Hey! If you didn’t come to see What the Health Movie and attend the Pre-Party, you really, really missed it! A couple of Sundays ago, as part of the leadership team of PlantDiego, with a charity called Give Wellness, we raised funds and provided an amazing movie about why the big companies don’t want to discuss food and wellness.
So here’s my “What the Health” Movie and Pre-Party Review. There will be more events coming up so please make sure you are a member of San Diego Foodies to see all of the events I run separately or in support and with PlantDiego!
PlantDiego is a ‘pod’ of Pure Plant Nation. According to the website:
“The PlantPure Communities (PPC) Pod Network emerged out of the 2015 film PlantPure Nation with the goal of creating and supporting a grassroots movement by empowering a network of independent local groups (Pods) and people to promote the benefits of a whole food, plant-based lifestyle. Pods can use the PlantPure Nation film, community-building online tools and events, and other resources in their outreach efforts. In November 2016, the Pod Network was transferred from PlantPure, Inc. to being under the umbrella of the nonprofit, PlantPure Communities.
People join Pods to support one another and work together to spread the message of plant-based nutrition in their communities, as well as have fun and build friendships”.
LET’S HEAR ABOUT THE EVENT, CHEF!
Ok. All right. We had it on a Sunday and started with our Plant Powered Pre-Party across the street from La Paloma Theater (where the free movie was held), at Union Cowork who volunteered their building and parking lot. Lindsey their Manager couldn’t have been nicer or done more for us!
Our vendors donated lots of vegan cheese (Miyokos & Treeline), crackers (Kashi & Jilz Crackers), along with cookies, veggies wraps and more, donated by Plant Power Fast Food, Lazy Acres, Jimbo’s, Rickaroons, Nii Bars, OB People’s Food Co-op, Mission Square Market, Bitchin’ Sauce, tasty Kombucha from Kombucha Culture, veggies from Veg-Appeal, Juice from OH Juice and Solti, and more…… along with great music from Dave and DTO Music. Special thanks to Jax Connolly Photo who did an amazing job of capturing it all.
We also had an incredible amount of raffles (and I can’t list everything here) from Peace Pies, Trilogy Sanctuary, Hemp Love, San Diego Botanic Garden, Veggie Grill, Better Buzz Coffee Roasters, Queen Eileen’s, Lemongrass Aveda Salon, Cafe Gratitude, Eve and so much more. The community really came out to support our cause. People flowed from inside Union Cowork to outside and then filled almost 400 seats at La Paloma Theater. Dave Engel and yours truly MC’d the events. So much fun! And we all were really lucky with the amount of volunteers we had, helping with setup, the raffle and clean up. What a great crew to work with, organized by Michelle! Special thanks to Marina who reviewed what our day looked like, before it all started! And of course, it goes without saying that none of this would have happened without Tracy. So let me tell you how to get more involved….
Tracy Childs (Veg-Appeal) and Marina Yanay-Triner (Soul In The Raw) lead the team to creating Vegan Events and Challenges. They both cook and teach. They both have interesting reading on their blogs. Check their websites and reach out to them, to participate or learn more about a plant based lifestyle.
Back to La Paloma. Just before the movie, and then after Donna Pinto of Give Wellness was on stage with a power point presentation and a short chat with the audience. She told us about her passion to bring wellness education, programs and activities to low-income community groups and people facing cancer or other life/health challenges.
Our ‘Keynote Speaker’ was The 300 Pound Vegan, David Carter. Not only is David Carter known to be a great football player, he also went plant based and built his body up to 315 pounds finding that eating plant based food made him stronger and more powerful on the field.
I was seriously amazed at his powerpoint presentation after the movie, where he talked about growing up poor in America, in what he calls ‘a food desert’.
Have you heard that term before? Well, I hadn’t. And even the concept, the pictures of the only ‘grocery’ store in the area, with one little double round rack that contained maybe 8 or 9 ‘fresh’ old vegetables as the only choice to eat well.
I’m shocked! Seriously! I had no idea. No wonder fast food grew so fast in lower income communities. There was obviously no choice.
David Carter is smart, articulate and really represents his story well. I was glad to hear what he had to say, and now that I know that there are food deserts, (you can’t un-ring a bell), I will start looking for partners to make a difference with.
People are people. And all people gotta eat and eat well!
I hope you will share this with others….
Healthy Happy Eating,
