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Welcome back, listeners! In this episode host Hilda explores the stories of seven individuals transformed by real food and ancestral traditions. From health challenges to nutrient-rich diets and traditional wisdom, guests share their journeys to better health.
You’ll hear from Saritah on addressing military-related weight issues with keto principles and nutrient-rich foods; Corey Dunn on managing her child’s severe eczema by eliminating gluten and dairy; and Janine Farzin on revitalizing her diet with sacred foods high in fat-soluble vitamins. Medea Galligan breaks down the importance of fermented soy products and the pitfalls of non-fermented soy, while Erin Meschke recounts her recovery from a challenging childhood through dietary changes. Finally, Kristen Files shares how living foods rejuvenated her energy levels.
Tune in for practical tips, stories, and insights into traditional dietary practices. Don’t miss our promotions from PaleoValley and American Blossom Linens for health and comfort. Get ready to be inspired and reevaluate your wellness approach!
Connect with our guests:
Subscribe to Wise Traditions on Apple Podcasts
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Listen to the episode here
Key Takeaways:
-Principles of the Weston A. Price Foundation
-Nutrient-Dense Foods
-Cultural Practices and Modern Diets
-Overcoming Health Issues with Food
-Breastfeeding and Early Nutrition
-Holistic Approach to Wellness
Watch the full episode here:
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction
00:43 – Weight Struggles and Keto Diet Discoveries
04:09 – Transitioning to a Nutrient-Rich Diet with Organ Capsules
07:47 – Benefits of Frozen Liver Pills and Fermented Cod Oil
10:16 – Health Issues Arising from a Strict Low-Fat Diet
13:02 – Challenges of Eating Liver and Unpleasant Tastes
17:19 – PaleoValley Beef Sticks: Sustainable and Nutritious
19:48 – Eco-Friendly US-Made Natural Fiber Sheets at a Discount
23:41 – Overcoming Struggles and Finding Healing Through Food
27:43 – Health Tips Recommended by Podcast Guests
31:06 – The Foundational Role of Nutrition in Wellness
33:29 – Life-Changing Spanish Podcast for Families
37:40 – Outro
Quote of the Episode:
“Check your shelf, find what doesn’t nourish or serve you, toss it out. Refresh your choices!”—Saritah
“I say taking ownership of your health means incorporating living foods like ferments, raw milk, and quality meats. Focus on what you can add to your diet first.” —Kristen Files
“When you cook at home, you select the ingredients. It’s simple to avoid things not in line with your values.”—Corey Dunn
“Muscle meat isn’t enough. Balance it with connective tissue, amino acids from organ meats and bones. Support local farmers for deep nourishment.”—Janine Farzin
“Discover your leader. Dive into the world of real food, fermentation, and bone broth. Elevate well-being, nurture your body, and witness self-healing.” —Medea Galligan
Produced by Heartcast Media
https://www.heartcastmedia.com
Transcript:
Announcer:
From the Weston A Price Foundation, welcome to the Wise Traditions podcast for wise traditions in food, farming and the healing arts. We are your source for scientific knowledge and traditional wisdom to help you achieve optimal health. And now here is our host and producer, Hilda Labrada Gore.
Hilda:
Hey. Hilda here. A kid covered with eczema, a woman born tired, a soldier bedeviled by weight issues, another woman on a standard American diet, one with an eating disorder, and yet another with chronic strep. This is episode 500. And in honor of this milestone, we wanted to share some of your own stories with you of people who have changed their lives by incorporating real food and ancestral tradition. All of the aforementioned concerns were resolved thanks to people taking and making shifts and taking steps to improve their health. You’ll hear 7 stories in approximately 30 minutes. Most of the guests on today’s episode are actually Weston a Price Foundation chapter leaders, and they’ve benefited so much from the foundation’s principles that they wanna give back to their families and their communities and the world.
Hilda:
You can find your own chapter leader, by the way, on our website, westonaprice.org. Today, you’ll hear from Sarita, Corey Dunn, Janine Farzan, Kristin Fyles, Madea Galligan, and Erin Leschke. Juliana Fajardo was also an addition. Not every single one of these women is a chapter leader, but maybe one day they will be. And if you’d like to come to next year’s conference, by the way, we connected with these women in Orlando at the Wise Traditions Conference. And next year, it’s gonna be in Salt Lake City. So stick close to find out more about that. And if you’re just getting started with your Wise Traditions journey, just become a member with us.
Saritah
You can be a private member only. You can be a part of a private member podcast that we do, and you’ll get the journal. Join hands with us. Go to our website, westnaprice.org, and click on join now. It’s only $30 a year with the code pod 10. And I know gym memberships that cost that much per month. $30 a year, use the code pod 10. And welcome to the family.
