It’s been a hectic couple of weeks back on the speaking circuit with a series of library talks on the Sunshine Coast.  It’s the greatest number of live talks I’ve done in the last couple of years and I must admit, I’ve really enjoyed them.

It has been wonderful to reach beyond those who follow me and learn about what the majority of the population are thinking and doing with their health.  For instance, I had this very brightly coloured well dressed woman in the front row of one of my talks, she came with one of her yoga buddies, she had never heard of me.

At the end of the talk, she told me she was very healthy and ate a very healthy diet, and could not understand why she was on 10 medications and had just had part of her bowel removed due to stage 3 cancer.  When I questioned more, I found out that she had her gall bladder removed and ablation on her uterus (a medical procedure that is used to remove, or destroy, the lining of the uterus).  After looking at her diet of gluten free many ingredients bread, spread with nuttelex (margarine) coffee and zymil milk breakfast, I quietly suggested that she did not have a healthy diet.

She stared into space and then began to cry, she told me that the dietitian said she had a healthy diet, and with that stamp of approval, her doctor said that diet had nothing to do with her bowel cancer and presumed it was stress and put her on some anti-anxiety and anti-depressive medications.

I talked quietly and at length to this beautiful lady who was looking for answers, she didn’t want to be on all the drugs, she didn’t want to do the cancer treatment, she didn’t want to die, she had a 14 year old son to look after, she had no husband, no family, no siblings and felt alone.

I could have suggested the GAPS diet, to read my book or that she could eat butter rather than margarine.  I could have suggested so much more but instead, I said she needed someone to help her to take control of her health.  I did not give any advice on medications and procedures for cancer, I just showed her another path that she could take alongside what was going to happen to her over the next few months.

She definitely left a mark on me that day.

She needed someone who could coach and hold her hand through the changes she needed to make and to be educated on the food and habits that create good health and those that don’t.

My talks have been basic, I teach the first two modules of The Nutrition Academy, yearlong nutrition program.  I talk about anthropology and looking back at what we ate to evolve and survive through thousands of generations with health and fertility.  I show statistics of what it was like in 1960, all the way to what our sickness statistics show about our health today.  Chronic disease is more prevalent than health not only in Australia but around the world. The more western ultra-processed foods eaten in the diet the sicker the population becomes.

To have a philosophy about food moving forward is also important.  I compare Nutritionism and Vitalism.  Showing the difference between the two philosophies with regards to food.  Several times through my talks I have a hand go up and on two occasions, a young mum will say – ‘but shouldn’t that be illegal’.  I can see the stunned faces in the audience who have never heard this before, and they cannot believe that such things are happening in the food industry.  Synthetic biology is where everyone is dumfounded by the stupidity of the genetic modification of microbes. Ethically this can mean disaster if escape happens, and the soil and body microbiome and ecology is interfered and disrupted. There are already cases of this happening.

Education is our only way to make better choices. Without action you cannot become responsible for the outcome of your life and if you are not in control of your outcome then anything could happen without your permission.  Without taking responsibility for your health and life then we are at the mercy of what is seen as the right thing to do and what everyone else is doing. If you don’t want to be a statistic then do something different, break out of the mould and create a better health and outcome.

I was not just teaching about nutrition; I wanted this speaking circuit to create open minds so that people had different options than what they were given by mainstream marketing, advertising and propaganda and by the only narrative the health care system gives us, diagnose, medicate, operate and radiate.

If I reached one person during these library talks, like that beautiful young lady with the 14-year-old son, then it was all worth my time and effort.

You see, I don’t have the money of the pharmaceutical companies, I don’t have the money of the government dietitian association, the big food companies or chemical companies that make the chemicals for agriculture.  I’m one person in a grass roots movement that loves to educate and loves to inspire people to be the best that they can be and to be a solution not a problem to the growing disease in humans, animals and the planet.

The Nutrition Academy, my students, my graduates, my future students help me get the message to the people who know there is another way, but it’s not found easily in the news, in advertising and even on google.  If I say the wrong thing against the narrative, I’m banned from Facebook, google ads and anyone else who wants to censor me.

Over the last three years I’ve seen good people with credible degrees censored because they speak against the narrative, they talk about different protocols, different food choices, different treatments.  Everything is done to these people to discredit them.  Lately I’m listening to people who have been censored, like Dr Peter Mc Cullough, Dr Aseem Malhotra, Dr Pierre Korey, Dr Melissa Mc Cann and journalists like Del Bigtree and Tucker Carlson, Avi Yemini and ministers such as Senator Malcolm Roberts.

As a young writer in 1990 before social media was everywhere to be seen, I wrote for a local paper.  The Sunshine Coast Daily.  I was the weekly nutrition columnist.  When I wrote an article on margarine, the margarine association of Australia asked for my retraction.  I refused.  So instead, the paper did a full page spread on the benefits of margarine.  My final article was on artificial sweeteners, which my editor would not print.  He said we would be sued by the largest soft drink manufacturer.  I felt that if I couldn’t write the truth then I’d find another platform.  That was the dawn of my book Changing Habits Changing Lives (1998).

Once you are a graduate of The Nutrition Academy, you have a responsibility.  To first get yourself and your family well, then if you feel like it, spread the word.  The libraries in your area are looking for speakers, they are a hub for education, they are a great place to start to help influence the decision of someone who is looking for a better way, a new way to health.

I’m not just a crusader for the health of people but the health of the planet.  Food choices are the best way I know.  If I choose the right food, real food, grown with regenerative principles, whether animal or plant, then I know I’m contributing to the solution and not being part of the problem.

Thank you to all my graduates, students and future students, together we will make a difference.

Cyndi