The Nutrition Summit 2022 was put on by The Nutrition Academy at Peppers Salt Resort & Spa Kingscliff over the last weekend in July. The event, by all accounts was a huge success!

On the Friday of the summit, I spent a day with my students and graduates talking about their future, then in the evening we had graduation.  It was so nice to see the faces I’ve seen for the past year on a webinar in real life and to congratulate them and hug them on their success.

Picking speakers can sometimes be thwart with complications, but what I noticed this year was that, despite two last minute changes to our speakers due to illness, each speaker supported the other by their information.  It was like there was a thread joining them as they prepared for the weekend.

If I was to sum up what most of the speakers talked about it was taking personal responsibility for health, education and where you spend your dollar. As well as not to follow mainstream but to think critically and differently.  Each of the speakers spoke of their journey from an allopathic way of thinking to something that changed their perspective of what was happening in the “sickness” industry (we can hardly call it health).

Magic is what happened when a naturopath, a farmer, a gastroenterologist, a neuro surgeon, a veterinarian, an entrepreneur and a breath worker took to the stage.  Each speaker exceeded my expectations, each speaker gave us Aha moments and things to think about and change in our own lives.

Our first speaker Naturopath Helen Padarin (Beyond Stress) set the stage for what was to come.  Her presentation was filled with valuable information on the HPA axis and strategies to help manage stress.  The body shake was my favourite.  It’s hard to tell you briefly what Helen presented to us in 2 hours.

What I loved is that I knew that each one of my graduates and students had studied the technical part of her talk, but I believe her strategies gave them tools for their own life and that of their clients.  Defining the definition of a big trauma and a little trauma helped us understand that the body has a memory which may manifest physically, therefore food is only part of the solution.

John Moor, The Climate Conscious Farmer took the stage after morning tea. This man stood on the stage and captivated the audience with his farming history and how he changed from a conventional farmer to a regenerative farmer.  He talked about the principles of being a climate conscious farmer including; does nature approve of what I plan to do, make sure my soil is covered, minimise tillage, maximise diversity of plants and animals, always have living plants growing and use animals for impact.

After his talk I never saw him alone, there was always someone wanting more from this incredible teacher.  In fact, I found that all my speakers were like a flower to a bee, everyone was buzzing around them, wanting more of their unique perspective.

Dr David Johnson spoke after lunch, his topic; Is Metabolic Health Complex?  David is a neurosurgeon who uses ketogenic principles and functional movement with his patients.  He painted the picture of the burden of chronic disease in Australia and around the world and showed how his profession did not know how to deal with it.  He noted that back pain was number two in Australia just behind heart disease and a burden of disease.

David believed we had lost the ability to play the sport of life and his knowledge was reignited by his own illness.  His last slides and last line were my favourite; “We have possessed this knowledge for millennia – it’s just temporarily been masked by sinister forces of greed.”

On Sunday morning everyone was at the venue bright and early, they packed the expo room to talk to the exhibitors who had been hand-picked by my team.  Each exhibitor must comply with the principles of Changing Habits and the philosophy of The Nutrition Academy.  That is not always easy to do as some people may have one great product but then their other products may have flavours and dubious ingredients.  There was a constant line up at the chocolate stand and The Spice Girls, Kimberley and Jo, were busy sharing recipes using their very tasty spice blends!

For me, the expo stands are not only about selling their product but also about education.  Each stand holder spent time teaching the people who were there to listen.  We had each stand holder come up to the stage and let everyone know what they did, we had not done this before but, I believe it was a great success for both the audience and the expo.

Dr Pran Yoganathan WOWED the audience with his incredible knowledge of many subjects.  Each of these subjects told a story of where we are today with health care. He called his talk – The Agricultural, pharmaceutical, food-based complex.  Dr Pran demonstrated how these three subjects were linked and destroying health.  His history of medicine and agriculture paved the way to why we find ourselves where food, movement, sunshine, sleep and connection are no longer talked about but rather medications and ultra-processed foods are the norm.

Like all the other talks, I will be watching the recording several times as there was so much to take in.  At the end I thanked Dr Pran and told my students in the audience if they could repeat Dr Pran’s talk, I would graduate them!  I love how like-minded people find each other.

Dr Gundi Rhoades veterinarian for the past 3 decades and author of The Food Solution, wove a story from the big bang and explained carbon cycles, weather patterns and climate change.  Her biggest take away was the importance of regenerative farming, and how we as consumers can be the solution by purchasing our nutritious foods from these farmers.

I loved how Dr Gundi weaved an incredibly different story to conclude the same as the rest of the speakers; ‘If it’s going to get better and I want to improve my health then it is up to me.’  My Aha with Gundi was that the soil ecology makes all minerals available to the plant and the soil ecology makes many of the nutrients within the plant.  She said that glyphosate was killing not only our microbiome with the foods we eat but also killing the soil ecology, resulting in food that may look the same but has very little nutrition and with dysbiosis being unable to digest the food.

