of information - we had no

copies left of the statin and high cholesterol articles, only one soy

article left, and only a few soy brochures left. those were the ones i

cared most about. also all the children's nutritional guidelines (ie, feed

your kids fat) went too.

of the stuff that remained, it was mostly brochures that i had stocked

really well, and at that i still had few left. i sold four copies of

nourishing traditions, which i thought was pretty good considering that we

live in a fairly economically depressed area (paper is " free " , books cost.)

there are two families who have already contacted me for nutritional

classes (we do a four-week series where we completely make over a family's

diet a la WAPF, teaching them what to eat, where to get it, and how to

cook/prepare it), and that will be another two books too! i love how much

printed information is out in the hands of people now...for every person

that took something, that's how many of their friends who will also get the

message!

of course there were also plethoric children cuddling lambs and chicks,

admiring our rather drunken cows (who had just been let out to fresh

pasture), and learning where their food comes from (or should come from).

there were many excellent conversations - interestingly, the two most

" heated " discussions about soy (although i'd promised myself i wouldn't

debate, and i do think i did a good job) were with men! on reflection, i'm

betting they were men whose wives made them eat this " stuff " because it's

" good for them " and as we know, there's no zealot like a convert

(especially a converted husband!)

my favorite part of the day was a woman who said, with the statin article

in hand: oh...my husband is on statins...i should read this! WHEE! of

course she went on to say " i've avoided statins so far - i got my

cholesterol down 100 points with diet alone! " to which i responded kindly

that it's a shame, because cholesterol is a great benefit to the body.

i'd come up with an analogy that i used quite frequently, and if i'm

actually plagiarizing someone forgive me - i don't remember hearing this

before, but...

if you went to the doctor and he said you have a high white blood cell

count, he would *not* tell you to take drugs to lower your white blood cell

count. he would tell you you're sick, and that you need to cure the

sickness so that your body can recover. no one would accuse the white blood

cells - they're just doing their job, protecting you.

so tell me why then, when you go to the doctor and he says your cholesterol

is high, does he not say " well, it seems your cholesterol is high*. is

there something going on in your body that we should be addressing? " but

instead he says " oh, let's just sweep that under the rug...take this

drug... " [* where high has been more accurately defined than is the current

trend]

when you put it that way, people really got the point!

we also fed people strawberry kefir smoothies, which most people really

liked but one woman said " these must have been out a while...it's gone

sour! " she made quite the face when i told her it was supposed to be that

way. also in the probiotic vein we served a very nice lambic ale (though it

was still just a tinge on the sweet side for my taste) that was apple juice

fermented with kefir whey - everyone loved it, even the kids! we also

served quite healthy oatmealless raisin cookies to demonstrate that

gluten-free can still be tasty - they were also quite the hit. the most

frequently repeated comment there was " oooh, i can taste the butter! " and

it really made me wonder what all these people are baking with that they

were so overcome by really not at all an abnormal amount of butter for a

cookie...

next up, a public cooking class held at the local co-op and sponsored by

the local hospital, on november 23rd on the subject of thanksgiving

leftovers...which i plan to dedicate largely to turkey carcass broth!! wooo!

-katja