Leah Webb is a family food and garden coach residing in western North Carolina. She is the author of The Grain-Free, Sugar-Free, Dairy-Free Family Cookbook, a complete meal planning guide for those committed to eating more home-cooked meals, even on busy weeknights. She has an upcoming micro-farming book that is anticipated to be released in January 2022. Her commitment to health is inspired by her two children’s medical challenges and the unexpected gifts that accompany adversity.
Leah is speaking in Texas, Pennsylvania and is a contributor to Mother Earth News Fair Online.Workshops
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The Art and Mastery of Meal Planning and Prep
When Leah learned that her son had severe food allergies and that her daughter had cystic fibrosis, she knew a healthy diet would play an integral part of her children’s care. But learning to get organized in the kitchen while still having time for other activities felt like an impossible task. Over the course of three years, Leah learned to master the art of meal planning and prep through the use of bulk shopping, freezing foods, planning ahead, and getting organized. Her techniques are effective enough for those needing to follow the strictest of diets, but easy enough for those who don’t necessarily love to cook or plan ahead, but also understand the necessity for home-cooked meals. Leah provides participants with an overview of the techniques that have enabled her to spend a minimal amount of time in the kitchen while serving her family a nearly 100 percent made-from-scratch diet. Home-cooked breakfasts, snacks, lunches, and dinners are possible because of these techniques. She shows you how to get organized, get cooking, and stay sane!
Real Foods Hands On
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Nurturing a Healthy Eater Through Exposure, Play, and Participation
Raising a healthy eater in a society that doesn’t necessarily support or encourage healthy habits can be a major challenge for parents. Leah Webb, family food and garden coach with more than a decade of experience teaching kids, will discuss her fun and effective approach to encouraging interest in healthy foods. She’ll demonstrate her tried-and-true methods that will help you turn healthy meals into a joyful part of an everyday routine. The recommendations are best suited for 1-to-8-year-old children but can be modified for older children as needed.
Real Foods Hands On
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Finding Abundant Opportunities in Specialty Diets
Leah Webb covers reasons why an individual/family would want to explore a restrictive diet. One of these being that health is valuable! Restrictive diets are not a form of punishment for past behavior. She explores the concepts of nourishing choices and loving boundaries and how these concepts relate to our food choices including the psychological impacts of restrictive eating. She'll also review strategies for getting prepared such as making lists of possibilities (foods that are on the "yes" list), arming yourself with the appropriate resources (i.e. cookbooks, recipes, websites), learning to identify aspects of restrictive eating that feel depriving and strategize solutions to feel rewarded, and preparing for social situations without the awkwardness as well as how to deal with kids and restrictive diets
Natural Health Hands On
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Feeding Kids Healthfully in a Not-So-Healthful World
Parents understand the importance of a healthy diet but establishing healthy eating habits can be extremely challenging when kids are bombarded with messages from peers, media, and other forms of advertising telling them to eat highly processed foods. There is no perfect solution to correcting our eating crisis, but there are a number of strategies that parents can use to encourage kids to develop a more diverse palate. Leah Webb will discuss some of the barriers to accessing healthy foods, strategies to overcome these barriers, simple activities to diversify a child’s palate, and age-appropriate language to use when speaking to kids about foods. This workshop is best for parents of children age 0 to 8 years of age.
Real Foods Natural Health
Speaking At:
Pennsylvania, Friday 2:00-3:00 p.m., Mother Earth News Stage
Family Meal Planning and Prep
When Leah Webb learned that her son had severe food allergies and that her daughter had cystic fibrosis, she knew that a healthy diet would play an integral part of her children’s care. But learning to get organized in the kitchen while still having time for other activities felt like an impossible task. Leah slowly learned to master the art of meal planning and prep through the use of bulk shopping, freezing foods, and planning ahead. Her techniques are effective enough for those needing to follow the strictest of diets, but easy enough for those who don’t necessarily love to cook or plan ahead, but also understand the necessity for home-cooked meals. Leah will provide participants with an overview of the techniques that have enabled her to spend a minimal amount of time in the kitchen while serving her family a nearly 100% made-from-scratch diet. She’ll show you how to get organized, get cooking, and stay sane!
Real Foods Natural Health
Speaking At:
Pennsylvania, Friday 5:00-6:00 p.m., Grit Stage
Create Your Inexpensive No-Till Garden with Sheet Mulching
Traditional methods of garden establishment require the use of a tiller or an immense amount of labor to remove existing grass from your new gardening space. This technique fails to preserve the beneficial processes that are present in undisturbed soil. Using a no-till, no-dig approach will help improve the quality of your soil over time, which ultimately results in fewer pests, fewer inputs, fewer weeds, less labor, and improved soil fertility. Sheet mulching is a technique used by numerous no-till, no-dig organic growers and permaculturists, in which multiple layers of organic matter are used to smother grass and build organic-rich beds on top of existing lawns. Learn how to build raised and in-ground beds using sheet mulching, the benefits of this technique, and the numerous materials that can be sourced (mostly free) to start your beds.
Organic Gardening Hands On
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Building Your No-Till, No-Dig Micro-Farm
Micro-farms are diverse, sustainable, small-scale, high-yield farms that can be developed in rural or urban settings. Building a highly productive micro-farm is best accomplished using incremental steps that increase your workload and skillset overtime. No-dig, no-till practices are perfectly suited for these smaller farms in that untilled soils are best managed by hand without the use of heavy machinery. No-till, no-dig techniques create more productive soil at a lower cost, save hours in weeding, and produce an abundance of nutritional dense foods right in your backyard.
Sustainable Agriculture
Speaking At:
Pennsylvania, Saturday 11:30-12:30 p.m., Sustainable Agriculture Stage
Belly Biochemistry
A proper immune response is largely influenced by the microbial population that resides in the digestive tract. Join Leah Webb as she explains the ins and outs of digestion in an easy-to-understand approach and sheds light on the relationship between immunity, disease, microbiota, and diet. She’ll discuss dietary strategies to better support immunity including some of the foods that can (and can’t) support a healthy digestive system, thus a healthy immune response. The gut-brain connection will be briefly discussed since this relationship has such a profound effect on our emotions, physiological responses, and ability to feel our best.
Real Foods Keynote
Speaking At:
Pennsylvania, Sunday 2:00-3:00 p.m., Natural Health Stage
Backyard Carbon Farming: Regenerative Practices for the 21st Century Organic Gardener
Agriculture has been identified as one of the leading contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, yet it is repeatedly referenced as one of the leading solutions in the reversal of climate change. Properly farmed soil has immense capacity to pull carbon and other greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and draw them into the soil where they can be effectively stored for hundreds and even thousands of years. Many farms have started implementing regenerative practices that are designed to enhance carbon-storage capacity, improve nutrient retention, reduce reliance on agricultural inputs, and ultimately feed the world through the use of environmentally friendly practices. These same techniques (and more!) can be easily applied in backyard gardens by those who want to transform their home gardens into highly productive carbon sinks. Participants will learn about the factors affecting soil health, why carbon storage is so important, how to use naturally occurring soil processes to enhance soil nutrition, and why these practices are your most powerful tool to improve your health.
Kids Programming
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