Do any of these situations feel familiar?
You're at your grandmother's house for Sunday dinner and the table is full. There's rice and peas, oxtail, curry chicken, macaroni and cheese, and fried plantain. You love this food. It's everything you grew up on. But you've been trying to eat differently and you're not sure what to put on your plate.
Your cousin notices you hesitating and says "don't tell me you're doing that vegan thing now." And suddenly the whole table is weighing in on why you need meat to be healthy.
You're at your laptop, feeling bloated and miserable again after dinner. You go to YouTube and type in, "how to go plant-based." But every thumbnail is a thin white woman. The same face, the same aesthetic, the same girl boss energy that has nothing to do with your life, and not a single dish that looks like anything you grew up eating.
You close the page. Not for me.
You're scrolling Instagram and see someone showing their plant-based transformation. In their before photos, they look tired and sluggish, and their after photos show them looking vibrant and energized. They mention how their migraines stopped, they lost weight without trying, and their brain fog cleared up.
You start feeling hopeful that you could have that same transformation. But when you try to picture what you'd actually eat for dinner tonight without meat or dairy, your mind goes completely blank.
You join a paid plant-based membership and start going through the content. It looks good. You're feeling cautiously hopeful. You make your way into the community section and start scrolling.
One of the first things you see is a photo of a white woman with "locs" holding a bowl of fruit. You wince a little and head to the comment section. Another white member has written "yasss queen." You pause on that for a second.
A few posts down, a white guy has posted a video of himself "rapping" about beating up meat eaters. The comments are full of fire emojis. Everyone's loving it. You just wanted to learn how to eat more plants. You're not sure what you just walked into.
You've been burned enough times in white wellness spaces that finding a black plant-based Facebook group feels like coming up for air. You spend the first few days just reading, nodding along, feeling a sense of belonging you haven't felt in any of the other groups you've tried.
Then someone posts a sweet introduction, sharing their name, their health struggles, and that they go by they/them. You watch the comments fill up. Some people welcome them warmly, but then the thread shifts. Someone calls it an agenda. And the comments just get uglier from there.
You scroll looking for a moderator response. There isn't one, so you leave the group. You thought being in a black space meant you could finally let your guard down. But here you are again.
You're sitting down to dinner with your fried "chicken" made from oyster mushrooms and cashew "mac and cheese" that took two hours to make and ingredients you had to track down at three different stores.
You take a bite and it's... fine.
But it's not the same, and you find yourself wondering if eating plant-based just means spending the rest of your life eating bad imitations of the real thing. You eat half of it, then pick up your phone and order takeout. Again.
You're waking up on Day 1 of another attempt at eating plant-based, hoping this time will be different. You've done this before… felt amazing for a few weeks, your joint pain eased up, you felt lighter and more alive, and then life got busy and you slipped back into old habits.
Now your knees are aching again and you're dragging by noon, starting over from square one.
You're scrolling through Instagram when you see a post from a white plant-based health coach you've been following for awhile. It's an AI-generated image of enslaved black people in chains.
The text over the image says "stop eating like a slave." Underneath is a list of foods from your culture. The post has hundreds of likes. People in the comments, most of them white, are saying things like "so powerful" and "this needed to be said."
You read through the comments waiting for someone to say something. Nobody does. You stare at it for a moment. You unfollow and then put your phone face down on the table and just sit there.
If you recognized yourself in one or more of these scenarios, you’re exactly who this is for. Those experiences can feel super frustrating and isolating, but I want you to know it’s not just you.
Keep reading if you’d like to learn more about who I typically work with.
Who do I usually work with?
I work with black women and femmes at any stage of their plant-based journey, including:
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Complete beginners who have never tried plant-based eating
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People who have tried going plant-based before but have started and stopped a few times
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Vegetarians or vegans who rely heavily on starches, packaged products, and processed vegan substitutes
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People who are already plant-based but not seeing the health improvements they expected, or even feeling worse
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People who have tried a raw vegan diet, but found it unsatisfying and want to incorporate some cooked foods without feeling guilty
And finally, there’s one more thing I want to mention.
My approach works best if you...
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genuinely believe that food can change how you feel in your body
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are willing to take things slowly and trust the process
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care about where your food comes from and what's in it
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are open to learning and trying new things in the kitchen
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are willing to be honest with yourself about your habits and patterns
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are open to questioning conventional ideas about diet, health, and healing
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want to understand why this way of eating works, not just blindly follow a plan
Does this sound like you?
If so, I’m confident I can help you go plant-based and stay plant-based, without feeling deprived or overwhelmed in the process.
