Hi I'm Andrea!
I'm 25 and I make videos inspiring people to put more plants on their plates 🙂 I make content not only to share recipes with my foodie friends, but also to create a supportive, fun, empathetic, and smart community that can share tips, tricks, experiences and have healthy discourse.
I'm a mother to one chihuahua-minpin mix and in my free time, I develop recipes, rock climb, lift, run, paint, play a lot of catan, and go down obscure rabbit holes on the internet learning about legless lizards or my favorite actor's filmography.
Being a Troublemaker Gave Me My Life’s Purpose
There’s this running joke in Chinese culture where if the kids act up, parents say they’ll their kids to the rice patties. I was a bit of a delinquent so my parents actually acted on that and sent me to the countryside of Sichuan at 13. While I was there, the farmers’ idea of hospitality was killing one of their pigs to serve for lunch. It was the first time I’d witnessed where my food came from and that connection was forever ingrained in me. I went pescetarian, cold turkey.
Going Against the Grain
At 16, I stumbled upon Gary Yourovsky’s (animal rights activist) speech on YouTube. He exposed the dark secrets that the animal agriculture industry hides by slapping pictures of happy cows, pigs, and chickens on packaging. I went vegan, cold turkey. But this time it was different. I originally stopped eating meat to avoid guilt in my own conscience. But I went vegan for causes bigger than myself. Now, I had learned about the ethical, social, philosophical, environmental, and human rights reasons to go vegan.
I tried to share this new knowledge with everyone I loved but was met with criticisms because people thought I was “extreme” and unhealthy for eating a plant-based diet. Arguments with my family and friends were a common occurrence. Never had I ever felt so isolated.