Hilda:
This is Hotel Abroad Agor, and you’re listening to Wise Traditions. Welcome to Wise Traditions, Sarita. Hello, Aldo. Thanks for having me. Well, we’re trying to get everybody’s stories. Tell me a little bit about yours. I know it started when you were on duty with the military in Afghanistan. Yep.
Saritah
I did 13 months in Afghanistan, and I had always been, like, on the line of being overweight in the military. And so so then I was like, okay, sure, I’ll eat less and that’ll be fine. And I was running a ton and would get on the shell menu and get chicken breasts and carrots and that worked while I was there. And then I got home and then, you know, gained £30, I was over £155, then I’m only 5 foot, I’m 100BS, I do not have a living pound, it makes a difference. So I was like, okay, well, what can I do? And I started learning about keto. And I was like, okay, keto. So I started absorbing podcasts and learning about that. And every time I would listen to a keto podcast, I was like, oh, and the research of Doctor.
Saritah
Wasser Price. Oh, and Doctor. Wasser Price’s research. And oh, and so I was like, what’s your price? Okay. And then all of a sudden I was like, oh, okay, well, let me find out more about that. And they’re like, oh, I I went to the website and I was like, oh, there’s chapters. I’m like, what, there’s chapters? I’m like, oh, Madison, Wisconsin. There’s a chapter right in there.
Juliana Fajardo:
I said, what the heck?
Saritah
So I called my chapter leader and I said, all right, I’m sold. Give me some raw milk and let’s do it. So that’s kinda how it started. And just
Hilda:
to clarify, you don’t have to become a member to go to a chapter. It’s just like an organizing group that helps you find real food in your community. Right?
Saritah
Yeah. And the chapter leader who was president before I inherited the chapter, she had been a chapter leader for a long, long time, so she had been doing it and had a lot of community connections, but our pharmacist is excellent. So it’s really, really good.
Hilda:
Wow. And so what changes did you notice when he went from keto, let’s say, to more
Saritah
of the wise traditions way? So I know, like, when I started the keto journey, my body just changed rapidly, but I don’t think it was as nutrient dense as I’m eating now. So when I started learning about Weston price, I added in raw milk, and that’s when I really started adding in organs and liver passe and, you know, dabbling was, like, okay, so if I’m not gonna eat it every week or if there’s certain things I’m, like, I don’t know if I can get that. Doing organ capsules, that kind of thing. So it sort of changed. And then my husband got more on board with, like, having more nutrient test food. Like, oh, honey, let’s buy a cow. So, like, sorry, we need to buy a freezer. No.
Saritah
I can’t. Put a whole cow in it.
Saritah
And he’s like, sure. Well, speaking of your husband, I saw that you have a little baby. Yep. Mhmm.
Hilda:
3 months old. Oh my gosh. Congratulations. Yep. She’s a little Western Price baby. Well, and by
Saritah
that, I take it you mean you’re nourishing yourself well and you’re doing your best to have your breast milk be nutrient dense for
Saritah
the baby. Definitely. Yep. Yep. That’s been a high priority for me. So I know getting in the fats, definitely protein, protein, protein, you know, it actually takes more nutrients to breastfeed a baby than it does to just stay in a baby, so I’ve been really focusing on steps. Not everybody knows that.
Saritah
They think you need to eat more when you’re pregnant, but you actually need more nutrients and more calories when you’re breastfeeding. So let’s just wrap up now with the question I love to pose at the end. If the listener could just do one thing that improves their health, what would
Hilda:
Do you recommend that they do? Of that.
Saritah
Take one thing out of your hand tree that you know is bad for you.
Hilda:
That’s for an arch. Yeah.
Saritah
That’s good. Just one thing. Yep. Take a look at the shelf, pick one thing you’re like, you know what? That is not nourishing me, not serving me, get rid of it, throw it away. I love it.
Hilda:
Thank you, Sarita. What a pleasure. Bless you, Hilda. Welcome to Wise Traditions, Corey. Thanks, Hilda. So I know a little bit about your story because we’re friends. Yep. But you’re also a coach after a leader.
Corey Dunn:
So I wanted to ask you to tell the world, what was it that precipitated your finding the Weston A. Price Foundation? What was going on health wise with your family?
Corey Dunn:
So, when my second baby was born, she had eczema all over her body, and we kind of went down the traditional wellness doctor path for about 6 months and realized it wasn’t doing anything. It was making things maybe worse. And, thankfully, my mom had already read Sally’s book.
Hilda:
Oh.
Corey Dunn:
And so she said, you know what? I think you should try cutting out gluten, and you should try cutting out dairy. So we did that, and her body cleared up completely. And I’m telling you, she had eczema from her neck down
Corey Dunn:
all the
Corey Dunn:
way to her ankles.
