The Weston A. Price Foundation Newsletter January 2019

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A NEW YEARS RESOLUTION

Happy New Year to all WAPF members!  Please join us in a new year’s resolution: make a point of spending at least half your food budget to purchase directly from farmers and artisans. The forces of consolidation and monopoly in the food industry are tightening the noose, especially for dairy farmers.  There is really only one way to fight back and that is to buy direct and support your local farmer. We like to say: spend 50 percent of your food dollars supporting local farmers and artisans, and with the other 50 percent, you can celebrate how small the world has become, enjoying healthy foods from the world over.

12 SPOONS RESTAURANT RATING PROJECT IS LAUNCHED!

After many setbacks, our 12 Spoons Restaurant Rating project is launched!  This site is for WAPF members only.  To register for 12 Spoons, you will need a separate 12 Spoons User Name and Password.  Click on the 12 Spoons logo at the homepage of westonaprice.org (lower right hand side of the home page), and then click on Log In.  Follow the steps to get your 12 Spoons User Name and Password.

You can search for restaurants by zip code, city or state.  Since we don’t have a lot of ratings yet, it is best to search by state.

We need restaurant raters!  If you have been a member of WAPF for at least a year and are familiar with our message, we encourage you to sign up to be a restaurant rater.  We are launching with about fifty restaurants on the site, but we need hundreds, if not thousands more.  We can only do this with your help.  So, if you understand our principles and love food, please sign up to be a 12 Spoons Restaurant Rater.

WISE TRADITIONS 2019 CONFERENCE

We are narrowing down the location for our 20^th Wise Traditions Conference. The date will be November 15-17, 2019 so please mark your calendars!

Conference recordings and recipes from Wise Traditions 2018 are available at these two links:  https://www.fleetwoodonsite.com/index.php?cPath=40#.WblKRMYpDIU

http://conferences.westonaprice.org/home/2018-menus/

SPANISH PODCAST LAUNCH
On January 22, we will launch “Sabias Tradiciones,” a Spanish version of the popular Wise Traditions podcast. Please share this resource with your Spanish-speaking friends.Remember that we also have a Spanish Facebook page and many articles translated into Spanish. See: https://www.westonaprice.org/spanish/. Our main Dietary Guidelines brochure and the Healthy 4 Life booklet are also available in Spanish.

BIG FAT LIE FILM NEEDS SUPPORT

Please join WAPF in supporting a documentary film on the importance of animal foods healthy traditional fats: Big Fat Lie: How America’s Plan for Eating Got it So Wrong. See the trailer and donation request here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/big-fat-lie-movie#/

PRACTITIONER MENTORING PROGRAM BY TOM COWAN, MD

WAPF board member Tom Cowan, MD is launching a mentoring program, which is open to any practitioner who wishes to learn more about how to bring efficient, experience-based, natural medicine to his or her patients and clients.  The goal will be to give access to Tom’s experience of almost four decades as a natural-medicine physician.  Topics will include:

• nutritional therapies (Tom will share the diet forms he has created in his practice)
• herbal medicine
• how to interview patients or clients
• how to treat heart disease
• how to interpret lab tests
• how to use specific medicines, such as low-dose naltrexone and mistletoe
• how to treat autoimmune disease
• how to treat childhood illnesses, both acute and chronic
• how to run an independent practice (including medical-record keeping and how to set up a community-supported payment program to increase patient access)

For pricing and other details, contact Dr. Cowan at drcowan@fourfoldhealing.com.

ANYONE CAN FARM HOMESTEADER’S GUILD

Practical Guidance through the Process of Homestead Farming

12-Week Intensive Winter Session begins January 17^th – $299

In this 12-week course, you’ll have lessons and opportunities to learn the skills needed to feed yourself from your own backyard (large as 80-acre farm or small as a high-rise patio).

If you are ready to reconnect intimately with your food and start growing something you can put on your dinner plate, we can help!  The Homesteader’s Guild is a group of like-minded folks figuring out how to raise their own food with the guidance of longtime farmer Mark Baker. Mark will guide you through the processes needed to survive and thrive in your own little patch of earth. Winter is a time of preparation and planning in the seasons of a farm–join Mark and the other homesteaders and plot your course for the next growing season.

Some of the topics to be covered over the 12 weeks include: water management and use; soil preparation; how to start chickens; food preservation; procuring resources (a.k.a. scrounging); butchering.

Sign up at:  https://www.bakersgreenacres. com/product/anyone-can-farm- homesteaders-guild-10-wk/

More info: https://www.youtube.com/user/bakersgreenacres; www.bakersgreenacres.com

Have questions?  Contact Mark Baker at bakersgreenacres@yahoo.com or call 231-825-0293.

MEMBERS CLOSED FACEBOOK GROUP

As a member, you can join the community in our closed Facebook group.  If you wish to join, just email us at info@westonaprice.org.

