Welcome to the Website for the Pasadena Chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation!
We are a group of local community members who get together once a month for potluck dinners and the chance to learn about traditional foods. Our chapter leader, Karen Voelkening-Behegan started this chapter as a way to meet and learn from other like-minded people in the Pasadena area.
Background
The Weston A. Price Foundation has chapters throughout the world, and is dedicated to restoring nutrient-dense foods to the human diet through education, research, and activism. It supports a number of movements that contribute to this objective, including: accurate nutrition instruction, organic and biodynamic farming, pasture-feeding of livestock, community-supported farms, honest and informative labeling, and prepared parenting & nurturing therapies. Specific goals include the establishment of universal access to clean, certified raw milk and a ban on the use of soy formula for infants.
Meetings
Our chapter meets once a month for potluck dinners and educational presentations or discussions. We’re always looking for speakers, demonstrators, and topic ideas, so if you have any knowledge to share about traditional foods, or know of someone who does, please contact our Chapter Leader, Karen Voelkening-Behegan.
Volunteers
We are a successful chapter because we draw on the strengths of our local population to share their expertise and time with the group. No one “works” for us or gets paid for their time, except for the occasional guest speaker. Every one of our activities is organized by community volunteers, so the more participation we have, the more we can offer the public.
Because of the generosity of a number of enthusiastic volunteers, the Pasadena Chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation has been able to engage in a number of activities, including: field trips, a Grass-fed Beef Buyers Club, group orders for fermented cod liver oil, group orders for pastured poultry, and representation of the Weston A. Price Foundation and the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund at the 2010 and 2011 Pasadena Real Food Symposium. We also have volunteers in communications who help us maintain an online presence. We are truly a reflection of the talents in our group! If there’s any service you can offer to help improve our chapter or educate the public, please contact our Chapter Leader, Karen Voelkening-Behegan. Working together, we can all make a difference!
Read more about some of our volunteers below:
Karen Voelkening-Behegan, Chapter Leader
Mother of two, Nutritional Therapist, Geographer, and East Coast transplant, Karen started the Pasadena CA Chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation in January 2009 as a way to connect with other like-minded folks. Since then, she has been helping community members and local readers of Wise Traditionsmagazine and the Weston A. Price Foundation website find nearby sources of traditional foods. To facilitate this process, Karen has created and manages the Natural Foods Resource Map for the Pasadena area. As an added bonus (and due to popular demand!) Karen has been organizing monthly potluck dinners and chapter meetings since April 2010. She sends out monthly meeting reminders by email, and regularly posts updates and meeting reviews to our chapter blog.
Ramanuj Basu, Communications Coordinator & Grass-fed Beef Buyers Club Co-Chair
As a Communications specialist at Caltech, Ram has shared his expertise with our group by giving our Blog a whole new look and much improved functionality. He also manages permissions and communications for our various websites. In addition, Ram handled co-buyer communications for our Grass-fed Beef Buyers Club, making sure that all participants received equitable shares of the first steer we purchased as a group. Due to Ram’s careful planning and calculations, we were also able to use our first steer purchase as a means to raise chapter funds for future educational activities.
Jaye Park, Grass-fed Beef Buyers Club Co-Chair
Traditional Foods Enthusiast and Interior Decorator Jaye worked tirelessly behind the scene to coordinate the delivery of our steer from the rancher to the meat cutter. She was the key player in establishing the aging of the meat, and working with the meat cutter to make sure that the cuts were small enough for everyone to get a share of the most desirable pieces. Jaye also used her personal truck to pick up and distribute at least 1,000 pounds of the products derived from our steer. She spent hours with Ram and Jen making sure that all co-buyers got fair shares of the animal. Jaye has also been a regular volunteer at Our Little Market, a raw food co-op run by Steve Plog in Pasadena. Additionally, Jaye is our local Korean food expert and recently presented a Kimchee demo at one of our potluck dinner meetings.
Jennifer Hawley, Grass-fed Beef Buyers Club (GFBBC) Assistant
A devoted chapter regular, Jennifer provided invaluable assistance to our GFBBC Co-Chairs with our first steer purchase. She spent hours with Ram and Jaye making sure the various cuts of meat, organs, and bones were properly categorized and displayed. She helped manage the distribution of products generated from our steer, handled inquiries from co-buyers as they showed up to collect their shares, and assisted with interactive inventory management, fund collection, and post-distribution clean-up.
