Acterra: The Invisible Vegan Panel Discussion
Join Acterra for a panel discussion centered around Jasmine C. Leyva's compelling documentary The Invisible Vegan, which profiles the African American experience with plant-based diets. Topics of discussion will include food justice, healthy plant-rich eating, cultural relevance, and the decolonization of food.
Featuring: Jasmine C. Leyva, Filmmaker and Co-Director of the documentary The Invisible Vegan; GW Chew, Founder & CEO, Something Better Foods Inc.; Ivanna Frances, West Coast Coordinator, Veggie Mijas; Lauren Ornelas, Founder & President, Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.).
Note: Admission includes free access to stream the documentary film The Invisible Vegan.
Panelists
Jasmine C. Leyva, Filmmaker and Co-Director of the documentary The Invisible Vegan
Jasmine C. Leyva is the Filmmaker and Co-Director of the documentary The Invisible Vegan, a film which chronicles Jasmine’s personal experience with plant-based eating. She has worked as an associate producer on a NAACP winning docuseries entitled Unsung, and shortly after, was given the opportunity to write and produce on Being, a docuseries highlighting dynamic entertainers in film and music. She’s done court shows, casted for Food Network productions and made strides in front of the camera. Jasmine has a Bachelor of Arts in TV, Film and Media and a Master of Fine Arts in screenwriting.
GW Chew, Founder & CEO, Something Better Foods Inc.
GW Chew, aka Chef Chew, is the Founder & CEO of Something Better Foods Inc. Adopted at birth into a family with a last name “Chew,” GW believes that he was born with a mission, born with a purpose, and born to change lives one chew at a time. He grew up in a family of very heavy meat eaters and noticed that a lot of different diseases, from diabetes to cancer, plagued the members of his family. Understanding that a lot of those same diseases have been linked to poor diet and an overconsumption of animal meat products, Chef Chew switched to a plant-based diet in 2001. He painstakingly invented the Better Chew proteins in his mom’s kitchen and has perfected the textures and taste over the past 15 years. As a result, Chef Chew has been able to create scalable plant-based solutions for grocery and food service that will also help existing brands innovate within their current portfolio. He is also the founder of The Veg Hub, a non-profit vegan restaurant in Oakland that provides ethnic inspired plant-based foods to a food desert community. They also provide cooking classes and other educational services to the Oakland Bay Area in nutrition and wellness.
Ivanna Frances, West Coast Coordinator, Veggie Mijas
Ivanna Frances (she/they) is the West Coast Coordinator for Veggie Mijas, a nonprofit that aims to provide education and resources for access to healthy food for marginalized communities. Ivanna and Veggie Mijas are working towards creating safe and inclusive spaces for folks of various walks of life to explore and cultivate healthy relationships with food. They raise awareness about food injustice to build and amplify the BIPOC community's perspective within the food movement. A 1st generation Peruvian-American and practicing Buddhist, Ivanna attends Cal-State University of Long Beach as a third-year Nutrition & Dietetics major. She also works full-time as an undergraduate research assistant studying metabolic health.
Lauren Ornelas, Founder & President, Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.)
Lauren Ornelas is the Founder and President of Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.), a vegan food justice nonprofit that promotes veganism, fights for farm workers, works on lack of access to healthy foods in communities of color, and encourages people not to buy chocolate sourced from the worst forms of child labor. She has been active in the animal rights movement since 1987, having started the first high school animal rights group in San Antonio, Texas, and then Action for Animals, a group she launched in college and that is still active in Austin. In 1999, lauren was asked by Viva!UK to start and run Viva!USA in 1999. As the leader of Viva!USA, lauren investigated factory farms and ran consumer campaigns, working with activists nationwide. In cooperation with other activists, lauren persuaded Trader Joe’s to stop selling duck meat, convinced Pier 1 Imports to stop using feathers, and was the spark that got the CEO of Whole Foods Market to become a vegan. She also helped halt the construction of an industrial dairy operation in California.
