Keep your New Year’s goals and intentions going strong with a discussion on the types of foods you should be eating as part of a healthy, well-rounded diet.

Join us for the latest session in our new series, Educating Eats, presented by the 4 Roots Foundation and the Winter Park Health Foundation. In this program, famed local restaurateur, cookbook author and philanthropist John Rivers and Dr. Monica Aggarwal, a board-certified cardiologist and expert on using nutrition and lifestyle management to manage heart disease and chronic illnesses, will highlight what’s in season in Florida right now and showcase ways to eat seasonally and sustainably, with a focus on plant-based meals.

In this hands-on, interactive cooking demonstration, you’ll learn how to make — and then sample — recipes designed to improve your health that also taste great. Stay tuned for a full menu reveal in the coming weeks!

Join us in the Nutrition Theatre at the Center for Health & Wellbeing for this first of its kind program. You’ll roll up your sleeves and help prepare the meal and learn helpful lifestyle and nutrition tips along the way.

Mr. Rivers and Dr. Aggarwal will also explain how the 4 Roots Foundation, an alliance of community stakeholders investing in a healthy, striving, sustainable food system, is leading the way to change how our community eats, with a focus on locally grown produce. With a mission to Unearth the Power of Food to Build Healthy Communities, the 4 Roots Foundation is poised to make a huge impact in our local communities.

Space is limited so sign up today to save your spot!

Cancelling Your Reservation: In order to receive a full refund, participants must cancel their program registration at least 72 hours prior to the scheduled start of the program. Center for Health & Wellbeing’s Refund Policy

About Your Program Presenters:

Following a 20-year career in health care, John Rivers retired as president of a $1.5 billion company to pursue a lifelong dream of opening a restaurant. In 2009, he created his first concept, 4 Rivers Smokehouse, which quickly became one of the fastest-growing restaurants in the Southeast. Since then, the 4 Rivers business has grown to 22 locations in Florida, including Rivers’ other concepts, the Southern-inspired The COOP, the Cantina Barbacoa Food Truck at Disney Springs and the farm-to-table 4Roots Café. 4 Rivers garnered national recognition, including the title of “The South’s Best BBQ” by Southern Living magazine and the “#1 BBQ Chain” by MSN.

Born out of Rivers’ garage, the “barbeque ministry” remains at the heart of the company’s mission to lift up those in need and help build better communities. The culmination of the 4R Foundation’s work, the Orlando-based 4Roots Farm, will serve as a community campus to inspire revolutionary change in Florida’s food system through education on sustainable and regenerative farming, advancements in agriculture technology and research in culinary medicine via the launch of the Culinary Health Institute.

Author of The Southern Cowboy Cookbook, Rivers has been named one of the Restaurant Business magazine’s “The Power 20” elite leaders, Restaurateur of the Year by Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association and Orlando Magazine’s “50 Most Powerful: 15 to Watch.” He has cooked at the prestigious James Beard House in New York City, and was twice named a finalist for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He serves on the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ Food Security Advisory Council and the Department of Agriculture Innovation Committee and is a member of the Florida Council of 100.

Monica Aggarwal, MD, is an adjunct Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine in the University of Florida Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. She received her medical degree from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and subsequently went on to complete a residency in internal medicine at Tufts-New England Medical Center. She then completed a cardiology fellowship at the University of Maryland. Dr. Aggarwal’s own path to understanding the impact of nutrition in illness started soon after the birth of her third child, when she developed an advanced form of rheumatoid arthritis. She was placed on medications that gave her severe side effects. It was only through learning about the microbiome (gut), its impact on the immune system and the role of nutrition in affecting the gut, was she able to truly heal. Determined to change the face of medicine, she left private practice and returned to academics in order to pursue research on the role of diet and to create an integrative cardiology practice focused on nutrition and lifestyle.

Dr. Aggarwal gives talks around the community and the country. She was named a “Next Generation Innovator” by Cardiology Today. Board certified in cardiology, echocardiography, nuclear cardiology and advanced cholesterol management, she is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology (ACC), where she is a member of the nutrition council working on nutrition policies for the nation. She is the author of the book “Body on Fire: How Inflammation Triggers Chronic Illness and the Tools We Have to Fight It,” which outlines prescriptions to help guide people to better health. She currently sees patients in Orlando, Florida and via telehealth as part of Wholistic Cardiology and conducts research at the University of Florida.

This program is presented by 4 Roots and is hosted by the Winter Park Health Foundation.