Theresa Cardinali, Volunteer at Large
An enthusiastic attendee of almost every meeting, Terri has volunteered her services to our group in a number of ways: she regularly dispenses invaluable educational information to her community; she served as our Booth Coordinator at the 2nd Annual Pasadena Real Food Symposium; and she baked and decorated a delicious traditional-style carrot cake for our chapter’s First Anniversary potluck in April 2011. An experienced artist, sculptress, and cake decorator, Terri loves experimenting with Nourishing Traditions desert recipes, which she shares every month at our potluck dinners.
Elaina Luther, Owner of Culture Club 101
Elaina has taught many members of our community how to prepare traditional foods, especially cultured vegetables and dairy. She occasionally hosts our meetings at her place of business, and also enjoys giving educational presentations to our group. Elaina has given us a sauerkraut demonstration, a talk about natural sweeteners, and slide show from the 2010 Wise Traditions Conference. She also regularly shares her kombucha, fermented veggies, and delicious cultured dairy products at our potluck dinners. Recently, Elaina was invited by Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy Company to join the Board of Directors at the newly formed Raw Milk Institute, an organization devoted to developing nationwide safety standards for raw milk.
Kevin Coulter, Coordinator of Group Purchases of Cod Liver Oil
A new father in 2011, Kevin recently joined our group in hopes of connecting with fellow members and establishing a group buying system for purchasing fermented Cod Liver Oil. Knowing the importance of this highly valued “sacred” nutrient for the growth and development of his son, Kevin successfully ordered and distributed our first discounted group purchase from Green Pasture Products. Kevin also helped us use our group purchase as a means to raise more chapter funds for future non-profit educational activities.
Lois Williamson, Coordinator of Group Purchases of Pastured Poultry
As a Personal Chef and mother of 2, Lois is devoted to feeding both her family and her clients with delicious, traditionally prepared, nutrient-dense foods. Lois has contributed her homemade traditional foods to several special events including large quantities of sprouted nut crackers for our evening at Caltech with Mark McAfee, and a traditional cheesecake made with cultured raw dairy for our chapter’s First Anniversary potluck dinner meeting in April 2010. As the main food consultant for the new Arroyo Food Coop, Lois is helping us build our connections with the broader Real Food community. She introduced our group to a new local family farm and set up our first group order of pastured chickens. Through our group purchase, she gave a local farmer an opportunity to experiment with raising pastured soy-free chickens. By serving the community and providing a customer base for small sustainable family farms, Lois is helping us create a market for more traditional foods in the Pasadena area.
Rosann Volmert, D. O., Regular Speaker & Facility Coordinator
As a doctor of Osteopathy, Rosann is an active volunteer and regular speaker at our group. An outdoors enthusiast and owner of a private practice in Montrose, Rosann espouses the values of the Weston A. Price Foundation both in her personal life and her professional practice. She helped inspire our monthly meetings while searching for an educational venue for her patients, and is credited with finding our group its primary meeting place, the Nature Friends Clubhouse in Sierra Madre. Rosann has spoken to our chapter about a number of topics, including the health benefits of cod liver oil, and the health implications of a variety of sweeteners. She’s also spoken at the first two annual Real Food Symposia in Pasadena, and served as Booth Coordinator at the Weston A. Price Foundation booth at the Pasadena Real Food Symposium in 2010.
Matt McCoy, Facility Coordinator
A regular meeting attendee, outdoors enthusiast, and veteran GAPS diet participant, Matt regularly helps with logistical support of our meetings at Nature Friends Clubhouse in Sierra Madre. As member of Nature Friends LA, he shares his knowledge of the facility & its amenities with our group as needed. Matt sets up A/V equipment for our speakers, helps coordinate parking, and answers any questions we may have about using the Nature Friends facility. Matt has also been a volunteer at the Weston A. Price booth at the Pasadena Real Food Symposium, both in 2010 and 2011.
Monica Ford, Activiste Extraordinaire
Monica is one of our strongest activists, showing up regularly at important community events and helping educate our group with frequent postings on our Facebook Page. She also is the author of the blog, Real Food Devotee on Twitter. In 2011, Monica gave our chapter a demonstration on how to make homemade counter-top raw milk yogurt. She provided everyone with free samples of yogurt cultures from Europe and instructed us on how to propagate the cultures for continuous batches of new homemade yogurt. After the last governmental raid of Rawesome Food Co-op in Venice, Monica appeared live on KTLA protesting the institutionalized demonizing of raw milk. She showed the public on camera how safe, delicious, and healthy raw milk is by taking a big swig of it for all to see. She made sure everyone knew that pasteurized milk makes her (and many of the rest of us!) sick, and that the only truly health-giving milk is RAW dairy from 100% grass-fed cows!
