By Rebecca Lee
Vegg’d Out Vegan Kitchen makes food that doesn’t only keep you looking good but, also, makes you feel good.
YourHighness Tafari started his vegan kitchen business, Vegg’d Out Vegan Kitchen, in 2014. At the start, he had two main goals for his business; to debunk the myth that vegan food isn’t tasty and show everyone that a vegan lifestyle isn’t as expensive as people think. At the beginning, he mainly offered food delivery service but today Vegg’d Out Vegan Kitchen does catering and just opened the Cleaner Eatin’ Cafe.
Vegg’d Out Vegan Kitchen’s Cleaner Eatin’ Cafe is located on Dale Mabry Highway inside of Urban Roots Garden Supply. The cafe offers a wide variety of food from pasta, loaded nachos, veggie burgers, deserts and even, sometimes, soul food. Most items on the menu are no more than $15.
Vegans don’t eat meat or any products that come from animals like cheese, eggs or milk.
“Flesh is flesh, blood is blood, muscles are muscles, tissue is tissue,” Tafari said. “Physiologically we’re designed and composed of the same thing, so it all makes sense. We’re all one, so we just try to promote life over death.”
In addition to selling affordable plant-based food that tastes good, Vegg’d Out Vegan Kitchen is also dedicated to providing food education. Part of Tafari’s mission is to educate people on health issues that are problematic in the black community.
“I started to see that the public school system and the curriculum which we were given does not properly educate us, as black people, on where we originated from and what our role is on the whole scheme of humanity itself,” Tafari said.
Black Americans face higher rates of, not only Type 2 diabetes, but other chronic diseases like obesity and heart disease. According to the U.S. Department of Health, African American adults are 80% more likely than white adults to be diagnosed with diabetes. A study by The Department of Health Promotion and Education at Harvard showed that vegans had a 60% lower risk of developing diabetes than people who weren’t vegan.
“We have a vegan cooking show, we bring this up every month on the show,” Tafari said. “I do contracted food demonstrations for nonprofit organizations. I speak about it all the time and a lot of the time most of the people are black people that’s attending. I speak about these things all the time.”
You can find his vegan cooking show, Melodious Eats, on the Vegg’d Out Vegan Kitchen Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/VeggdOutVegan/
