My name is Kristy O’Con­nor. Grow­ing up, my fam­i­ly was al­ways con­scious of what we put in­to our bod­ies. My dad al­ways said, “Not every­thing you can eat is food”. There are so many ill­ness­es around us to­day and it seems like every­day a new ill­ness shows up. It’s get­ting worse. Imag­ine dis­eases like liv­er can­cer and di­a­betes are af­fect­ing our chil­dren. Not so long ago, it was on­ly old­er folks who got strokes and heart at­tacks, but nowa­days, it is so preva­lent among young peo­ple. It is tru­ly scary. I be­lieve that most of the dis­eases are re­lat­ed to our lifestyles and par­tic­u­lar­ly the “foods” we choose to put in our bod­ies. At the Health Cot­tage Whole Foods store, we pro­vide every­thing one would need to lead a healthy lifestyle. From sup­ple­ments to or­gan­ic pro­duce and a wide range of whole foods, we have every­thing to nour­ish the body at every stage of life.

How did you get start­ed in the Health In­dus­try?

Get­ting in­to the in­dus­try was a bit of a sur­prise for me. I am a pro­fes­sion­al chef and though as a chef my fo­cus has al­ways been on clean healthy eat­ing, I thought that my first busi­ness ven­ture would nat­u­ral­ly be a restau­rant. It wasn’t un­til my grand­fa­ther had a stroke that I se­ri­ous­ly start­ed look­ing in­to whole­foods in a big way. I start­ed prepar­ing meals for him that were specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed to help with his par­tic­u­lar health com­pli­ca­tions. Along with my mom, I al­so start­ed giv­ing him nat­ur­al sup­ple­ments to strength­en his body. I be­lieve this is what pro­longed his life be­cause the tra­di­tion­al doc­tors were say­ing that he had lit­tle time left when he first had the stroke, How­ev­er, my grand­fa­ther lived for years af­ter.

What is your phi­los­o­phy on health?

My phi­los­o­phy on health is a sim­ple one. In the words of a wise man, “Let food be Your med­i­cine and let med­i­cine be your food”. I be­lieve this to the core of my be­ing. I suf­fered with PCOS for a long time and I tried many of the pre­scrip­tion drugs out there which are give to treat the prob­lem. They nev­er worked, for that mat­ter, they made the prob­lem worse. I be­lieve that the is­sue with pre­scrip­tion drugs is that most of the time they on­ly treat the symp­toms of the med­ical is­sue as op­posed to cur­ing the med­ical is­sue. As a mat­ter of a fact, doc­tors will tell you that cer­tain dis­eases have no cure. I was 15 years old when I was told that PCOS has no cure and that I would have to live with the pain. Well I’m here to say to­day, that it does have a cure. The cure is eat­ing right. Now I’m not say­ing that doc­tors and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals don’t have a place be­cause they do help peo­ple, what I am say­ing is that we are eat­ing our­selves sick and then turn­ing to med­ica­tions that can on­ly do so much. I don’t pro­mote any par­tic­u­lar di­et but I do pro­mote stay­ing away from processed, sug­ary and greasy items and choos­ing to com­mit to tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for our health and the health of our chil­dren, who look to us for guid­ance and pro­tec­tion (even pro­tec­tion from lifestyle dis­eases).

Why did you choose to open a health-fo­cused busi­ness in San­gre Grande?

San­gre Grande will al­ways have a spe­cial place in my heart. It’s where I grew up. My in­ten­tion was to bring some­thing dif­fer­ent to the peo­ple of San­gre Grande. We have health food stores in ar­eas such as South Trinidad and Port-of-Spain. Be­fore I had the store, if I need­ed some­thing from a health-fo­cused store I would have to go as far as Mar­aval to get it. I know that San­gre Grande is a bit far from every­thing. I re­al­ly want­ed to of­fer peo­ple some­thing they nev­er had be­fore and al­low them the op­tion of hav­ing some­thing like this in the com­mu­ni­ty.

How has a store like this im­pact­ed on the com­mu­ni­ty?

I have been over­whelmed with the re­spons­es I’ve got­ten since the store opened. At first peo­ple came slow­ly. They didn’t know we were here and ex­act­ly what we are about and what we of­fer. Peo­ple would pass by the store and look but not ven­ture in­side. Af­ter a lit­tle while how­ev­er, cu­rios­i­ty got the bet­ter of them and peo­ple start­ed com­ing in more and more. Peo­ple would come in and not buy any­thing and then a few days lat­er they would come back with three friends and buy a whole bunch of stuff. I can­not tell you how won­der­ful it makes me feel when my cus­tomers tell me how a prod­uct I rec­om­mend has helped them. We have an on-staff nu­tri­tion­ist and oth­er ad­vi­sors who help guide our cus­tomers to what is best for their par­tic­u­lar needs, we al­so work with the ad­vice and guid­ance of med­ical doc­tors for spe­cial cas­es.

What plans do you have for the fu­ture?

My hope is that the Health Cot­tage Whole Foods Store will grow in Trinidad and through­out the Caribbean. Soon, I hope to launch a cater­ing branch of the com­pa­ny. With the help of our nu­tri­tion­ist I plan to give cus­tomers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have dai­ly meals de­liv­ered to them. Good health food and snacks, straight to your home or of­fice. If you don’t have the time to cook healthy din­ners or make healthy snacks for your­self and/or your chil­dren, we will do it for you. I would al­so like to launch a healthy eat­ing school ini­tia­tive. My heart breaks to see how our chil­dren are taught to eat. I would love to be a part of ed­u­cat­ing them and help­ing to open their minds as to what is the right way to eat. I would love to be a part of teach­ing them that healthy doesn’t mean that it has to taste bad. Apart for those goals, I al­so hope to work more close­ly with lo­cal farm­ers. We de­liv­er fresh or­gan­ic pro­duce, milk and eggs to our cus­tomers in Trinidad right now. I would love to ex­pand to To­ba­go in the near fu­ture. I have so many plans in­clud­ing a year­ly health con­ven­tion where I in­tend to in­vite in­ter­na­tion­al speak­ers to talk on the ben­e­fits of whole food eat­ing. I in­tend to show­case our lo­cal or­gan­ic farm­ers and oth­er lo­cal or­gan­ic prod­ucts at the con­ven­tion. Boy, do I have plans! I be­lieve Trinidad needs a change in the way we see food. Peo­ple are dy­ing from lifestyle dis­eases at a rapid rate and I feel bur­dened to help.

What gives you the most ful­fil­ment from your pro­fes­sion?

The most ful­fil­ment comes from see­ing my cus­tomers hap­py. When some­one comes to us sick (and peo­ple come with all kinds of ill­ness­es), and say that he or she has tried every­thing and is about to give up hope, I would con­sult with my team and give the cus­tomer an ac­tion plan. Many times that per­son would re­turn in a week or two to thank us, talk­ing about how he or she is feel­ing bet­ter, and of course, wants to get more stuff from us to con­tin­ue heal­ing. It makes me hap­py that I’m mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in what­ev­er lit­tle way I can. I hon­est­ly wish I could do more. All in all, I love my job and the pas­sion I have to help peo­ple is what dri­ves me to keep reach­ing for the stars.