Hilda:
Oh my god.
Corey Dunn:
And it was gone within a week. So that kind of, you know, had a light bulb under in my brain, and I went, there’s something to what we’re eating, and it doesn’t just have to do with weight. Because before that I had just kind of, you know, put food on weight and it didn’t really affect anything else, but that, you know, really shifted my mindset.
Hilda:
It’s like you realized what Hippocrates said so many years ago. Let thy food be thy medicine. Yep. It literally was for your daughter. Yeah. 100%. And then what other shifts did you make?
Corey Dunn:
So then, you know, I was a young mom at that point. I had 2 babies. I sort of was slowly making changes. We went paleo for a while, and then, by the time I had my 3rd baby, I had actually read Nourishing Traditions. So I myself had read it, and I started incorporating we went you know, we drove across the state
Corey Dunn:
line to buy raw milk.
Corey Dunn:
Uh-huh. We started, taking frozen liver pills, you know, where you, like, cut the liver up really tiny. And then I had and I took fermented cod liver oil, and I had such a beautiful, healthy baby. So because I was doing that through my pregnancy. Yes. And then, I had another baby, same thing. She was just so healthy and so beautiful, and then it’s just kind of every year or every 6 months or whenever I felt comfortable. Yeah. I would just add more things and more things and more things onto our lifestyle.
Hilda:
How does that work when you’ve got 4 kids? You’re a busy mom. You’re homeschooling too.
Hilda:
Yeah.
Corey Dunn:
You’ve got a podcast of your own. Like, how do you manage it all? Is it hard to feed them this nutrient dense food consistently? Sometimes. Yeah.
Corey Dunn:
I mean, let’s be honest. It’s more work.
Hilda:
Yeah.
Medea Galligan:
But it’s worth it.
Hilda:
Yeah.
Corey Dunn:
And I’ve gotten to the point, you know, where it’s mostly normal for us.
Hilda:
Uh-huh.
Corey Dunn:
But I’ve been doing it for years. So I don’t think it’s something that is very easy to do in a heartbeat, but I think it’s something that’s worth working towards.
Hilda:
Right. And it’s like more often than not, you’re kind of stacking your hacks over time. You’re building that into your kind of schedule to go get the raw milk and this is how we do it. I’ve seen your meal planning stuff on Instagram and stuff, so that’s fabulous. I’m so happy for you and your family.
Corey Dunn:
Yeah.
Corey Dunn:
Thank you.
Hilda:
And that your second is now eczema free. Yeah. So I wanna pose to you now the question I like to pose at the end of the podcast. If a listener could just do one thing, Corrie, just one thing to improve their health or their family’s health, what would you recommend that they do?
Corey Dunn:
I think that when I was on the podcast the last time, I thought I said cook from scratch, and I think that’s probably gonna stick with that one.
Corey Dunn:
You’re gonna stick with that?
Corey Dunn:
I’m gonna stick with it because I think that if you’re cooking at home from scratch, you’re already doing way more than most Americans are doing.
Hilda:
Mhmm.
Corey Dunn:
And when you’re cooking at home, you get to choose the ingredients. So it’s easy to avoid those things that don’t align with your values.
Hilda:
Right. Right. And you’re putting in that extra vitamin l for love. Yes. That’s what I say. Thank you so much, Cori.
Hilda:
I appreciate
Hilda:
your time today. Yep. Welcome to Wise Traditions, Janine. Thanks, Zelda. So I know that your health wasn’t perfect, and actually maybe it was far from perfect when you were in your teens. Tell me a little bit about what it was like. Well,
Janine Farzin:
you know, the crazy thing is I actually thought, because I followed the standard American guidelines and I was really strict about low fat and things like that. I thought that I was healthy, but I was so tired all the time and I had menstrual problems and I was often in pain and I would get sick really easily. And, one time I bumped into a chair and I actually broke my toe, like, just from bumping into a chair. Like, I just felt so fragile and weak. Wow. And, yeah. So I think but I felt like that was normal.
Hilda:
When did you realize that it was common but not normal?
Janine Farzin:
Oh, well, a friend of mine encouraged me to read Nutrition and Physicality Generation.
Janine Farzin:
Told me about
Janine Farzin:
the book said, you might be interested in this, and I did. I checked it out at the library. I read it cover to cover, and I realized that radiant health was our birthright. How old were you when that happened? I had 2 kids. I was 32.
Hilda:
Because I just think that book, it’s a little bit challenging. It was written by doctor Weston A Price himself. Book. Uh-huh.
Janine Farzin:
It’s a research topic. Yeah.
Juliana Fajardo:
Yeah. Yeah. But you went for it.
