Reporter
matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt
“I’ve always been into sports, an active lifestyle since I could walk,” says Nathaniel Alexander, who identifies as an athlete. In his early days, he first got acquainted with cricket when he was two years old and has played the sport ever since.
But now, after being introduced to pickleball by a friend, Alexander has incorporated the sport into his daily life with five to six hours a day spent playing, and three to four times a week of pickleball training.
He doesn’t smoke, vape, or drink alcohol. Although, to him, soca music is the closest form of alcohol he enjoys.
Taking a bird’s eye view of the pervasive health issues in society, the 24 year old advised that people should be honest and realistic with their health and not to substitute acceptance of one’s body for the work in getting healthy.
“I don’t think enough people are active or look at their diet. I understand there’s this push towards body acceptance, and yes, there’s the mental aspect of it, but you can’t push it to the point where an obese person looks at themselves and says, ‘I’m happy. I’m fine,’ because that leads to problems down the road,” Alexander said.
“You help them without bringing them down. My main goal is bringing more people to the court.”
One such person was Alexander’s father, who had been overweight before joining the pickleball court. He has now lost close to 15 pounds.
As a child, Alexander remembered his dad being unable to play his best cricket because of his weight. He wanted to change this. “I’ve never seen him run before in the last two months, and now he’s moving like I’ve never seen before. As he loses weight, he’s able to do a lot more of what he wants to do. It makes me feel really, really good,” Alexander said, smiling with pride.
Alexander said he was introduced to the sport two years ago by a friend but was unable to recollect the exact moment he’d become enamoured with it.
The court is also where some of Alexander’s friends go to sweat and have fun. “I just remember going to the courts and playing. I thought it was fun; I could play with older people. There was an old guy on the side who absolutely demolished me. I had no clue how to hit the ball like he did ... And then, I said to myself, If he can play this sport at such a high level, who’s to say I can’t?”Alexander said.
His initial pickleball group of ten grew to 178 in just one year. Some of whom, despite having injuries, go to the court to feel better and more confident in themselves. “They love the sport. They call it their happy space,” Alexander said.
Alexander began studying biomedical engineering in August 2018 and went back home in March 2020 during the pandemic to spend a year and a half with his family. “My mom made a joke, ‘Why don’t you just try making lettuce?’ And I was like, sure!’” Alexander said.
Following her suggestion, he flocked to the hardware store and brought home PVC pipes to start gardening. His mother was not impressed, despite having embedded the idea into his mind. “She looked at me like I was a mad man and said, ‘What are you doing? You just went to spend money, and you’re home trying to grow lettuce, which you’re not sure will grow?’ I replied, Mom, if I put my mind to it, I guarantee it’ll grow,” Alexander said.
When his mother tasted his lettuce, she praised it as the best she ever had. From there, Alexander took the initiative to start his own health and wellness company, Organic Roots, in 2020, which later evolved into Organic Roots Pro Ltd, which saw the addition of microgreen supplements to the company.
According to Alexander, who is the director of the company, no soil, fertilisers, pesticides, or herbicides are used in the cultivation of the microgreens. Only water.
Citing the high amount of nutrients in his chosen cohort of microgreens, other options were ignored. “Broccoli and radish have a compound in them called sulforaphane, which is really activated through heat. And if you chew on food, it activates it even more. So, when we blend and dry the microgreens with heat, we mimic that,” Alexander explained.
Additionally, red cabbage and red kale are also part of his company’s microgreen supplements that are grown indoors with the help of controlled temperatures and humidity, which are some factors used in the optimisation of plant health and growth using computer-managed technologies.
This practice is called controlled environment agriculture (CEA). Alexander shared with Guardian Media that he intends to sell the microgreen supplements in other Caribbean islands like Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua, and Grenada, where people have been requesting the product. “The goal is to make everyone healthier. The profit will come, but that is not at the forefront of my mind. I want to do the right things for the right reasons.”
