The first-ever Real Food Rocks festival took place this weekend as a sold-out crowd enjoyed workshops, cooking demos, live music and fun activities all in the name of raising real food awareness.
The event was held on Saturday 20 July at Brathay Hall near Ambleside in Cumbria. Proceeds from the festival will be used to raise money for the Public Health Collaboration (PHC), a charity dedicated to improving the quality of public health information.
The event was the innovation of clinical psychologist Dr Jen Unwin, who has worked in the NHS for nearly 30 years. All in all, around 800 tickets were sold, maxing out the venue’s capacity.
Thank you to all our visitors, vendors, speakers, musicians and volunteers for all your support and making the event so successful and fun! We hope you all had a safe journey homen, and look forward to meeting you again in the future! Please share your photos with the #rfr19 🎪☀️ pic.twitter.com/7xYn6gagqW
� Real Food Rocks (@realfoodrocksUK) July 21, 2019
This was the first year of the festival, which featured guest speakers including Jen and her husband Dr David Unwin, who helped to deliver Diabetes Digital Media’s award-winning Low Carb Program app which received NHS Digital approval earlier this year.
BBC broadcaster Dr Michael Mosley, heart health engineering expert Ivor Cummins and Naturopathic Nutrition Advisor Claire McDonnell-Liu were also among the impressive line-up of speakers offering a diverse set of talks on healthy living.
Attendees were treated to a wide mix of complimentary food from real food vendors as well as a variety of workshops. There were also low carb cooking demos and activities for the whole family to enjoy.
The real food focus has started gaining momentum in recent years as more and more research reveals that regular consumption of ultra-processed, sugary foods increase health risks, whereas eating an unprocessed, real-food diet with less sugar and more healthy fats can help with weight loss, improved HbA1c and even putting type 2 diabetes into remission.