Janine Farzin:
I did. I just checked it out at the library. I had 3 weeks before I had to retort it. I didn’t really think I would read it, but I started and it was a page turner for me at least. I just thought it was really broken up into chapters. Yeah. Like different people groups that he visited and every story was more compelling than the last. Like, I just couldn’t believe that this existed.
Janine Farzin:
It was true that I almost thought
Janine Farzin:
I’d been lied to. Like Yeah.
Janine Farzin:
That this was our birthright, and I didn’t even know it was an option. I thought that what I was experiencing was normal and healthy and healthy.
Hilda:
Because he just talked about right. He talked about the vibrant health of the indigenous people first that came across, and they weren’t eating the packaged processed foods. No. They were eating their traditional local seasonal organic foods. Right. So what was the first shift you made after that?
Janine Farzin:
Well, I really made all the shifts. I mean, I cleaned up my pantry and, I mean, I started driving and picking up raw milk. It was a several hour drive. I was in Illinois at the time and on farm sales for legal, so I had to drive way out of the city to pick it up. But the thing that I took away from that book, like, the thing I really internalized was that every one of these cultures had sacred foods.
Janine Farzin:
And these
Janine Farzin:
are the foods that have the fat soluble vitamins. And in some cultures, it might have been insects because arthropods actually have these nutrients and so do insects, but we don’t eat those in our culture. I mean, we eat those sea insects like crab and lobster. But even now, it’s hard to get the whole thing. Like, when you buy it often, the most nutrient dense part has been removed. It’s Interesting.
Saritah
You know, like, if
Janine Farzin:
you buy crab, you can buy the crab legs. And it’s very hard to get the tamale and, like, the actual shell. So what I perceived from my own understanding of this after reading it was that the organ meats were the most accessible sacred foods that I could access. And so I was all in. I just decided I had no idea. I’d never eaten or cooked any of these things before, but I just decided that, you know, we’re gonna eat organ meats every week starting today. And that was it.
Hilda:
What changes did you notice for your health and energy?
Janine Farzin:
Oh my gosh. Everything changed for me. I just had a sense immediately, like the first time I ate liver, that I I didn’t know the food. It tasted really bad to me. I really didn’t have any. I was so nervous about it and I sat down at the table by myself and I cut the smallest little pieces and I would just chew and chew and chew. And the taste was weird and it was very fatty and I hadn’t been eating any fatty meats. And, I could barely swallow it actually. It was like so I would kind of chug it down with sparkling water and, maybe with some lemon or lime added to it.
Janine Farzin:
Like, I really needed something to get me over that hurdle when I could feel like, I could really feel right away that I like, I felt nourished to the deep, like, cellular level. And so and that’s what brought me back for more. Because I didn’t like that in the beginning, I did not like the flavor.
Janine Farzin:
I did
Janine Farzin:
I did not like it at all, but I could feel that something was changing in my body and that I needed that food. I needed that energy. And so I was like, okay. Like, I also learned during this time that my grandma had served these foods every week of my mom’s life.
Hilda:
Wow. That she grew
Janine Farzin:
up eating nose to tail and had grown up eating liver, but hadn’t served it to us because she didn’t really like it herself. And so I, like, didn’t want us to be American. She came from an immigrant family. So I really felt that, yeah, that is like, I would just do it the way my grandma did it. I would just serve it once a week. And so I was scared about it. I was nervous. It was hard.
Janine Farzin:
It was just so awkward and uncomfortable. I felt so squeamish even taking the meat out of the package because it doesn’t have the same texture. It’s like
Janine Farzin:
a steak
Janine Farzin:
or a chicken pie with their chicken breast. So, yeah, it was really awkward, but, I just feel the difference, like, really at a deep level, and that’s what turned me back for more.
Hilda:
It’s so beautiful. So you threw
Hilda:
the tradition back up again that your mother kinda dropped. Yes. And now, hopefully, your kids will carry it on. I imagine they eat organ meats too.
Janine Farzin:
They do. They were so young. They really didn’t know any different at the time, and now this is part of our family. So
Janine Farzin:
And when did you find the foundation named after Weston a Price? Honestly, it was not right away. I actually got
Janine Farzin:
to the end of the book, and on the very last page, it says, like kept in print or published by the Price Pottenger Foundation. And I looked them up and I consumed all their resources. And I don’t even know, I think it was actually a friend of mine for, like, just by chance, maybe 6 months later, aim it or not. Put a physical copy of Nourishing Tradition, Sally Fallon’s book, in the mail and sent it to me. Like, she had found this information at the same time I had. Wow. It was a friend of mine from college, out of the blue. I hadn’t talked to her in years.
Janine Farzin:
She mailed me this book.
