Meet Your Presenters
Dr Douglas Graham
Dr Graham is a lifetime athlete and has been a raw fooder for over 25 years. Advisor to world-class athletes and trainers from around the globe, he has worked professionally with top performers from almost every sport and every field of entertainment, including such notables as tennis legend Martina Navratilova, NBA pro basketball player Ronnie Grandison, track Olympic sprinter Doug Dickinson, pro women's soccer player Callie Withers, championship bodybuilder Kenneth G. Williams, Chicken Soup for the Soul coauthor Mark Victor Hansen, and actress Demi Moore. Dr. Graham is also the author of many books on raw food and health including The High Energy Diet Recipe Guide, Nutrition and Athletic Performance, Grain Damage, and the forthcoming books, Prevention and Care of Athletic Injuries and The 80/10/10 Diet. A popular and articulate presenter Dr Graham has shared his strategies for success with audiences at more than 4,000 presentations worldwide.
Elaine Bruce
Elaine is the founder and director of The UK Centre for Living Foods, is author of Living Foods for Radiant Health and has been practicing and teaching the Living Foods Programme for over 25 years. Originally taught by “The Mother of Living Foods” Dr Ann Wigmore in 1980, Elaine joined her staff at the Puerto Rico Clinic for a time in 1992. Throughout her career Elaine has trained and studied intensively in Naturopathy and Homeopathy, and is also trained in Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and Phytobiophysics. She has offered workshops and courses, tailored for the UK, since 1990, from her home in Shropshire and is without question the most experienced Living Foods teacher in the UK today.
Jackie Rawe
Jackie has been a permanent fixture at the Fresh Festival since she wowed attendees at the very first event with her self-penned inspiring and upbeat songs. An accomplished singer and recording artists, Jackie was formally a member of popular 80’s band Shakatak and has been a backing singer with numerous artists and bands including Cher, Suzi Quatro, Imagination, Gary Numan, Paul Carrack (Mike and the Mechanics). Her impressive and versatile vocal style has graced many chart records including the No.1 hit singles Think Twice by Celine Dion and The Way You Look Tonight by Elton John.
Jason Vale
Also known as The Juice Master, Jason is the author of six best-selling books including Slim 4 Life and Turbo Charge Your Life in 14 Days. Hailed as “The most entertaining, energetic and passionate speaker in the UK” by the Daily Mail, Jason’s live presentations are high-energy are simply unmissable and unforgettable! Formerly a heavy smoker and drinker, and junk food addict, Jason battled constantly with excess weight from childhood onwards even as an adult was covered head to toe in psoriasis. Today he is smoke free, drink free, asthma free and his skin is 90% clear of his psoriasis. Using what he has learned from his own journey to vibrancy, Jason has gone on to work with hundreds of thousands of people including top athletes, CEO’s, major companies and many celebrities, including Anne Diamond and Katie Price (Jordan), and is a regular name and face on TV and radio.
Jill Swyers
For over 30 years Jill has worked in the catering industry but for several of those years she suffered a low energy level and felt debilitated. Diagnosed as suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalga, Hypoglycaemia, Candida and Reynauds disease. she believed her condition could be directly linked to her diet, which is when she started looking seriously at the impact of diet on health. In 1998 she went to the Hippocrates health Institute (Florida) as a guest and six months later she returned to Hippocrates to train and qualify as a Hippocrates health Educator. Having cured herself through a combination of diet, exercise and alternative therapies, Jill now teaches regular classes both in London and Portugal and offers counselling and residential workshops based on the life-changing Hippocrates program.
Karen Knowler
Karen is the founder of the Fresh Festival, Managing Director of The Fresh Network, and is also known as The Raw Food Coach. With over 13 years of personal experience of eating a raw food diet, Karen has been teaching, writing and coaching professionally on raw foods for eight years. Co-author of Feel-Good Food and author of the forthcoming Raw Food for Beginners, Karen has lectured around the world, has appeared live on LK Today (GMTV), appears frequently in the national press and has coached and worked with people from all backgrounds including well-known celebrities. In her work as a teacher and coach, Karen has recently developed a unique 7-step approach to “going raw” and these steps are taught at her hugely popular monthly Raw Food for Beginners classes and weekend workshops. Karen’s extensive knowledge and experience of all issues relating to raw food eating – particularly the emotional aspects, as well as her accessible, positive and inspiring take on “eating for energy” make her the most sought-after raw and living foods proponent in the UK today.
Matthew Kenney
Matthew is a new name to the Fresh Festival but not to the food world where he remains one of the culinary world’s most dynamic and innovative talents. Working his way up through the ranks of various New York eateries, Matthew opened his first restaurant in 1993 - an upscale, Mediterranean influenced cuisine. During the following five years he built and opened several restaurants whose focus was regional Mediterranean cooking. In 1994, Matthew was named one of the Ten Best New Chefs in America by Food and Wine magazine. He also received two James Beard Nominations for Rising Star Chef in America. After several professional setbacks which included the collapse of his restaurant company, one day he happened to accompany a friend to a “raw vegan” restaurant. Hesitant at first, Matthew not only found his raw meal enjoyable, but was struck by the mental and physical clarity he found upon dining. Bursting with renewed energy, Matthew set about learning all he could about raw cuisine and organic ingredients, and opened Pure Food and Wine in New York in 2004. What at first sounded like a crazy idea went on to take the culinary world by storm and soon become a wildly popular critical success. With this new found knowledge, he co-authored Raw Food, Real World, a recipe and lifestyle book that has quickly become one of the leading references in the raw food movement. Today Matthew runs Organic Umbrella which encompasses several different raw-related projects including The Plant in Dumbo restaurant and the Blue Green Organic Juice Café.
