Cebu City – SUN Business Network Chair in Central Visays also the CEO of the Green Pantry Mr. Jonel A. Ucab leaped toward sustainable and healthy living. He created its first-ever array of plant-based menus offering meal subscriptions online. Slowly the advocacy evolved to having physical stalls along Cebu province and nearby islands offering healthy pastries, meals, snacks, and beverages contributing to sustainable and healthy living for the community.
As the pandemic heavily impacted Cebu City, lockdowns, changing lives, and everyone trying to secure necessary defense against illnesses especially COVID-19 virus, Mr. Ucab maximized the situation to push for healthy eating. Nutrition played a big role in Mr. Ucab’s advocacy to motivate more people to convert to a sustainable and healthy lifestyle as he sees many children, pregnant and lactating mothers, individuals, and households go undernourished, and more especially the go-to foods are unhealthy food choices.
Currently, Mr. Ucab and the Green Pantry earned the 2022 Golden Globe Annual Award for Business Excellence Best Healthy Vegan Restaurant (Cebu Awards), and recently, the Asian Sterling Awards for Most Outstanding Healthy Vegan Restaurant (Cebu Awards). The group aims to change the perspective that going green is expensive.
Being exposed to healthy and plant-based living as a child, it opened Mr. Ucab’s perception of the benefits of the lifestyle in creating stronger immunity. Vegetarian diets prove to have also been shown to support health, including a lower risk of developing coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and increased longevity as it also plays a huge part in fitness.
In a world where illnesses are spreading quickly, we must provide cheap and healthy meal alternatives to the community, Mr. Ucab further explained. Through this, we are able to fight off malnutrition which is also one of the greatest issues the world is facing right now, he opined.
Don’t forget to like, follow, and share the official Facebook page of National Nutrition Council Region VII for updates on the supporting nutrition activities in the region. // ND II James Aaron S. Perez, RND