In late June, a group of concerned vegeterains gathered in Seattle to forge a community dialog about eating smart and healthy to deter children’s hostile dietary regiment in everyday life.

Seattle talk radio personality Keith Tucker and vegetarian hip hop artist Shyan Selah teamed up with Vegetarians of Washington and the King County Department of Public Health Environmental Health Services Division to celebrate the creation of an innovative film documentary, Pursuit of A Green Planet, which addresses public health issues through people’s eating rituals.

Tucker says his primary goal in hosting the Seattle Area Youth Green Dinner was to shift the community’s eating habits to a vegetarian lifestyle. “As we continue to develop and promote our film project, we felt one of the most important things we could do was make our concept as real as possible to our supporters. If we can introduce people to vegetarian foods, it will be a major step in the right direction. We believe the Green Dinners can help change people’s lives, even before the film hits the big screen.”

Tucker is working with photojournalist and filmmaker Inye Wokoma and Evergreen State College professor Dr. Gilda Sheppard to use the power of media and grassroots activism to and promote the film project, while serving the community at the same time.

Pursuit of a Green Planet (POAGP) is the first documentary film project about hip hop, health and the green movement. The film takes a critical look at the connections between food, culture, economics and the epidemic of lifestyle-related disease plaguing America’s youth. Tucker is a regular guy who will become a living experiment as he makes the radical transition from your average American diet and lifestyle to a truly green, organic vegan lifestyle. He will be our guide on a journey of discovery as we learn how our food today actually makes us sick, the role corporations play in determining what we consume, the history of chemicals in our food chain, how our everyday eating habits can become deadly and what we can do to combat these realities.

Tucker and company will travel the country on the Greenhound, a bus converted to run off pure and recycled vegetable oil. On the journey will be two youth who have severe and immediate health issues related to their diet and lifestyle. These youth are at a crucial crossroads where they must change their lifestyle or risk a dramatic decrease in their health and quality of life. Along the way, the travelers will meet some of the biggest personalities in hip hop, all of whom are long-time vegetarians and vegans, including Saul Williams, Justin Bua, Persia White, Stic Man and KRS One.

Rapper, activist and author Stic Man with Keith Tucker, who is currently filming Pursuit of a Green Planet, the first documentary about hip hop, health and the green movement.

Shyan Selah, hip hop artist, outreach activist and founder of Brave New World, Inc., who is not only a friend of Tucker’s, but he will also be producing the original soundtrack for the film. Selah says the project found him with open arms.

“I’m honored to be part of this project. You start seeing many forces coming together as a one mind structure in contributing to the importance of health. Because of sickness and the outrageous numbers of diabetes and other diseases, when Keith approached me about the vegan and vegetarian movement, it struck me as something of interest” explains Selah, who notes that he has always followed a progressive path of eating healthy.

Selah contends that as consumers, we fall short on our eating habits when we struggle with the demands of our relationships at work, at home and family settings. But, even with a full traveling itinerary and life on the go, his purpose is clear: you need to make time to eat healthy in order to be healthy.

Scientific studies have linked attention deficit disorder, depression, Alzheimer’s, obesity in all ages, schizophrenia and violent behavior to the food we consume, particularly junk food that is absent of vitamins and the minerals found in manufactured diets.

Being tapped to lend his support to this project, Selah says, makes him feels energized because of the communities the project will target first. “The initial process to begin Green Dinners is to give inner-city kids and parents their first vegetarian meals. The event here in Seattle was a great introduction of how this documentary and the movement of eating healthy will inspire many others to change their internal carbon footprint. All of a sudden you see these kids getting overwhelmed with information and getting the right message.”

The event in Seattle hit a profound high note with speakers who are concerned about the foods we digest. Among the attendees was Keynote Speaker Dr. Che Joplin, who serves as the Chief Executive Director of Health of King County. The chiropractic doctor and co-author of I Am Hip Hop, I Am Health spoke on the importance of connecting health issues with hip hop as a cultural force for positive change.

Another speaker, Ngozi Oleru, who is the Division Director for DPH - Environmental Health Services Division (EHD) in King County, provided startling statistics about how the region or community you live in - wherever it is in the world - dictates the diseases you might inherit.

“Ngozi startled everyone with her perspectives,” Selah says. “She stood up there and said, ‘You can tell me what neighborhood you’re from and I can tell you what diseases you’re going to get and approximately when you’re going to die.’ Her statistics were that valid, where she can pull from that analysis and give you that information. This was incredible for me to hear. So, right after she finished, I got up on the mic and told these kids, that’s an amazing thing, that someone can have the nerve to get up here and tell you this information.”

Even the food, which was provided by the Seattle-based catering company, the Upper Crust, was a hit. “There were huge applauses all around that evening,” Selah says. “People who are solely meat eaters were very surprised by the variations of vegetarian dishes that were a wonderful to experience.”

Selah poses a question about the needs of a child and the expectation behind their eating habits by turning the table on his own observation as a child. “What would I have wanted when I was 12? I wish somebody would have come to me and said, ‘There’s a better way. Here’s how to take better care of your body and this is how you train your mind.’ Children today still don’t have that. So, today, I look at what I do as if it’s rehab for me. This is the first time I’m taking on music and health as a balance for our generations to come.”

The concept of going green is, in and of itself, an examination of not only consuming food, but also understanding the entire quality of life. The secrets being revealed behind the Green Dinners is if there is a roadmap on how peace can be obtained, where do you begin? The event sparked a lot of conversations. Most attendees voiced it begins at home, how we communicate with each other and how we educate ourselves to make proper and constructive healthy decisions everyday.

“I think a project like this really isn’t about choice, but rather our need to stomp out our addictions to many things. If I’ve been buying Skittles and soda for the past 10 years, I’m probably not going to purchase green tea. I don’t know of any kids today who would walk in to a 7-11 to grab a protein bar and green tea. It’s good that the choices are there, but you don’t see the marketing for that.”

http://colorsnw.com/colors/2009/08/05/the-flavor-of-hip-hop-is-going-green/