Eat Well, Feel Good, Do Great Things

It was summer 2008. I walked across the college stage and was declared: jobless.

I was lost, and the marketing degree they handed me gave had no instructions on what came next. All I knew was I had dreams of doing something big. Now, if I could only figure out what that was.

In reality, the country was in a recession, and I couldn’t afford the luxury of chasing my dreams. Freedom was finding a steady paycheck, not living in a fantasy.

I was unemployed, recently heartbroken, and moving back in with my parents. Everyone else seemed to fit into their new skin perfectly. Getting married, having babies, and climbing the corporate ladder while I was stuck in my childhood bedroom wondering how to begin my so-called adult life.

I was miserable, and my body agreed. The unreached college graduate potential oozed out of me with extra weight, no energy, and mysterious health issues no doctors could figure out.

With no answers and no job offers, I decided to make my health my full-time job. I started running every morning. I taught myself to cook, hoping to erase four years of KFC and binge drinking with plant-based, vegan meals and green vegetable juices.

I started to feel like myself for the first time in my life.

I landed a job at a creative agency. Health became a hobby, and screens and spreadsheets devoured my soul. My body ached to return to a world where my passion for healthy food and fitness made life worth living.

I knew there was more than a cubicle death sentence. Health, diet, and exercise radically transformed my life, and I wanted others to feel the impact I felt.

I still cringe when people call me Chef.

I never wanted to be a chef.

I grew up on Oscar Meyer turkey bologna and Kraft American cheese-like slices. My role in family dinner was slopping mismatched forks and knives on the table each night.

My connection to food isn't from deep-rooted nostalgic memories. Growing up, fresh baked cookies were slice and bake, not homemade. There were no secret family recipes to learn on visits to grandma.

Still, I quit my job and moved to NYC for culinary school. I had no plan, no money, and no place to live.

All I had was a passion for something bigger than myself. Dreams of helping others struggling with healthy eating. Visions of being a part of the solution in the complicated world where we are what we eat.

The Natural Gourmet Institute was not your typical culinary school. A holistic, plant-based, alternative approach to classic techniques. Blending the joy of cooking with a mission to change the food system.

I learned basic culinary skills, but more importantly, I learned the impact food has on our culture. How each bite influences climate change, food insecurity, food waste, body image, and systemic beliefs.

Healthy food healed me, but it was no longer personal.

It was an opportunity to be a messenger, fighting against the very real threats to our community, country, and world.

A world so divided by polarized beliefs, yet we all share a common ground. We all eat. No matter who you are or what you believe, food unites us.

We know what a healthy diet should be. Yet, obesity and chronic disease are the largest factors contributing to preventable death in our country. At the same time, food insecurity threatens the lives of millions every day, leaving many without access to affordable options, if any at all.

The real cost of our food.

Big food manufacturers and fast-food companies monopolize and manipulate the food system, lobbying to own their share of our ever-expanding stomachs.

Proud profits strengthen their voice, allowing them to dictate what grows in our soil. Modern agriculture is no longer about feeding the people but about feeding big business.

It’s not profitable for farms to grow food for consumption, so they grow commodities. Ones that support unhealthy animals feeding our dollar-menu addiction. It widens our waistlines as it fattens their bottom line.

They take advantage of their position, pretending to be the hero while denying their villainess tactics. Intentionally, setting up shop in areas without access to affordable healthy food. Providing a low-cost offering that only feeds their greed.

It keeps us collectively trapped in their grip of disease, poverty, and climate erosion we can never escape. It’s a systematic depletion of those struggling to survive and our planet struggling to thrive.

Junk food or Junk Diets, it’s all the same business.

Supported by big food is the billion-dollar diet industry, spoon-feeding us the solutions to all our weight worries. The false promises promote a dysfunctional relationship with food, sending us the never-ending messages to hate ourselves.

Strategically supplementing the self-love we lack, packaged in the perfectly prescribed, portion-controlled package. Teach us to stop trusting our gut, instead follow their simple recipe guaranteeing guilt.

Instead of providing real tools to solve our weight problem, they sell a strict regimen and encourage more discipline. The restriction leads to feelings of inadequacy, failure, and a perpetual cycle supporting their profit.

We end up spending our hard-earned salary on starving ourselves. If diet companies wanted to solve the problem, they would be out of business.

Our McDonald's mindset of fast, cheap, and convenience has stripped us from our culture.

We need a sustainable approach to what we consume and how we take care of each other.

We don’t understand the food we’re eating, and we misinterpret the true value and meaning of food.

We only see it for the pretty packaging and nutrient-less label.

It becomes a cycle where no one ever has enough.

It disconnects us from ourselves, our community, and the planet we share.

We forget the primal act of cooking, breaking bread, and honoring the food we eat is ingrained in who we are.

Humans evolved by surviving together.

Disruption always brings change.

My platform has always been restaurants. But the tightening restraints make it increasingly difficult to create the meaningful impact that fuels me.

It's challenged me in every way and at times, made me lose sight of the vision. As lost and hopeless as I was as a new college grad, questioning what I should do with my life.

But with platforms like Vocal, it's allowed me to get back to my roots and use my experience to help others navigate better choices for themselves and the world.

(Even if sometimes my messy, complicated emotions probably shouldn't be approved.)