Janine Farzin:
And she
Janine Farzin:
I felt like you needed this. And I was like, what is this? I know that, like, you know, not Francis Ponder, but Weston Price.
Hilda:
Yes.
Hilda:
And this is his namesake foundation. What is this?
Janine Farzin:
That’s it.
Janine Farzin:
And then, I think from that, I was, I mean, I was all in, like, after I read that book from the beginning. But
Hilda:
Yeah. And now I know you’re all in because we’ve actually had you on the podcast talking about orgames. I know you’re a chapter leader. You really make a difference in this space. And I wanna ask you another question I like to pose at the end of the podcast, which you already know. But I’m curious what your answer would be if the listener could just do one thing to improve their health. What would you recommend that they do?
Janine Farzin:
Absolutely nose to tail nose to tail eating. I think that right now, we’re really in a fad of, like, high protein,
Janine Farzin:
high
Janine Farzin:
protein, but muscle meat is not gonna save you. And it really has to be balanced with all the connective tissue, and there’s other amino acids that are in these other cuts. And you they are very high in the organ meats, and they’re very high in the bones and the bone breaths and, you know, tendons and ligaments, all these other cuts. And so if we can really seek those out from our local farmers, we both support them because they may not be as in high demand, and, and then also we nourish our bodies at the deepest level.
Hilda:
Right. And you don’t waste a thing.
Hilda:
So I think that’s beautiful too.
Janine Farzin:
It also honors the animal. It’s so much more sustainable. There are so many things that resonate with me, but it’s really, like, how I feel. I mean, I really come back to it over and over again because when I drink broth every day, when I’m in that habit, like, I I feel it in my skin. I see it. I see it in my hair. You know, so it’s like things like that that kinda keep me going. And then like the liver, I do feel like we do eat liver pretty much every week, but if we might be out of town or something, we notice it.
Janine Farzin:
I feel like people are kind of like, we haven’t had that a lot. I’m like, I know. I feel it too.
Hilda:
We gotta get back to
Hilda:
it. Yeah.
Janine Farzin:
So we do. So we just stick with it and keep them in rotation. I would definitely say nose to tail. Find a way.
Hilda:
Nose to tail. I love it. Alright. Well, thanks for your time today. Yeah.
Janine Farzin:
Thank you, Hilda.
Hilda:
Coming up, we hear the story of a woman who says she was simply born tired, and how she has turned things around.
Hilda:
You’re listening to the Wise Traditions podcast from the Weston A Price Foundation. We pause now to recognize our sponsors.
Hilda:
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Hilda:
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Hilda:
Welcome to Wise Traditions, Kristen. Thanks for having me. So we became friends for a while, and I know that before you found the West and A Price Foundation, you were, like, super exhausted. Tell me more about that time of your life.
Kristen Files:
Yeah. I was tired all the time. So I was born tired, I raised my skin tired, and then I overcame my tiredness. But it used to be anything I did, I had to take a nap. So if I went to a grocery store, it would take an hour and hour to recover to go to the store, and then I used a nap.
Hilda:
And so what did you do to try to pump up your adrenals or to heal yourself at that time?
Kristen Files:
Yeah. So first, I went to conventional medicine, and that was a script, some that didn’t work. Two things,
Kristen Files:
so I think,
Kristen Files:
The Sue Price Foundation was pivotal in my knowledge. So that ancestral wise tradition wise tradition of diet. But I came to this because of our dental health, which was really, really poor at the time. And then also, I had a trial. My 4th trail, and we were we may or she could not drink. Of watches. And so we brought raw milk into our lives, and that made a huge difference. And that was just a snowball of Bekir Grand Canyon.
Hilda:
Oh my gosh. And so how did your family, as the older kids, respond as you transitioned to a more new TransDent diet, more ancestrally aligned?
Kristen Files:
Yeah. They actually loved it because I was cooking real food, and it was bursting with flavor, and carrots actually tasted good, and potatoes tasted good. And, I remember my husband just complaining about the cost of a farm potato versus a Walmart potato. Asked one time I made baked potatoes, like, this is the best potato I’ve ever had in my life. You know, jeez. That’s farm potato, you do what you wanna pay for. So Yeah. I think real food made a difference.
Kristen Files:
They loved it. They were totally on 4. Raw milk wants to try it. Yeah. That’s beautiful.
Hilda:
I know. I feel that way. Alright. So now I have to pose you the question I love to pose at the end. If a listener could do one thing to improve their health, and in your case, I might have to do it with fatigue. What would you recommend that they
Kristen Files:
to overcome that? So usually I say taking ownership of your health when I’m gonna go a little bit further and say eat living foods. So if you could add in some ferments, some raw milk, some good quality meats, I think those things can go a long way, and focusing maybe first on what you can add it into your diet,
Kristen Files:
because I feel like that’s
Kristen Files:
a little bit easier for people than cutting everything out of style.
