Join myself, Dr. Riz and other community members for the showing of Plant Pure Nation. Learn about the politics of food, how the Plant Pure Communities pods got started and how we as a people can empower each other to live healthier lives. Learn how you can get involved.

**You will also learn more about our upcoming Lifestyle Medicine Wellness Retreat.**

After the film we will have a Q & A session.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/plant-pure-nation-film-march-28-2-pm-tickets-94044239853

FILM SYNOPSIS
The documentary film PlantPure Nation tells the story of three people on a quest to spread the message of one of the most important health breakthroughs of all time. After renowned nutritional scientist and bestselling author T. Colin Campbell gives a stirring speech on the floor of the Kentucky House of Representatives, his son, Nelson, and Kentucky State Representative Tom Riner work together to propose a pilot program documenting the health benefits of a plant-based diet. Once the legislation goes into Committee, agribusiness lobbyists kill the plan. Undeterred, Nelson decides to try his own pilot project in his hometown of Mebane, North Carolina.

On November 15th 2011, doctors T. Colin Campbell and Caldwell Esselstyn presented their research on the benefits of plant-based nutrition to the Kentucky State legislature. The house members were enthusiastic. With one of the highest levels of childhood obesity in the nation, Kentucky also suffers from high rates of heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes. Soon after Campbell’s and Esselstyn’s presentation, Rep. Tom Riner introduced a bill to establish a pilot program that would document the health benefits of a plant-based diet. But once the bill went into committee, industry lobbyists launched one of the most intensive lobby efforts ever in Kentucky. As the bill’s sponsor Rep. Riner put it, the bill was watered down to “a shadow of its former self”, turned “from steel to Reynolds Wrap.”

A top-down approach that recognized the powerful healing effects of plant-based nutrition had failed ­ again. But Nelson Campbell suspected there was another way to prove the merits of this idea. After the setback in Kentucky, he resolved to put his hunch to the test in his own North Carolina hometown of Mebane (population 11,562). He also took a documentary film crew with him.

Nelson hoped to demonstrate that a whole foods plant-based diet would lead to significant and measurable health improvements in just 10 days. He also wanted to demonstrate that such a diet would be easy to follow and indefinitely sustainable.

Using an approach consistent with the mainstream values of his hometown, he started small, offering ten-day “jumpstarts,” using freshly prepared plant-based meals and before and after biometric testing.

How would these rural people, many of whom were raised on southern comfort foods such as meat, potatoes, biscuits and gravy, handle a plant-based diet? Would they lose weight and get healthier? Would their families and friends accept their diet and lifestyle change? Could this be the spark of something even bigger? Can a nationwide health revolution actually begin in a town as rural and small as Mebane?

As Nelson is launching a movement in the most unlikely of places, his close friend in Kentucky, Rep. Tom Riner, continues his efforts to educate his legislative colleagues – eventually giving away over 300 copies of “The China Study.” Their success in both places motivates Nelson and Tom to join in an effort to right what is surely one of the greatest wrongs of our modern age. Together, they launch a plan to expose the forces that stand in the way of a wider recognition of the healing powers of a plant-based diet.