Paul Nison
At age 20 Paul was diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (also know as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis), a deadly affliction. After a search for answers and healing he transitioned to a raw food diet over 10 years ago, and was cured of all his illnesses. Since then Paul has written six books on the topic of health and nutrition and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows – he has also given more lectures on raw foods in the past 4 years than anyone else in the world, to his knowledge. A humble and entertaining speaker, Paul is known for being bold and to the point – but as a former stand-up comedian his presentations are often as funny as they are educational. Having learned and studied with the highly-respected Dr Fred Bisci, Paul continues to travel the world lecturing and continuing with his learning as he separates fact from fiction on the raw food world.
Philip Weeks M.H., M.A.M.H., LicAc., M.B.Ac.C. Ir.,
Philip is considered one of the leading practitioners of natural health in the UK and has been in practice since 1998, conducting over 10,000 health consultations. The youngest graduate in the UK to have qualified as a Master Herbalist, Philip went on to study iridology and various forms of energy medicine and naturopathic approaches. Philip has trained with some of the world's leading therapists, including Richard Schultz, Kitty Campion, Christopher Hobbs, Jack Temple, John Morley, Patrick Holford and more. Philip runs a very busy naturopathic health practice in Hereford seeing patients from all over the UK, Europe and the US. He is also co-director of the Harley Street Naturopathic Health Clinic located in central London.
René Archner
René is an internationally well known living foods chef famous for his award-winning cakes and pies as well as smoothie creations. Born in Germany, he is now living and working in the beautiful Bay of Islands, New Zealand, where he and his partner Lydia are running a very successful living foods business, Vibrant Earth Creations. There in New Zealand they teach classes and cater for private and corporate clients, as well as for spiritual events and local luxury accommodations. René is also consulting for restaurants and resorts worldwide and is teaching living foods at several culinary schools in New Zealand. René has a passion for living foods cakes and desserts that he discovered while still working as a mechanical engineer and project manager in Norway. Since then he has fine-tuned the art of preparing stunning raw pies and cakes, which brought him the first prize at the pie contest of the International Raw and Living Foods Festival in Oregon two years in a row. He is now known as the "Raw Pie-oneer". René has trained and worked in various settings and kitchens with Chad Sarno, graduated from Living Light Culinary Arts Institute, and has worked on an internship at the Tree of Life Cafe in Patagonia, AZ, in June 2004. René was the clear winner in last years’ Smoothie Making competition and this year is our head chef for this weekend. As well as presenting a live food demo on Sunday afternoon, he’ll be running the entire catering throughout the 3 days, including the amazing gala dinner.
Professor Rozalind Gruben-Graham
Rozalind has a Professorship in Applied Nutrition and has served as Senior National Course Director and Assessor of Exercise Teacher Training in the UK. Rozalind made the vegetarian choice as a young child, but despite efforts to build her health, it deteriorated until disordered eating nearly took her life at the age of 23, when she adopted the philosophy of Natural Hygiene. Currently, Professor Graham is the proud full-time mother to her 100% raw-vegan daughter Faychesca. Awarded for her public speaking, Rozalind can transform the complexities of physiology into a compelling fairy-tale while her experience and integrity steal your heart.
Russell James
Russell is one of the UK’s most talented raw food chefs and earlier this year was chef for The Fresh Network monthly raw dinner parties in London and caterer for the Dr Brian Clement event in London in July. Having spent some time at the Living Light Culinary Arts Institute in 2005, Russell’s passion for creating raw dishes that delight and inspire has continued to ignite. With a natural talent for turning cooked food recipes into delicious raw ones, and excellent food presentation skills, Russell has an enthusiasm for raw chefing that is contagious.
Ruth Shivani Allen
Ruth is our yoga teacher for the weekend and is an experienced yoga therapist, teacher and wellness counsellor. A lifelong student of the Science of Yoga and Natural Healing Ruth has practiced and taught for over 30 years. Ruth has travelled and studied in India and the USA and played an active teaching role in seminars throughout Europe in the fields of Yoga and Personal Development.
Trish Tucker
Trish is the inspiring and energetic founder of Passion 4 Juice Limited. She’s been passionate about juice since she was just 14 years old and for over 15 years has had fun experimenting with new recipes and taste sensations – all to rave reviews from friends and customers alike. Now absolutely living her passion, Trish sees juicing as a fantastic way to get the energy and vitality you need to live your passion. Trish’s vision is to spread this message about juice to as many people as possible and she’s actively doing this through her mobile juice bar, her inspiring lectures and her motivational passion-packed books. You can see Trish live on stage on Sunday evening and try her fantastic juices throughout the weekend as she and her husband front the Passion 4 Juice juice bar.
Many emails have been coming in asking about the Fresh Festival 2007.
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