Los Angeles Green Festival: Weston A. Price Foundation Part I: Learning More of Who They Are


A big reason I decided to start The Appropriate Omnivore blog was because I felt that the field of environmentalists in support of meat was still very small. When I go to environmental conventions, usually any booth related with food has something to do with veganism. So when I read that the Weston A. Price Foundation would have a booth at the Los Angeles Green Festival, to say I was excited would be an understatement.

The Weston A. Price Foundation is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1999 by Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD. Before Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma or Lierre Keith’s The Vegetarian Myth, the WAPF has promoted the health and environmental benefits of eating animals products and moving away from processed foods. They believe in a dietary lifestyle going back to the way food used to be. They named the organization after a Cleveland dentist who traveled around the world in the 1930s originally to learn about dental health. Dr. Price discovered that the healthiest cultures were those that consumed nutrient dense whole foods and animals fats that contained fat soluble activators.

The Weston A. Price Foundation strongly supports eating animals products such as organ meats, eggs, butter, cheese, and raw milk. In addition to encouraging consumption of organ meats, they support grass fed meat and eating every part of the animal. They also emphasize moving away from processed foods by using sprouted flour instead of white flour and replacing refined sugar with honey, maple syrup, or sucanat.

Another big change in food that the Weston A. Price Foundation pushes for is raw milk. The dairy industry started pasteurizing milk because of unsanitary conditions on the farms. The WAPF members explained; however, that pasteurization only brought up a different series of problem as it kills vitamins. Raw milk is something that was always supported by the WAPF, but now is making its way into the mainstream with the recent hunger strike of organic dairy farmer Michael Schmidt, the documentary Farmageddon, and the California raw dairy company Organic Pastures.

I worried I’d faint as I couldn’t believe I got the tremendous opportunity to talk to this amazing organization. It was an uforgettable experience getting to meet some of its members and learn so much more about who they are and what they do. They offer invaluable advice on showing how meat can be healthy and sustainable as well as provide recipes for some great alternatives to the processed foods that we eat. If you want to learn more about them, you should check out their website at http://www.westonaprice.org/. You can also learn how cook their foods by purchasing Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions. And if you want to be involved with the organization yourself, you can go to Meetup.com and find a local chapter.

Tomorrow, I’ll be posting an in depth article about the Weston A. Price Foundation members that I spoke to and the booth’s impact at the convention.

Leave a Reply