WELLNESS
PLANT BASED DAILY
Plant Based Chef Kristine Kelly introduction to Plant based lifestyle
by Kevin Lawrie
WEDNESDAY 27, JANUARY 2021
What is plant-based eating? It's essentially in the name, you focus on eating vegetables, fruits, legumes, beans, peas, lentils, nuts, seeds, whole grains. you just base your eating habits around what is grown. Plant based does not include animal products like meat and dairy. It’s not about restricting the diet but it’s about including more vibrant colors and nutrients to the diet basically
What happens after only a couple of weeks, though, is nothing short of a miracle. After two weeks, your taste buds will change, your energy will increase, you may lose weight, your blood pressure and cholesterol will drop, your unhealthy TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide) levels will fall, your sex life will improve, your arteries will be less clogged, and the list goes on and on.
We were lucky enough to catch up with Kristine Kelly, who is definitely a leader in the Plant-based field here in St. Barths, and spent some time chatting about one of her favorite subjects:
Q What made you jump into this adventure of Plant-based eating?
A: I was living in California near Santa Monica where the 'healthy, conscious eating' lifestyle thrives and was lucky enough to stumble into Cafe Gratitude which could be argued as one of the leaders in Plant-based eateries. This is where my passion grew, and I decided to enroll in Mathew Kenney (internationally famed American Plant-based celebrity chef) famous culinary school, and my thrive for knowledge in this subject has just developed and grown rapidly.
Q: What inspires you to be the leading Plant-based chef in St Barths?
A: Education is a passion, and people are generally just not familiar with the lifestyle. It is also an excellent opportunity to spread the word and start educating children from a young age, and it then progresses. There is so much you can have from fun cooking classes, fermenting vegetables, marinating them make it tasty, and the use of fresh locally grown produce. Yes, we have small local farms in St Barths growing herbs and greens, it is becoming sustainable.
Q Do you find finding ingredients on the island a challenge?
A: No, there are a few sustainable farms, and you can pickle, ferment, preserve foods. There is a small-scale CSA (community supported agriculture) farm box of organic food arriving from Guadeloupe weekly, and you can request special ingredients in advance.
Q: What direction do you envision Plant-based to grow in the St Barths and the world in general?
A: Great question, especially during Covid, it is increasing exponentially, especially as people are worried about their gut health and microbiomes. Prebiotics is essential to strengthening the immune system, and this is found in fiber, it is a case of increasing fiber to stay healthy. Generally speaking, more and more guests coming to St Barths are either already Plant-based or showing a lot of interest in this. So, the restaurants and hotels are adapting their menus... it's growing...
Q: What five fun facts can you give us about being Plant-based, Kristine?
A: 30 is the magic number, eat 30 different kinds of vegetables, legumes and fruit weekly at least. Eat Hempseeds, they are a highly digestible form of protein. Spirulina has the highest amount of protein by weight. Chaga is the king of mushrooms – dual extracted Chaga has the highest source of antioxidants found in nature! When you take a look at the “Blue zones” worldwide where (a higher than usual number of people live longer than average) people are found to live the longest and the healthiest, and they all are generally eating a predominantly
plant-based diet.
@plantbaseddaily