Hilda:
Oh, I like that kind of adding in, it’ll crowd out
Kristen Files:
the other stuff. Yeah. Exactly. I love it. Thanks, Kristen. No problem.
Hilda:
Welcome to Wise Traditions, Madea.
Medea Galligan:
Thank you so much, Hilda. I’m so happy to be here, and what a great experience.
Hilda:
It’s so fun. We’re at the conference together. And I heard you say that you feel like you’re healthier at 58 than you were at 28. Can you explain?
Medea Galligan:
Yes. Absolutely. Well, knowledge is power. Right? So when, you know, after, growing up in the eighties and dieting and you can’t be too thin and kinda having a difficult time through high school and college, like a lot of young women with dieting, an eating disorder, which I will say a lot of people have struggled, especially women and there’s men too. And, when I finally came out of that, and I was very severely depressed for a lot of years too, and I was a pre med student at college, I really wanted to understand how does the body heal? How does food become medicine?
Medea Galligan:
And, And
Hilda:
so somehow as a pre med major, you still didn’t link those 2?
Medea Galligan:
Well, because that’s not what they were teaching me. Right? Wow. So you’re studying for the MCAT. You’re memorizing, and you’re regurgitating, but you’re not really learning. What I learned now is anatomy and physiology. How does the body work? How does the pH of the stomach affect the release of bile from the gallbladder? Right? How does the intestines take food, digest it, and allow the body to absorb and get nourished?
Hilda:
Mhmm.
Medea Galligan:
So we are healthy. So over the last 40 years, these are the things I’ve learned Wow. For myself and that I teach And
Hilda:
Yes. And You were telling me that you have very practical ways in which you help your clients and others understand that real food can be delicious. Yes. And nutrient dense. Yes. And so I wanna ask you, when did you come across the Weston A. Price Foundation?
Medea Galligan:
So, after I got a degree, I ended up doing environmental science at a pre med. I said I can’t go down that path. I really want to know how preventative medicine works. It wasn’t available in the eighties, and I spent time in South America as a Peace Corps volunteer seeing people who were a 100 chopping wood first thing in the morning. Wow. Healthy, functional people living in very rural environments. So that was a real learning experience. When I came back and I started my family, I ended up getting a master’s in nutrition, and moved to South Florida.
Hilda:
I remember leaving Nutrition World in West West Palm Beach, as a new functional medicine nutritionist, or at that time I was doing holistic nutrition, and seeing a pamphlet that said soy alert. Ah. Okay? And this was at the time when early 2000, you couldn’t get enough soy.
Medea Galligan:
Oh. Right? Remember? I don’t remember the soy.
Medea Galligan:
There was t, TBP, textured vegetable protein. Uh-huh. Right? Right? Meat, we wanna get away from. Meat’s bad, it’s causing heart disease, we were told. And soy. Soy’s good. Hot flashes of soy are good. You know, soy soy soy, soy milk, soy bars.
Medea Galligan:
Yeah. Yeah. And I see this thing that has Soylert with an x to it, and I was like, This is what was so great, it let me open my mind when we’re learning about science and health and nutrition, not to confirm what we already think is true, but be open to new perspectives and new information. And that’s what was most interesting. And I was like, wow. I didn’t know the importance of fermentation. And that there’s a huge difference between fermented soy and unfermented soy.
Hilda:
Uh-huh. That’s true.
Medea Galligan:
Yes. And so, right? And so miso, natto, and tempeh being the only forms of fermented soy, and how those are really beneficial for us. But of course, soy milk, and soy oil, and all this stuff is not helping us. So creating hormonal imbalance. So that was my introduction. From then I joined Weston A. Price. Uh-huh.
Medea Galligan:
And I had the information. I’ve been using it for myself and with my clients for years, educating them about the importance of cholesterol, the truth about heart disease. It’s one of my main resources, about mental health, about depression and anxiety really coming from the gut. Yes.
Hilda:
So many things. And, you know, we have a Wise Traditions podcast on all those subjects. We did Yes. A recent series this past summer on high cholesterol. We’ve interviewed doctor Kelly Brogan about depression. So I’m really glad that you found the foundation and that you’ve had that open mind about exploring different things. Now I wanna pose to you my day. The question I like to pose at the end of the podcast is, if the listener could just do one thing to improve their health, what would you recommend that they do?
