What started out as a healthy eating group called "The Food Buddies", has blossomed into a company focused on sharing our love of food, flavors, fun, and health! Individually, we had become accomplished, working in the healthy-eating arena for years, with an interest in sharing the joy and simplicity of eating unprocessed, whole plant foods. Meeting on a regular basis, we discussed the possibility of joining forces to help share our knowledge and experience with others. We wanted to demonstrate that eating healthy is not as difficult as it seems and help people overcome those initial hurdles that often come with a dietary change. Here is a little bit about the Veg-Appeal members, a group that is here to help you meet your wellness goals!
Tracy Childs
Tracy Childs has been vegetarian/vegan nearly 40 years and has truly enjoyed thriving through this adventure in lifestyle and eating. That sounds like a long time but she still remembers making the transition and the steps taken to get there! She is an expert in plant-based nutrition and food preparation and is a certified Nutritional Consultant. She has enjoyed teaching nutrition and cooking over a decade through certification as a Food for Life instructor with the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine, and as a founding co-director of Veg-Appeal. She has proudly raised two children and a husband as vegan/vegetarian J. She specializes in helping others make food and diet choices for weight loss, and disease control and finds it truly rewarding to share her knowledge and love of food, empowering others to achieve and maintain their health goals through healthier lifestyle choices.
Ami Chitalia
Health is our natural state, not sickness. The road to better health is paved with our everyday choices we make when we buy groceries, eat at restaurants, and cook at home. A management consultant in my prior life, I have found my true passion as a nutritionist – learning, experimenting, discovering, and enjoying food from around the world.
I have been a vegetarian all my life, and upgraded to a vegan lifestyle since 2011. My toughest crowd as a vegan chef and nutritionist is at home – two young ones who have palates refined far beyond their age and a husband who has very few countries left on his ‘need to visit’ list. Food speaks about history, culture, and patterns of society, it is a universal experience – I use food to explore world and nourish my soul. I am a Nutritional Consultant from the Global College of Natural Medicine and a Master’s in Computer Science.
My passion is to help people see their inner beauty and happiness by maintaining physical and mental wellness through improvements in diets and lifestyle.
Jennifer Nemeth, RN
I’m a Registered Nurse who desires nothing more than to guide you to better health. I also have a degree in Dietetics (nutrition), have earned a certificate in plant based nutrition from Cornell University, and am a certified Food for Life instructor. After spending several years in our disease-care system, I came to realize Americans are becoming sicker and sicker while trying to be “healed” through medications and surgical procedures. These cover ups only address the symptoms and not the root cause of chronic disease.
Little did I know, the trajectory of my lives would change with the decision of what to put at the end of my fork daily. My husband experienced a cancer scare several years ago that made us take a second look at what we considered to be a “healthy diet” of chicken, fish, some red meat, low-fat dairy, fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Providentially, there was a screening in our area at this time of a documentary titled “Forks Over Knives.” It inspired us to take a closer look at what we were putting into our bodies. The film proclaimed that illnesses, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and stroke, can be controlled or even cured by removing processed and animal-based foods from our diets.
Allow me to guide you into a simple, effective way to prevent and possibly reverse disease. I’m not here to sell protein shakes or supplements, I’m committed to be your partner in empowering you to be your healthiest self yet.