Dawn's Journey to Why

Long before becoming a whole food, plant-based vegan, food and service has always been my love language because it brings people together, comforts pain and turns everyday moments into connection.

 

When I launched Herban Eats, I believed I was feeding people well, using only ingredients labeled organic, free range and grass fed, as I thought those words meant healthy. 

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After watching documentaries, Forks over Knives and What the Health, I knew there needed to be some reduction of meat and dairy but because we ate "organic" I didn't believe it really applied to us. Everything shifted when my husband Anthony experienced a health scare that forced me to pause and pay attention. Not only did I learn it did apply to us but I learned that I couldn’t keep cooking the same way and still call it love at home or for my clients. I started asking harder questions about the impact of lifestyle and what we were placing at the end our forks. I also signed up for a whoel food, plant-based nutrition certification program E-Cornell was offering, as I wanted to understand more specifically how this lifestyle was different than so many others marketed... 

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The research changed me taught me that, while advances in medicine was important, what we eat and how we live our lives everyday can prevent, arrest, and even reverse our top lifestyle driven chronic illnesses and reduce our risk factors by up to 90%.  I learned that healing wasn’t exclusive to medical clinics or prescriptions, it was widely available in farmers markets, produce sections and sitting in kitchens all along.

That awakening transformed my family and the way I approached the business. Herban Eats evolved from catering and demos to education and The Vegucator was born.

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Today, everything I teach is shared through the lens of  evidence-based science, equity and cultural resonance. I don’t just teach people what to eat, I teach why, how and to what extent it benefits ourselves, families, friends and communities.   I enable people to become vegucators themselves so they reclaim optimal health, disrupt wellness inequities and build a future where healing looks like us, tastes like us and truly serves us all.