My Top Six Take-aways from the Regenerative Healthcare Conference at The Rodale Institute
This October, I was lucky enough to attend the first ever, inaugural Regenerative Healthcare Conference, an remarkable confluence of great beings that bridged the gap between health care providers and our farming system, and highlighted the fact that a changed healthcare system begins with healthy soil.
Basically, my kind of heaven!
4 days of hanging with the “Let thy food be thy medicine” crowd (who understand that how our food is produced is a vital component of human health) was nothing short of astounding.
I was honored to teach yoga to such smart, sharp, caring, body-aware people in Rodale’s beautiful barn!
It’s high time we start viewing medicine more holistically by integrating organic food into patient care.
These are my top take aways from those incredible four days:
1️⃣ Instead of “plant based eating”, I shall now use the term “Plant forward eating”. I like it because we all need to be eating more plants and veggies. Thanks to Dr. Monica Aggarwal for that one!
2️⃣ We had the most inspiring, nutrient dense, ecstatic plant forward food, three meals a day, and I must say - it felt INCREDIBLE to eat such a diverse diet for four days straight. Get as many kinds of veggies, roots, nuts, seeds, and fruits on your plate.
3️⃣ The more official term for "leaky gut" is actually “intestinal permeability" and we're all suffering from it greatly due to Glyphosate (RoundUp), which your neighbor might be spraying on their weeds, farms are spraying on their crops, and municipalities are spraying on lawns. It’s harming not just human microbiomes, but think about your dogs — look carefully where you let them walk to do their business. Make sure you see weeds!
Glyphosate is hard to escape - I had my levels tested, and they were terrifyingly high, despite eating organic my whole adult life. But there are some things you can do to break down glyphosate:
- Eat maganese rich, sulfur rich, and fermented foods
- Eat plant extracts like dandelion, barberries, and burdock
Big thanks to Dr. Michelle Perro for her expertise on the perils of glyphosate…don’t even get ger started!
4️⃣ My friend and fellow Rodale ambassador, Christa Barfield (@farmerjawn) left us all with the great slogan, “Agriculture is the culture,” and she proved that there can be an intersection between any profession and agriculture! I’m looking forward to witnessing the creative ways we as a culture get after that concept!
5️⃣ Regenerative Healthcare is a return to our roots. We're only as healthy as our soil and the food that grows in it. Regenerative Healthcare lies at the intersection of soil health, ecological health, and human health. How we care for our Earth and her soil is intertwined with our own health outcomes.
6️⃣ We need to literally compost the current farming and food system and sit in the radical possibility of a world where all are thriving - where food is everywhere, it’s being foraged, we’re tapped into ancestral wisdom, and we’re learning from farmers and physicians who are connected/on the same page about prevention.
You can be part of the inaugural Regenerative Healthcare Conference too!
Because of the overwhelming interest in the conference, Rodale Institute has created a digital version of the presentations so that those who were unable to attend can still benefit from the knowledge that was shared.
The Virtual Regenerative Healthcare Conference is for anyone that has an interest in learning more about agriculture’s influence on human health, particularly those working or studying in the healthcare field.
My code, 10VRHC means 10% off - ENROLL NOW!
