Health conscious team introduces vegan meals to Queensbridge neighbors

Lashawn “Suga Ray” Marston and Miles “Hollyhood” Cassa posted up outside the Queensbridge Houses for now weekly vegan meal distribution. Eagle Photos by Rachel Vick.

By Rachel Vick

Lashawn “Suga Ray” Marston credits healthy eating for helping him turn his life around. Marston, a resident of the Queensbridge Houses, spent time behind bars and said he struggled to manage his emotions, often turning to anger and violence.

In 2012, he switched to a plant-based diet as part of his path toward healthy living. He is now sharing his commitment to veganism with his neighbors through the organization Transform America.

Marston held a vegan festival over the summer and began distributing meals to residents once a week for the past two months to help “develop healthy people in mind, body and spirit,” he said.

Health consciousness can help in all areas of a person’s life, he said.

“I used to be violent; my ability to process emotions was scattered and a lot went into change but when I stopped eating meat and dairy I recognized the difference in how I felt,” he said. “I no longer woke up feeling like ‘ugh another day,’ I was lighter in body and mind.”

Marston and his partner-in-health Miles “Hollyhood” Cassa handed out 300 meals prepared by Urban Vegan Kitchen on a rainy morning Nov. 11. They called out to strangers across the street and friends passing by to encourage them to grab free, warm meals.

“[Life here] doesn’t stop. There’s still people outside, people going to school, to work, people living on the street,” Marston said. “This is real life — this is building community.”

Dozens of residents stop by each week, with some regulars embracing the plant-based meals and others trying it out for the very first time. Several people stop by because they simply needed a meal.

One regular asked if the day’s meal was a previous one she liked — a bowl with tempeh “eggs,” kale and grains. It was. 

She convinced her companion to give the food a shot. Cassa said that the meal distribution program has that kind of domino effect and inspires lifestyle changes.

“We introduce them to it and if you’re consistent, everything will fall into place. People who didn’t want to try it do, and you get the momentum,” Cassa said. “It’s the only way to change the whole paradigm.”  

The pair distributed dozens of meals on Nov. 11.

They hand out the meals next to a liquor store on a corner facing a bodega, a Chinese takeout spot, check-cashing. The scene underscores the overlapping issues of justice facing low income communities of color across the city, where healthy food can be hard to come by, Marston said.

“Food justice is intrinsic with racial justice,” Marston said.

He described the difficulty of living where access to healthy and fresh food is limited and where the realities of busy, complex lives make it easier to slip into unhealthy habits that can lead to higher rates of heart disease and diabetes.

He said he dreams of conducting a study that would demonstrate the correlation between violent crimes and high-sugar, high-meat diets. He also plans to ramp up meal distributions. For now though, the duo is working “little by little to bring a new way of engaging and living and eating,” Marston said.

“We have to rethink everything and that’s a lot of work but it’s good, necessary work,” he said. “It’ll help you on the path to achieve everything you want in life. Change your diet, change your life.”