Adam Gibson, entrepreneur, coach and heading up parents with questions came through with the most incredible solution, first he talked about the last two and half years and where he believed things were going.  He felt that food security was important and that community farms with qualified regenerative farmers providing food for the shareholders in the community would ensure a future for the next generation.

The last speaker was Jordan Potts, breath worker, father, partner, business owner and story teller.  He told us about his tumultuous life of 29 years, the last 6 years turning his life around and helping other young people do the same.  Breath was one of his saviours.  I felt that Adam was the elder in the room and Jordan was our youth, both working toward a better future for generations to come.  Jordan took us on a journey with breath and ended the summit with many tears in the audience.  They were not tears of sadness but rather tears of hope and inspiration.

For those that were not at the summit can I suggest you buy the recordings, everyone is worth their weight in information.  Everyone had hope and steps to change to help not only you, but your family and perhaps even create the ripple effect we all need to make this planet and our health a priority.

For our VIP’s and for those who purchased tickets to the three-day event (these are limited), we travelled by bus to The Farm at Byron Bay.  Charlie Arnott, 8^th generation farmer, podcaster and all-round larrikin was our host.  He told his story of how he went from conventional farmer to regenerative farmer and his incredible regenerative journey of his whole life.  It was music to my ears!  We walked around the farm, meeting the egg farmer, manager and the syntropic (agroforestry) farmer.  All with vast knowledge of soil, plants and animals.  I had one of the delegates come up to me in tears at the farm to tell me for the first time in a while she feels hope, hope for herself her family and her planet.  She felt a real sense of connection with the farm and all of what was happening for the public to see.

I had many hopes for the summit and they were all fulfilled.  Here is a glimpse of my opening speech on Saturday morning –

My hope for the summit is to create a community of like-minded people who know that the only people they can change is themselves and then by example they may be able to influence their family and friends, community, country and planet…

My hope for the summit is to educate you not only in nutrition but where our nutrition comes from, our farmers and the new breed of farmer emerging, the regenerative farmer.  The reason they are called regenerative is that we don’t want to sustain what we have done we want to regenerate our land and our lives

My hope for the summit is to give you the tools, perspective and resources that you will need to keep you inspired until we meet again.

My hope for the summit is to give you solutions to the problems we are now facing and the new way to find healthy, nutritious regeneratively sourced foods in your area where you have more control than you ever thought possible.

My hope for the summit is for you to find friends and like-minded people that will support you in your journey.  Many families don’t understand the black sheep that says, I’m not going to eat vegetable oils anymore, I’m going to consider where I spend my money, I’m changing the way I eat, I’m not supporting the multi nationals because I believe that every individual has to stand up and make a stand on what will change the world for the better.

And my hope is to teach you strategies to help your mental and physical state using tools you will be taught by the speakers including shaking it off and breath work.

There is a lot happening in the world, mandates, restrictions on travel, lock downs, rogue governments, agendas by the WHO, WEF and UN as well as corporate lies and deceit from big Agriculture, big food, big pharma and big finance and I want to give you a sense that they are not in control of your life.  You are in control and as individuals we are all powerful.  There are many things we can do to not play in the sand box of the big corporates and to become thorns in their sides and under their feet.  Well at least that is my mission and I hope you will join me.

This is what I hope more and more people begin to do.

Critically think about the world around you, don’t take anything at face value

Turn off the TV and all news casts, turn off the radio, instead listen to podcasts, audible books, independent news casts, and the like.

Spend your money wisely – buy local as much as possible.

Buy food from a local farmer or grow your own – incredible edible garden is a good place to start, get the soil right first then grow your own.  There is also REKO and/or community partnerships for food swaps.

Try not to buy water in plastic and if you see a water bottle on the ground with water in it, empty it out and separate the cap from the bottle.  Water in plastic will not be available to the planet until the plastic breaks down.  The planet needs it water.

Home education or find an alternative school that is not teaching the dogma that we see today in the education system.  Which now not only includes dietary guidelines but the agenda for vegetarianism and less animal products is being spread throughout the school system.

Try to find a community bank or local bank – perhaps move away from the big banks.

Use cash not cards as much as possible – Cathryn Austin Fitts – Cash Friday.

Be radical and get healthy, don’t depend on conventional medicine except in an emergency or if you depend on medication for life.  Seek out new ways to be healthy including

• High Nutrient Food
• Movement
• Breath work
• Sleep
• Sunshine
• Connection
• Grounding

Become drug independent.

Imagine if we did this, big AG, big pharma, big finance and big chemical would have less profits and less power.

We may not be able to do all of these things but at least let’s make a start.

Imagine changing one thing a week – where will you be in a year?

Now imagine changing nothing – where will you be in a year?

Make this summit count.

You can see I had many hopes for the weekend.

I want to create a tsunami of change that will ensure the health of ourselves and future generations.

See you next year!  (Peppers Noosa Resort & Villas, July 29^th-31^st July 2023)