Medea Galligan:
I’m thinking of tuning into a podcast. I think going to Weston Egg Price. I think I am a chapter leader in Nagels, Florida. I still had started a chapter, back in 2011 in Burnsville, North Carolina first. I think finding your chapter leader, using the resources, learning about the power of real food, of fermentation, of bone broth, and when we eat better, we feel better, and we’re supporting the body in healing itself. So stop chasing symptoms, stop chasing band aids
Hilda:
Yeah.
Medea Galligan:
And really enjoy simple, healthy, easy, delicious, affordable food. And your life will change.
Hilda:
Easy, delicious. I like that. You like it, thank you.
Hilda:
Thank you, Hailey.
Hilda:
Welcome to WISE Traditions, Erin. Hi, Hailey. Thanks for having me. So I’ve heard
Hilda:
You say you grew up sick. Tell me more about that. Yeah. So I grew up in
Erin Meschke:
the Midwest, and I was on a standard American diet, which basically consisted of casseroles and sugar. And because of that and living in a moldy basement, I actually grew up with chronic strep. I had strep 4 to 6 times a year, which means I was constantly on antibiotics. 4 to 6 times a year until my early twenties. And then, when I graduated from college, my husband and I moved to Colorado.
Hilda:
Yeah.
Erin Meschke:
And the drier environment and not being in mold helped to alleviate a little bit of those problems, but the small food changes I was making was making a much bigger difference.
Hilda:
And how did you find out about the Wesleyan Net Price Foundation?
Erin Meschke:
So I didn’t find out about the Wesleyanet Price Foundation until about You’re off. 8 years ago. I was having some gut issues. I was listening to some summits, and you were interviewed on one of them. And that’s why I found the podcast. Uh-huh. And I blew through 300 episodes in, like, 6 months. Oh, my gosh.
Erin Meschke:
Every time I was, like, my kids would be at school, I would be cooking, I would be walking, I’d be running errands. I’ve always had a podcast and listened to all of them, and I actually bought Sally’s cookbook, the Nourishing Traditions Cookbook in the early 2000. It’s, like, probably within the first few years that it was released. But it was so overwhelming to me because of my background. Yeah. That it was kind of like a reference occasionally, but the recipes, I never had all the ingredients. It was, like, so overwhelming. Yeah. To think about how to make these nourishing, you know, things. I I I thought it was a good cook because I could, like, reheat some pasta sauce.
Erin Meschke:
I cooked some noodles, and it tasted good. Right? Yeah. I had no idea about nutrient density.
Hilda:
Yeah.
Erin Meschke:
But when we fast forward a couple decades, I’m teaching a cooking class now that’s all based on the wise traditions, you know, ancestral, the characters, the ideas. Yeah. And I’m a chapter leader and I help people find raw milk and farms and other things like that. So it’s completely transformed my health, my children’s health, and I also help the community around. Right? Yeah. Because that’s such a big deal.
Hilda:
So you’re glowing now. So you were sick and now it’s come full circle. You are helping other people heal.
Hilda:
Yeah. That is so beautiful. So now
Hilda:
I wanna ask you the question I love to pose at the end. If the listener could just do one thing to improve their health, what would you recommend that they do?
Erin Meschke:
Because, I mean, there’s such a long list and it can be so overwhelming, but I think the one of the biggest things, it does start with nutrition. It does. That I guess that has to be because I could say breathing and sleeping and all of these things, right, and proper movement, but the food is the piece that’s at the root of all of it. You can’t make these changes if your brain’s not nourished. Right. You can’t actually move forward if you’re constantly sick and you don’t have motivation and so those are the things that the food is really, I think, where it starts and everything else kinda falls in place.
Hilda:
Yes, food is foundational. Well, thank you, Anna. I’ll try it. I’ll take it.
Erin Meschke:
Thank you.
Hilda:
Welcome to Wise Trishants, Juliana. Thank you.
Juliana Fajardo:
Appreciate it. So you are
Hilda:
a young mom and you said that you started getting into this health space because you were curious about vaccinations. Tell me a little bit about that story.
Juliana Fajardo:
I mean, I used to think that people who didn’t vaccinate their kids were just dumb, really. Like, it’s so sorry. But, like, why would you not give your kid, like, this life saving thing? And then a friend of mine, her best friend, my best friend, her baby, who was injured by a vaccine. And hearing her story, I was still really skeptical. My college roommate, her kid was also injured. And then 2 other friends, not serious injuries, but still injuries nonetheless. And that, I was like, alright, something’s going on. And now, like, seeing, like, all the rising rates of, like, autism and chronic disease in children, I just got really curious.
Juliana Fajardo:
And if I had time to research, like, what stroller should I get for my baby? And, like, you know, what’s the best car seat and all these things, I figured I should also research what’s gonna go into my child’s body. Of course. Now, how did your family react? They’re very like pro Western medicine. Don’t question the doctor. They think I’m crazy for not vaccinating my kid. When he was born, I received a lot of phone calls. I’m like, holy, please vaccinate Wyatt. Like, this is not okay.
