It’s The Eat Real Food Health Summit!
The Eat Real Food Health Summit starts tomorrow. Organizer Shirley Plant got, and interviewed, several top experts in the fields of medicine, nutrition, genetics, personal development and the mind-body connection. The line-up is impressive.
Look at Day 1!
Other Eat Real Food Health Summit presenters & presentation topics include:
- Dr. Peter Osborne, Functional medicine expert and author of No Grain, No Pain, released earlier this year. Topic: How To Banish Chronic Pain By Changing What You Eat
- Wendy Myers, functional diagnostic nutritionist, certified health coach and author of The Modern Paleo Survival Guide. Topic: Discovering Food Sensitivities & Customizing Your Diet
- Donna Schwenk. So much of what I know about fermented foods I learned from her. I consult her website every time I make a batch of kombucha and have made several fermented salads with recipes from her website. Donna's presentation is called The Undeniable Healing Powers of Fermented Foods.
- Josh Gitalis, Clinical Nutritionist. I learn something from him every time I watch a webinar and his courses are on my to do list. His topic: Stomach Health & Why You'll Never Need Antacid Medication Again.
- Meghan Telpner. If you read Finding Health & Wellness or my previous blog, you know how much I adore Meghan. Her UnDiet talks – all of her talks – are great. Get a copy of UnDiet and The UnDiet Cookbook. Then catch her presentation, “UnDiet” For An Awesome Life.
In a recent Facebook post, Shirley said that her goal for the Eat Real Food Health Summit is to reach as many people as possible and offer actionable steps and tips so people could make their health their priority.
I phoned her last week to chat about the Summit. This being its second year/second time around, I wanted to know what's changed both between her two summits and in online health summits in general in the last year. It's a big industry and connecting people with summits (“online health and wellness events”) is a large part of why this website exists.
Health Talks Online alone has a Summit almost every week until the end of May.
Shirley told me that this year the Eat Real Food Health Summit has more speakers, different topics, and more Canadian experts. This is great, especially for a summit junkie like me who tends to hear the same experts over and over again. Not that I don't learn new things each time, but I like discovering new experts.
When I asked Shirley what's changed in online information and approaches to health, she talked online information sources. “The online way is starting to emerge”, she said. “Functional medicine experts are putting on webinars.” You can take the information learned – through webinars, summits, etc. – back to your doctor, especially regular your general practitioner. Doctors are starting to recognize that you need to look at the whole person and they're looking outside the box. “People are starting to add naturopaths, energy medicine… to their toolkits.” I liked that statement because I believe in an overall strategy that includes a variety of practitioners. I believe that there's room in one's life for general practitioners (GPs), naturopaths, chiropractors, health coaches, ob-gyns and doulas, doctors with Traditional Chinese Medicine training, etc. At different times we have different needs.
Shirley stated that there's a big increase in wellness summits because of need and demand.
My favorite answers came in the last couple of questions I asked her:
I asked: “Was there one piece of information that gave you an “a ha” moment?”
Shirley seemed to go “fan girl” over davidji but got me really excited about Dr. Eva ‘s (Eva Selhub, MD) presentation Use Stress To De-stress:
“I hope everyone tunes into this interview and does this meditation. I think that if everyone did it every single day they'd be better people, love themselves more, love others more.” She indicated a desire to change even one person's health, to have them take that little extra step towards healing, towards taking better care of themselves. It got me SUPER excited to listen to Dr. Eva's presentation and meditation.
And finally,
Q: What do you want people to take away from this summit?
A: That they're their own health advocate. That they know their body better than any doctor if they take the time to listen. Your body is always talking to you.
This really resonates with me. One of the reasons I chose the tagline “Forge your own path” for this website is that everybody is different and everyone's needs are different. I strive to educate and help people make informed choices. I strive to help people listen to their bodies.
I'm really excited about The Eat Real Food Health Summit.
About Shirley Plant
As a cookbook author and nutrition coach, Shirley enjoys teaching others how food and thoughts can heal your body. Her online courses help people remove the very foods that may be causing them harm.
Her book Finally… Food I Can Eat! has been on my bookshelf for years.
Testimonials from last year's edition:
“Wow, this summit rocks! You are helping humanity improve their quality of life by spreading important information about nutrition and healing.”
“…the wealth of information shared here is priceless…”
“I've enjoyed every interview I tuned in to. It motivates me to keep going and make healthier choices for myself and my family!”
“I want to share with you that since listening to the talks and learning that certain foods can cause inflammation in my body I have since removed those food and had allergy testing done. After 3 months of eating this way the migraines I have suffered with for years are gone! Thank- you!!!”
