The keynote speaker at Saturday's Farm To Table conference as well as tomorrow's Spring Farm Dinner is Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to nutrition.

	Sally Fallon Click photo for larger image.

Her topic is "Health, Beauty & Strength through Nourishing Traditional Diets," but don't expect the usual avoid-meat-and-eat-your-whole-grains shtick.

The foundation's message -- based on the 1920s and '30s research of Dr. Price, a dentist -- is that animal fats and cholesterol are good for you. Whole grains can cause problems. Soy foods are dangerous. Butter is a health food.

"We figured out a way of offending just about everybody," Ms. Fallon quips over the phone from her Washington, D.C. office. But "This diet works for people," including her four children, who grew up eating vegetables cooked in lard and taking cod liver oil.

"Everyone should be on cod liver oil," Ms. Fallon says.

The diet worked for Elise W. Deitz of Clarion, who says she was able to give up processed foods and gain fitness thanks to Ms. Fallon's book, "Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats" (with Mary G. Enig, Ph.D.; New Trends Publishing, 1999).

Ms. Deitz now is the leader of the foundation's Western Pennsylvania chapter and is thrilled to get to introduce Ms. Fallon when she speaks from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday at a local-food event at Keystone High School in Knox, Clarion County ($5 admission includes food samples; for details, call 814-849-9662). Says Ms. Dietz, "Dr. Price's research is fascinating."

Based on his studies of 14 isolated peoples, the foundation strongly recommends whole milk products, meat and eggs from grass-fed, or pastured, animals.

Recently, through A Campaign for Real Milk that Ms. Fallon founded, it's pushed for wider availability of raw, or unpasteurized, milk, which may be purchased in Pennsylvania.

Earlier this month the group scored a victory in Ohio where consumers won a challenge to their right to enter "herd share" programs as a way to access raw milk from farmers who can't legally sell it. They can't sell it, health officials counter, because it can contain bacteria such as E. coli that can make people sick.

Ms. Fallon's talks are sure to be provocative, but she promises she'll also be practical. "My philosophy is you never present a problem without a solution. I also don't like people to make a fetish out of their foods."

She says the foundation tries to "promote foods that people actually eat, that are practical for families." The group believes in buying local, but you don't necessarily have to buy organic. "If you have a healthy diet, you can deal with a certain level of toxins," she says, opening up another hot topic.

When she speaks to groups, "I sometimes hear a few little gasps," she says with a laugh. As for her audiences in Pennsylvania, "I will say they just might find some interesting surprises."