Juliana Fajardo:
Like, we need to protect him, the whole thing. And I was like, oh, thanks. We’ll see. I’ll talk to my husband about it. But like, that’s it. Like, I didn’t really wanna give any details at first. And then as they like started sort of opening up a little bit, I’ve been sharing things. And now my mom is super on board with me.
Juliana Fajardo:
Like, my uncle is kind of seeing the light there, and so I feel like they’re, like, it’s shifting. Yeah.
Hilda:
It’s so exciting. And I think you said the podcast has been a
Juliana Fajardo:
tool for you too. Right? Yeah. 100%. I I was telling you earlier, I was like in tears because it’s just been so life changing. All the information that you provide, the people that you interview, then finding this podcast in Spanish because my family all speaks Spanish. It just makes all the difference because they can see, like, they can hear for themselves this information and that’s not just me telling them, they’re yeah. They’re able to hear from experts that you interview or that Annette and Alberto interview.
Hilda:
Yeah. So, yeah. Because then otherwise, they could be like, well, that’s Julie. She’s saying your stuff. But now they can hear other people share it, and so it’s changing their life. Tell me about your mom, for example.
Juliana Fajardo:
Well, my mom loves butter. And butter has been demonized for years, and so, she was really relieved to hear that butter was great for you. Because she, like, slathers butter on everything. So that was one thing that was really exciting for her. She used to feed me liver, actually, when I was little. Yeah. And I used to hate it. And then, growing up, I was like, oh, and I was so dumb, like, why would she feed me liver? And I’m like, oh, thank you, Mon.
Juliana Fajardo:
Thanks for feeding me all the liver, because I’m sure it made a huge difference. So, all of this has helped you
Hilda:
and your family embraces Wise Traditions. 100%.
Juliana Fajardo:
Yeah. That’s I don’t think that we would’ve found all of this information so, like, maybe quickly and accessible, I guess, and all, like, put together if it wasn’t for, the Wesleyan A. Price Foundation and the Wise Traditions podcast, which is like, makes it so easy. I can just listen to it when I’m in the car, you know, doing dishes or whatever is. Yeah.
Hilda:
That’s the goal is just to put it out there as a tool. And so now you have listened to the podcast, so I wanna pose to you the question we love to pose at the end of the show. If the listener could just do one thing or the viewer, if they could just do one thing to improve their health, Huli, and, you know, Lino, you’re just a mom, you know, you don’t have to have all this health background, but what would you recommend that they do?
Juliana Fajardo:
Go outside. I think that’s one thing that’s made a big difference in our lives as well.
Hilda:
Yeah.
Juliana Fajardo:
We’re just trying to get outside as much as we can. Lose the screens, go outside. That would be my message.
Hilda:
I love it.
Juliana Fajardo:
And listen to my traditions. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you.
Hilda:
Our guests today were Sarita, Corrie Dunn, Janine Farsen, Kristen Fildes, Medea Galligan, and Aaron Meschke, and Juliana Fajardo. I’ll put their websites and links to connect with them in the episode description. And I am Hilda Labradagore, the host and producer of this podcast on behalf of the Weston a Price Foundation. You can find me at holistichilda.com. And for the transcript for this episode, visit our website, Weston a price dot org, and click on the podcast page. And now for a recent review from Apple Podcast, Wontero California said best ever. You do such a good job at keeping the interviews on track and real. It has changed my life.
Hilda:
The content is relevant. You don’t get confused by fad, diets, and crazy things. It’s so Westin Price. Thank you so much for your review. It is so Westin Price because this is the Weston a Price Foundation’s podcast, Wise Traditions. I am happy to host and produce it on their behalf. And you too can rate and review our show. Simply go to Apple Podcasts.
Hilda:
Give us as many stars as you would like. Let the world know that this show is worth listening to. Every review makes a difference. And thank you so much for listening, my friend. Day well, and remember to keep your feet on the ground and your face to the sun.
Hilda:
On behalf of the Weston a Price Foundation, thanks for listening. We have many free resources to support you on your health journey. Visitwestonaprice.org to find podcasts, articles, videos, and more. You can also find a local chapter near you for help in finding sources of great food. We invite you to support the foundation’s mission of education, research, and activism by becoming a member. Thanks again and take care. Wise Traditions is a project of the Weston A. Price Foundation for wise traditions in food, farming, and the healing arts.
Hilda:
The content on this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to substitute for the advice provided by your doctor or other health care professional. It is not intended to be nor does it constitute health care or medical advice.
Deja vu/entendu? I think the link posted is for last week’s episode.