Echoes of Our Footsteps

Every kind heart, at some point in their lives, will look at the bustling world around them and wonder what they can do to enact change. Even with the best intentions, however, gentle words and a helping hand can fall on deaf ears or have unintended negative consequences. How can I spread love and kindness? How can I help others without unintentionally hurting? I find a profound answer to these questions in the words of world renowned author and neuroscientist Abhijit Naskar as he declares, “let the echo of our footsteps spark a ray of hope in the hopeless and appear as help to the helpless.” I’ve always been one to dream big, and this year is no exception. Within every footstep, my aim is locked in on taking my own experiences to bring the opportunity to anyone and everyone to love their bodies with healthy food.

As I sit at my desk, notebooks and papers outlining business plans and 2022 goals scattered about, I sip my coffee and look back at my own footsteps to my days in the high school cafeteria. Growing up, my family was poor, which qualified us for free lunch through the National School Lunch Program, but these highly processed, low quality meals did little for me, and I often went to class hungry. I would demand my body to perform off this low-grade fuel to sustain me between advanced placement classes and all the way through miles of cross country practice. I now cringe at the thought of what this was doing to my body; it is no wonder that I consistently felt my body and brain were performing at less than my best. I suffered from major depressive episodes, anxiety, a moderate eating disorder, and missed a lot of school as a result. These unhealthy eating habits that I learned in my teenage years continued through college where I, unironically, declared a major in psychology. I lived paycheck to paycheck until my mental health and financial situation could no longer sustain my continued education.

Throughout my twenties, I’ve become increasingly committed to learning from the steps of my past and discovering how to take care of my body. I had a vision for better health, higher energy, less anxiety and depressive episodes (as these things were perpetuated by but not directly caused by my physical health), and believed in my ability to enact change from within- to heal with food. I became a self-taught chef, soaking up as much information as possible, from youtube chefs to instagram dietitians, about how to maximize the potential of my favorite foods and how to maintain a nutritious diet that was right for my body. I learned from polyvagal theory that diet is a major component to nervous system regulation. When our nervous system is regulated, within our ventral vagal, we are able to activate what’s called our Social Engagement system, which is an essential component to learning, feeling connected, as well as having compassion toward ourselves and others. In this process, not only did I fall in love with cheffing it up in the kitchen, I fell in love with myself again. It is within these pivotal footsteps that I hold a dream of giving others the same opportunities to become the best version of themselves, especially those who may not have the same capacity or privilege that I did to do so.

In 2021, I took all that I learned and launched that dream with my own website, Roots Nutrition Kitchen, by sharing my experiences with others through the dozens of recipes I’ve developed along the way. Shortly after, I was absolutely overjoyed when I was invited to become an executive chef for a local meal prep company in Scottsdale, Arizona. Fast forward to now, I’ve chosen to walk away from that company so that I can embark on starting a meal prep business of my own and further the dream of doing more for my community and giving back in every way I couldn’t before. Alongside expanding Roots Nutrition Kitchen into a full-blown meal prep business, I formulate a vision that has required immense research and careful consideration of the potential that my actions will have to help or hurt my community.

Spending the previous year in a shared industrial kitchen has given me a unique perspective on common business practices- the good, the bad, and everything in between- and a first-hand view of all the opportunities - taken and not taken- that businesses have to influence and give back to their communities. For example, when there was extra food at the end of a prep day, the common practice was to plate as many extra meals as we could and sell them at a lower rate, but they often went unsold and ended up in the trash. However, when I was plating these meals, I saw an opportunity to give back. On my way to the kitchen every morning I distinctly remember there always being someone with a cardboard sign on the corner of the freeway exit, and I wished I could take those extra meals and give them to those people instead. I would load my car with cold water bottles to help them combat the record high temperatures under the Arizona sun but would leave them feeling like it wasn’t enough. Going back to my days of hiding my stomach gurgles in silent classrooms and university lecture halls, I knew it wasn’t.

The city of Phoenix, like many major cities throughout the country, is experiencing a surge in our homeless populations both sheltered and unsheltered. Both fortunately and unfortunately, it is illegal for organizations to distribute food to people on the streets and in parks without costly food permits. The city has even gone to the extent of dissuading ordinary people from “street feeding” by making claims that it does not actually help them get out of homelessness. The reality is, hunger more often than not precedes homelessness. Other sources assert that it’s potentially dangerous to the point that most will not accept food with a fear of it being contaminated, a fear that has become increasingly valid with the dangers of spreading COVID-19. Past street feeding events have also proven to be extremely messy, with reports of trash and food waste being left strung along sidewalks and university campuses.

I was ecstatic to discover, however, that there are endless opportunities to help the hungry without hurting them or the larger community. Through Roots Nutrition Kitchen, I dream of partnering with local organizations and nonprofits such as the Healthy Giving Council, Waste Not, and No Kid Hungry to make the most of inevitable food surplus . Through these amazing resources, I will be able to distribute meal donations in the safest, cleanest way possible for the benefit of people in need, as well as the planet. I have a dream that when I see another person with a cardboard sign, I can direct them to vetted resources designed to help them out of their situation (whether it be disability, addiction recovery, domestic violence, etc) and put nourishing food in their belly. If I can help anyone suffering from the disorienting pangs of hunger get a day of peace, it will help them out of homelessness by giving them an opportunity to think about their next move instead of their next meal.

The dream doesn’t end there. I have a dream of turning Roots Nutrition Kitchen into a powerhouse for not only those who can afford a meal prep service or those I’m able to serve with donations, but for everyone, as food insecurity is an issue that pervades a whole community. One group that is unfortunately affected the most is our children. According to No Kid Hungry, childhood hunger began to see a decrease in recent years, but with the pandemic putting new pressures on families with ever increasing food costs, the unprecedented impact has yet to be determined.

Back in my school cafeteria days, one of my best friends (who unsurprisingly became our class valedictorian) took it upon herself to prepare her lunches at the beginning of the week to bring to school every day. Over time, she began bringing larger portions to share with our lunch table when she could, scooping small portions into the empty spaces of our styrofoam plates. Her example taught me a valuable lesson about the power that food has to bring people together, and I will never forget those days I was able to go to my next class without worrying about how hungry I was. The echo of her footsteps has inspired me to continue to share healthy recipes with the world through my website and beyond. I dream of empowering kids to make nutritious decisions and realize the impact this has on their bodies and minds through platforms like TikTok, where young people aged 10-19 make up the largest user demographic. I have a dream of posting cost conscious lunch kit tutorials on how to safely prepare nutritious lunches, and promoting kids who post themselves sharing their lunches with others in a Lunch for a Friend movement. While I do not necessarily advocate doing good deeds in order to receive praise, the egocentric minds of adolescents are more likely to engage in a behavior when social reward is involved while their prefrontal cortex (decision-making center) is still being developed, and believe in our youth to learn the value of supporting one another regardless.

As I walk this path of inclusive health, I have a dream of taking the echoes of my footsteps, as Naskar instructs, and using them to spark hope within all of us, awareness to the needs of those around us, and kindness toward everyone. No matter who we are or how old we are, I believe in the power each one of us has to enact change; I believe in the power food has to heal our bodies and minds from the inside out. When we put the two together, we will become more connected in ways unprecedented and more compassionate in ways unparalleled.