Taste and See Conference: My Experience

I was so excited to go to this conference, as if you couldn't tell from my many Facebook posts! I was also honored to be invited by the Designed Healthy Living team to attend the Friday Foodies pre-conference sessions. I would love to share every detail of what I learned during the weekend, but that would take too long and I still wouldn't do it justice. So my goal is to hit some main points and share links to give you more opportunities to further research on your own.

1. A pressure cooker is amazing and every family needs one!

The first session that I chose was about how to use a pressure cooker. Let me just tell you, I have had zero experience ever with one of those things, and I am now confident that I could bring one into my home and pressure cook with the best of them. How cool is it that you can throw meat and potatoes in one pot and veggies in another pot, and dinner is completely done and plated within 20-30 minutes, prep time included?! Sold. 

2. Fermenting foods and beverages is totally doable.

I first came across information about making keifer and fermenting foods and beverages after I received the blood test results about my terrible liver. All searches led to fermentation. If you don't know what keifer is and if the idea of fermenting things creeps you out, rest easy. It is way simpler and yummier than I imagined. Seriously. It is as easy as buying a package of culture starter, pouring it into the to-be-fermented product, letting it sit on your counter for a few days to a couple weeks depending on the product, and voila! Healthy little bacteria anxiously waiting to take over your gut and boost your immune system. A quick online search about fermented drinks or foods, culture starter, or the benefits of probiotics will turn up numerous results for your researching pleasure. You can also click here to read about some benefits of fermenting, as written by Sue Becker of The Bread Beckers. Sue led several sessions during the conference and much of what I learned came from this awesome woman. 

3. Gluten is not the enemy.

Let me try to sum this up as simply as possible. Our bodies need some gluten. But that gluten has to be balanced with the right amount of fiber. The bread or flour that we buy from the store is way out of balance, then we eat way too much of it. This means that our bodies are getting way too much gluten and nowhere near the right amounts of the other good stuff (fiber, protein, vitamins, nutrients). This can lead to all sorts of problems that I can't even begin to list. What's the solution? Should we then follow the Atkins diet or go Paleo (which are essentially the same thing)? These questions were the focus of the majority of the conference, which leads me to my next point.



4. Bread is our friend, but only when we eat the whole grain (and I'm not referring to the label "whole grain" as can be found on any pasta or bread shelf anywhere). 

The answer, as taught throughout the conference, is to mill our own grain. That's right. MILL. YOUR. OWN. GRAIN. Crazy, right?! But after hearing testimony after testimony, and benefit after benefit, I'm thinking they may be onto something. Not only that, but any of the grain that was milled then baked into bread at the conference was incredible. Check out the articles on The Bread Beckers website for a wealth of knowledge on the subject. I will say, however, that anytime someone tries to sell me something as a cure all, I'm a bit skeptical. But from what I gathered, tasted, and tried, I'm pretty much sold. Top of Momma's Christmas list: Grain Mill.

5. Annette Reeder and the Designed Healthy Living team have a passion for sharing what they've learned to help others become healthy and worship the Lord with their lives. 

I think I could sit for hours just listening to and picking the brains of Annette and the rest of the conference team. Not only do these ladies have legitimate backgrounds in what they are teaching, but they have the personal experience to back it up. I had such a great time at the conference from the sessions, to the yummy meals, to the worship music led by the talented Linda Graham. If you ever have the opportunity to go to a Taste and See Conference, I recommend it.