HELP SOMEONE LEARN MORE ABOUT THE WISE TRADITIONS DIET

Learn the basics of the Wise Traditions diet. If you know someone new to our message, send them this link so that they can sign up to receive seven emails with dietary guidelines to help them make the transition.  You might enjoy seeing them yourself.

https://www.westonaprice.org/7lessons/

FTCLDF HIRES JIM TURNER TO LITIGATE BUTTER PETITION

The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) has hired veteran attorney, Jim Turner, to litigate an FDA Citizen Petition seeking to lift the interstate ban on raw butter for human consumption. FTCLDF and Mark McAfee, president of Organic Pastures Dairy Company (OPDC), filed the petition with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on July 1, 2016; to date, FDA has yet to file a substantive response.

WAPF and the Communities Alliance for Responsible Eco-agriculture (CARE) are providing funding for Turner’s legal expenses. WAPF is the leading advocacy group in the U.S. for raw milk and raw milk products, including butter. CARE is a Pennsylvania-based food buyers club that has long been a strong supporter of freedom of food choice, especially dairy products.

Turner is no stranger to the FDA, having dealt with the agency on various matters since the 1960s. His law practice consists of representing businesses, individuals and consumer groups on regulatory issues concerning food, drug, health product safety and environmental matters.  In 1970 he was largely responsible for getting Cyclamate, an artificial sweetener, pulled off the market. For nearly ten years he fought against the FDA and the G.D. Searle Corporation in an effort to take aspartame off the market.

Federal law requires FDA to file a response to a citizen petition within six months after receiving a copy. In December 2016 FDA sent FTCLDF and McAfee a letter stating it needed more time to review the petition but has sent nothing since. If Turner can’t convince the FDA to file a substantive response to the petition, he will likely file a writ of mandamus motion in a federal district court to have the court compel FDA to respond. If FDA rejects the petition, petitioners can appeal the agency’s decision to a federal appellate court.

There has been a federal ban on raw milk and raw milk products for human consumption (other than raw cheese aged sixty days) in interstate commerce since 1987 when FDA issued a regulation (21 CFR 1240.61) establishing the ban in response to a court order. Three arguments Turner can make to lift the ban are 1) that FDA exceeded its authority in banning raw butter since the case resulting in the court order in Heckler v. Public Citizen only concerned fluid milk products (milk, cream, yogurt) not manufactured milk products (butter, cheese);  2) that federal statute (21 CFR 341) prohibits FDA from issuing a federal ‘standard of identity’ regulation for butter [standards of identity are requirements prescribing what a food product must contain to be marketed–pasteurization is one such requirement); and 3) that there isn’t a single foodborne illness outbreak attributed to the consumption of commercially produced raw butter [OPDC has sold over 2 million pounds of raw butter since 2001 without incident]. FDA is basically claiming that its power to regulate communicable disease allows it to regulate a food that makes few, if any, sick.

The butter petition is a great opportunity to weaken the interstate raw dairy ban–a significant step towards the day when the transport of all dairy products across state lines is legal. A favorable outcome would also offer many opportunities to grass-based dairy farmers. Jim Turner has the experience and ability to make that happen.

5G LAWSUIT

Wireless technology has brought many benefits to our society, but it also carries many costs. And while individuals can take some “self-help” measures, such as when and how to use cell phones, the exposure to radiation-emitting devices is increasingly out of people’s individual control.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates the technical aspects of telecommunications only and has no statutory authority – or expertise – over health issues.  The human exposure guidelines adopted by the FCC in 1996 address only things like electric shocks, burns and gross heating; they do not protect against chronic and low-level exposure.

State and local governments are generally tasked with protecting public health, but many efforts have been blocked by federal law.  Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act prohibits State and local governments from adopting any regulation that “shall have the effect of prohibiting the provision of personal wireless devices.”  Moreover, state and local governments cannot base their decision on the “environmental effects of radio frequency emissions” — at least one court has interpreted this to include human health effects.

There have been multiple court decisions about what sorts of local restrictions are and are not allowed, but now we face a new era in the loss of local control.  In October 2018, the FCC adopted a Declaratory Ruling and Order, WT Docket No. 17-79, to “streamline the wireless infrastructure siting review process to facilitate the deployment of next-generation wireless facilities,” namely 5G.  The order blocks state and local governments from addressing a wide range of concerns, in an attempt to make it as easy as possible for companies to install 5G technology everywhere.

A lawsuit has been filed in New Mexico seeking to reinstate both local and state laws that restricted the placement of radio frequency radiation-emitting antennas. You can read the plaintiff’s complaint at http://scientists4wiredtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2018-1221-Firstenberg-Law-Suit.pdf and learn more or donate at http://www.cellphonetaskforce.org

Our Town, Our Choice is focused on federal lobbying efforts, and has a lot of information posted at http://ourtownourchoice.org

And stay tuned for updates and action alerts from us!

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