Houston Real Food Nutrition, our new Meetup Group, had its first meeting Saturday, November 3, at the Great Oak School in Tomball, TX.  I was really glad to see how interested the attendees were in improving their health through nutrition.  There were lots of questions and a very lively discussion of many topics, ranging from raw milk to fermented foods to dietary mineral absorption.  If you’ve been reading my posts for a while now, you probably know I am always glad to talk about nutrition and health.

The meeting featured a video overview about the nutrition research of Dr. Weston A. Price (from the Nourishing Our Children series) and a slide show summary of the principles of traditional diets.  Dr. Price spent ten years traveling around the world to study the health and nutrition of people who were still eating their traditional diet.  He wanted to know if they were healthy and what they were eating.  He found a wide variety of diets that all included high levels of essential nutrients not found in the diets of ‘civilization.’

The members who attended this meeting are in various stages of improving their diets.  Some are just beginning their journey to better health through nutrition, while others have been on the path for several years and shared with us some of the things they’ve learned and their progress.  All of us are still learning and want to learn more about nutrition’s influence on health.  We all also want to meet others who care as much as we do about improving our health.

Houston Real Food Nutrition already has fifty members, which tells me that there a lot of people in Houston who want to join others in improving their health through nutrition.  We expect to have additional meetings scheduled soon in other areas around Houston.  Join the group to find out about all the meetings.

Kari Tegtmeier, an administrator at the Great Oak School, had invited us to speak at the school’s monthly lecture series.   One Saturday a month during the school year the school has workshops and seminars of interest to their school parents and their community.  They invited members of Houston Real Food Nutrition to join them at the workshop.

Although I had not heard of Great Oak School before scheduling this meeting, I was fascinated with the school and its philosophy.  Great Oak is a member of the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America.  The school is focused on child development at the child’s pace. The intent is to teach the children how to learn and use all of their senses.

I was especially impressed with the way they start each school day.  The first twenty minutes of each day are spent working in the school garden where the children grow both vegetables and flowers.  If any of the foods are ready to eat, the children are allowed to cut and eat them.  Each child has his/her own watering can for the garden.  Last week the children picked fresh tomatoes and helped make salsa which they then shared.

The Great Oak school has provided a video about the Waldorf schools if you would like to learn more about them.