The Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) held its annual Wise Traditions conference in Anaheim last weekend. The last international conference that I attended was in 2012 in Santa Clara, CA. As this year’s Wise Traditions returned to California and was even closer to where I live, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to attend. Many of my favorite exhibitors that I’d seen at past Wise Traditions and other expos were back, but there were also a number of vendors I saw for the first time. These vendors covered a diverse variety of nutrient dense foods that I love. In alphabetical order, I’ve listed below my 20 favorite discoveries.
Bewellaby
Last month, I spoke at the Weston A. Price Pasadena Chapter meeting about how to make better choices on Halloween. One of my tricks was homemade gummy candy. Gummy candy can be a a super treat when it contains grassfed gelatin, real fruit, and honey. I was pleased to see that holistic nutritionist Tanya Talhame has a business called Bewellaby that makes the candy I talked about. As you can see from the photo below, attendees loved her red raspberry leaf samples.
Blum & Bru
From home cooks using leftover bones to cafes offering bone broth, more and more people are catching on to its mulitude of health benefits. A good broth is made with many ingredients. Blum & Bru sells eastern medicinal herbs to put in your broths along with the bones and vegetables. They sell 10 varieties that offer different healing powers and add beautiful flavor to your broth.
The Brothery
As I was saying, broths are becoming more popular by the minute. Lance Roll, also known as The Flavor Chef, has launched an online site called The Brothery, where people can order chicken and beef broths as well as rendered fats. Conference goers were able to purchase cups of this excellent broth, which used some of the herbs from Blum & Bru.
Dr. Cowan’s Garden
Dr. Thomas Cowan, M.D. practices anthroposophical medicine and is a founding board member of WAPF. He’s written several books for Weston Price’s publishing company New Trends. And at the conference, he launched Dr. Cowan’s Garden, his line of powders made from vegetables in his garden.
Dr. Linda’s
Homeopath Dr. Linda Robins, M.D. was another physician who exhibited at Wise Traditions. Magnesium deficiency is a major problem with the standard American diet (SAD). Dr. Linda sells nuts and seaweed mixed with magnesium rich seasonings.
Fields of Athenry
Speaking of bone broth, there were not one, but two bone broth artisans that I discovered. Fields of Athenry is family run farm in Northern Virginia. People local to the farm can buy beef, pork, poultry and lamb at their shop, at select pickup locations, or have it delivered to their. But anyone can have the pleasure of ordering their bone broth online.
Firefly Kitchens
A number of my favorite vegetables are fermented. Fermentation not only adds to the nutrients of the plants and makes them easier to digest, but I also love the sour taste. I’m always excited to try new sauerkrauts and Firefly Kitchen did not disappoint. I loved all of their flavors, but I had two favorites. First there was the cortido kraut, which had a nice kick with its jalapenos, oregano, and red chili peppers. Second was the Emerald City kraut, which contained kale, coriander, dill, turmeric, red chili peppers. Krauts containing dill are a gateway to anyone having kraut for the first time with their ingredients being similar to pickles. Firefly founders Julie O’Brien and Richard J. Climenhage also have a cookbook Fresh & Fermented, containing recipes revolving around sauerkraut. I constantly prepare dishes with kraut in it and was happy to purchase a book signed by Julie.
Keep It Real
Other than meat related products, nuts were a common theme at the conference. Nuts are a food that can be consumed by nearly every type of diet and make great substitutions for certain foods that people can’t eat. Grains are one of the foods that nuts can replace. The Keep It Real Food Co. makes grain free granola, cookies, crackers, and bars.
Kessons Kitchen
It’s always exciting to see representation from your local WAPF chapter at the international conferences. Over a dozen of the Pasadena members attended and a couple members were also exhibitors. I had met Lois Williamson before at chapter meetings. At the conference, I finally got a chance to try her grain free granola. Nuts, like grains and legumes, have be properly prepared through sprouting, soaking, or fermenation. Lois’ Kessons Kitchen uses sprouted nuts in its granola and snack bars.
A Little Nuts
How can you not love a company with the name A Little Nuts? In addition to their soaked and dehydrated almonds, they also offer dehydrated fruits. With all of those offerings, I’m more than a little nuts about them.
The Olive Bar
The Olive Bar has both a brick and mortar in the Bay area and online store where one can by extra virgin olive oils, aged balsamic vinegars, coconut oils, and olives from around the world.
Paleovalley
Beef can make a tasty snack, but it’s important that it’s grass fed. There are so many beef snacks on the market that use conventional farming. Even some of the ones that you find in Whole Foods and other natural stores don’t use pastured meats. Recently a number of grass fed beef jerkys and bars have entered the market. Now Paleovalley offers a beef stick, similar to a Slim Jim, but it contains 100% grass fed meat. They also use a natural fermentation method for a stable shelf life, whereas other brands use a GMO citric acid and hydrogenated oils for processing. In addition to beef sticks, Paleovalley also has grass fed whey and superfood bars.
Perfect Supplements
Perfect Supplements provides a large variety of whole food supplements. Of all the products, collagen caught my immediate attention. There are only a few options for pastured collagen, so it’s wonderful to see Perfect Supplements being one of them. Other products that struck my fancy were dessicated liver capsules and fermented kale.
The Philosopher’s Stoneground
In addition to grains, a food for which nuts can be used as substitution is peanut butter. Despite it’s name, the peanut is a legume and not a nut. Nut butter is a nice option for people who have peanut allergies or are unable to digest grains. The Philosopher’s Stoneground Sprouted Nut Butters have the magic of being offered in both creamy and crunchy almond butter.
Raw Revelations
Raw Revelations was another business offering a large variety of superfoods. They have everything from coconut oil to grass fed whey protein to goji berry powder.
True Pasture Beef
Kristi Graham runs a farm that’s been in her family for more than five generations. As less young people are going into farming nowadays, it’s inspiring to see Krisi continuing her family’s business. True Pasture Beef raises cattle that’s 100% grass fed and grass finished. The cows also only eat grass which grows naturally and no hormones, synthetic fertilizers, or herbicides are used on the farm.
Vital Proteins
No bone to pick. I’m thrilled that Vital Proteins adds to the small but growing list of grass fed collagens. Collagen is perfect for making nutrient dense foods, including bone broths, sauces, and even desserts such as mousse, ice cream, and gummy candies. Vital Proteins offers both collagen protein, collagen peptide, cartilage collagen, as well as beef liver capsules.
WB Kitchen
Rounding out the vendors with healthy nuts snacks is WB Kitchen. They make cookies and bars that are free of gluten, drains, dairy, and soy. WB also has a great variety of flavors, including cinammon raisin, peanut butter, brownie, mocha java, and coconut.
White Oak Pastures
As the Appropriate Omnivore, I’m a big supporter of using whole animal. White Oak Pastures not only offers nose to tail cuts of their meats, but also uses their cattle to make leather accessories and pet chew. This is a recent commitment in the farm’s efforts to be more environmental. White Oak has been run by the Harris family for five generations since 1866. In 1995, the family returned the farm to its multi-species rotational grazing system and processed the animals on the farm.
Wildly Fermented
My trip to the Wise Traditions conference couldn’t be complete without at least one other sauerkraut maker. Wildly Fermented creates sauerkraut, as well as other fermented vegetables, such as kimchi and pickled jalapenos.