The first annual St. Helena/Community Board #9 Plant-Based Health Fair

This weekend (Saturday May 26th, to be precise) was the First Annual St. Helena/Community Board #9 Plant-Based Health Fair.

Vendors 

We had a wonderful group of vendors, including:

• Jeanne Schumacher, team lead of Plant-Based Westchester, and part of PlantPure Communities
• Miguel, of Miguel's Flowershop on 1878 Cross-Bronx Expressway, off White Plains Road, with a huge selection of plants, all organized around the theme ofhow plants help clean up the indoor air.
• Montefiore was there with Information about the Cardiac Wellness Program and other great information on Plant-Based Living, to remind us that heart-disease, like many other chronic illnesses, is reversible with a plant-based lifestyle.
• The police was there to recruit for their upcoming exams, and one of the officers was very interested in plant-based living.
• Bronx Community Health Network (BCHN) was there, with more good nutritional information
• Dhokela Yzeiraj was there with information about Ayurvedic nutrition and medicine.
• Lilian Quartuccia, Homeopathist was there with great information about homeopathy.
• Taqueria Tlaxcalli, provided some plant-based food, an absolutely brilliant black-bean salad, very delicate, with just a bit of Mexican flair in the form of Jalapeno peppers.
• Neerob Restaurant was there with a brilliant dish of basmati rice, with a lentil-based sauce, and a mixed-vegetable sauce with cauliflower and water squash.

Program - Speakers 

With a brief introduction from the organizers, Father David Powers, the pastor of St. Helena's parish, Anthony Tramantano, consultant for GoodNNatural, the Bronx' first and only health food store, and myself, speaking for PlantBased DaBronx, and the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies, our program of speakers took off, and the program ran through 4:15 PM.

1. Jeanne Schumacher was the first presenter, and her background as a chemistry teacher showed in her presentation, which was an excellent introduction to all the practical aspects of adopting a plant-based lifestyle.
2. We had a brief station-break for an address by Alessandra Biaggi who is running for State Senate for district 34, (Mount Vernon, Pelham, and parts of the Bronx) - with an agenda that includes a focus on education, women's rights, affordable housing, gun control, the economy, with a healthy focus on sustainability, but she also informed us on the new NY Universal Healthcare Bill, which she supports and which passed in the Assembly last year and still needs to pass the Senate.
3. Rogier F. van Vlissingen (that's me) gave a presentation on the basic nutritional framework of the plant-based lifestyle with materials from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies at Cornell. He took a certificate course there. This course teaches the materials of the book professor T. Colin Campbell wrote with his physician son, Thomas Campbell, to popularize the findings of his academic work, The China Study, which remains the largest ever study of nutrition and health.
   In his presentation he mentioned the example of Jesse Caballero, who is the wife of the owner of Taqueria Tlaxcalli on Starling Avenue. Jesse made an amazing turn-around with the plant-based diet after a serious illness, and in four months she lost 55 lbs.

4. Dr. Sharon Wasserstrom, FACLM was the next speaker, she is the first plant-based physician in the Bronx, certified by the American College of Lifestyle Physicians. Her office is in our district, at the Montefiore clinic on 2300 Westchester Avenue. She spoke about some of her own clinical experience, and the amazing results, including how the results immediately show how fast.
5. Rogier spoke briefly on the future of healthcare, in which 70% of the focus is going to be on diet and lifestyle in general based on the new plant-based nutrition. The plant-based revolution will also clearly put the patient in charge, and that in and of itself will bring new relevance to many different healing modalities, including the ones represented at the fair today, naturopathy, homeopathy, Ayurveda, and Chinese Medicine.
6. Anthony Tramantano and Stuart Vander spoke about GoodNNatural, which is a Bronx-based healthfood store on 2173 White Plains Road, close to East Tremont Avenue. GoodNNatural stocks a lot of great products that are helpful for a plant-based lifestyle, including the full complement of Bob's Red Mill, and Soups by Dr. McDougall, and many others.
7. Dhokela gave us an impassioned speech about Ayurvedic nutrition, and how the whole Ayurvedic framework helps you be more aware of your body's responses to food, and the connection with the energy body. Originally Ayurveda is not a plant-based tradition, but still it can provide useful guidance for plant-based living if you tweak it appropriately, it certainly provides a way to become friends with yourself in your lifestyle choices.
8. Lillian Quartuccia provided a great introduction to Homeopathy, which is an often overlooked healing modality that was developed by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann in the 18th century. Homeopathic remedies have the great benefit of producing NO side effects. The one product many of us know, even if we don't know much about homeopathy is Oscillococcinum, which is a widely available flu remedy.
9. Carina Lopez, ND provided a lively introduction to herbs with a special focus on Chinese Medicine, which is yet another healing modality that can be helpful to many. While the approach is different, all three, homeopathy, Ayurveda, and Chinese medicine, are in essence varieties of energy medicine, which in general is undoubtedly becoming more and more important.
10. The final speaker was Ronda Lamb for the Parkchester CSA, which is a program to distribute organic vegetables at St. Paul's. You can buy a share in a farm's output for the season. The farm she represents is Stoneledge Farm in the Northern Catskills.
11. Father David Powers closed it out with a biblical pitch for the plant-based diet, reminding us all that the plant-based tradition goes back a long time.

 Literature Table

 There was ample information available on the literature table

• Showing of Forks Over Knives at NYPL Parkchester on June 2nd at 1 PM at the Parkchester Library. All are welcome. We had a sign-up sheet, but no RSVP is needed.
• Information on our monthly Suppers/#WFPB cooking classes at St. Helena's, with the next one being on June 16th. The program starts at 3 PM and 3 - 4 is for food prep, 4 - 5 is dinner time, and 5 - 5:29 is clean-up.
• There was information about The American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Through their website you can find lifestyle physicians where you live, and you can also be a lay member and have access to a wealth of useful information about plant-based living and health.
• There also was information about the 4LeafProgram, which is an excellent way to track just how well you are doing with your plant-based diet, and to keep you on track. It is used in many health plans as a self-assessment.
• Finally, there was information about the Suppers program, based on the book Logical Miracles. It is a do-it-yourself program to create dietary support groups at home, by hosting meal preparations at home and sharing the grocery bills with a few friends, to provide mutual support in achieving a diet and lifestyle change.
• There was also a flyer for Miguel's flower shop which explained which plants are good at cleaning up your indoor air, all based on NASA research.