Transcript:

Accessible Nutrition Services for Everyone with Veronica Garnett, MS, RD

(Episode 5)

Melissa Toler: Welcome to Hearing Our Own Voice, the anti diet weight inclusive podcast that centers Black stories and experiences. I'm Melissa Toler. And I cannot wait for you to hear today's episode. My guest Veronica Garnett shares her personal and professional experiences with food, weight and body image. Veronica is a dietitian, and she's actually the second dietitian I've had on the show so far. And I wanted to interview her because she is someone who is making huge positive changes in the world of dietetics. And she's also doing some really cool things as we'll talk about during the podcast today. So let me tell you a little bit more about her and her work.

Veronica is a Health at Every Size, fat, positive, and culinary registered dietitian with over 17 years of experience in the Food and Nutrition field. For most of her career, Veronica has worked with marginalized and vulnerable populations, particularly black and Latinx and LGBTQ + folks living with food insecurity, substance abuse, and mental health issues as well as chronic illnesses such as HIV/ AIDS, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, kidney disease and eating disorders. Currently, in her virtual private practice, and consulting business, she supports plus size/larger bodied/fat folks in developing a healthy relationship with food and their bodies. She also supports professionals in providing multiculturally competent, weight inclusive, and social justice-informed care. In addition to her private practice, Veronica is a bit of a Jackee of all trades. She is the culinarian and host of the forthcoming online cooking show DiaspoRadical Kitchen, which aims to dismantle fat phobia, diet culture and other systems of oppression, while celebrating foods from the African diaspora. She is the co founder of Reclaiming Our Plate, a dietitian collective-led community of Black folks critically examining and divesting from diet culture, and its inherent anti-blackness. Veronica is the founder of Black Adventuristas, an organization with a mission to support the well being of Black women by connecting them to each other and adventure experiences in their local communities and beyond. She is the newly elected Vision and Strategy leader for the Association for Size, Diversity and Health (ASDAH), the organization that trademarked Health at Every Size. On top of all of that, she is training to become a certified death doula. So as you can see, Veronica has been very busy trying to make the world a better place for Black folks, which is a great thing. So let's go ahead and get into the episode. Hi, Veronica, welcome to the podcast.

Veronica Garnett: Hi, Melissa, thank you for inviting me to join you on your show.

Melissa Toler: I'm really happy to have you here. And I'm looking forward to our conversation because I think you are doing some really cool and important things in the field of dietetics. And we'll get into those things. But first, I wanted to know if you could share with us how you even got into the field of dietetics. Like what made you want to become a dietitian?

Veronica Garnett: Okay. So when I was a teenager, I really wanted to go to culinary school and become a chef and have my own show on Food Network. But I come from a very intellectual, academic, very smart family. And it was kind of frowned upon, that I would, you know, be doing blue collar work and manual labor and working in a kitchen. There's definitely manual labor, it's hard work. And so I kind of listened to the well-intentioned adults in my life at the time, and was kind of, you know, swayed away from that. And so I chose nutrition, because I was like, well, it's close to culinary, I'll still be culinary arts, I'll still be dealing with food. And then I kind of, you know, when you're kind of settling for something less than what you really want, and come up with all these justifications. So I was like, Okay, well, I have family members who have high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, or like my grandmother passed away, she had three strokes before she passed. I believe my grandfather had a heart attack before he passed. So there's cardiovascular, cardiovascular issues, and then maybe few people have diabetes and then on my paternal side of the family like cancer is a big thing. So I was like, Well, I can learn more about nutrition and I can have the information and knowledge to help my family, my community, myself when it you know when it comes to like disease prevention and management and stuff like that.

So that was one justification. The first justification was oh, this is close enough. Close enough to culinary arts, and like, you know, help my family. But then really the, I think, I think something deep down that I didn't necessarily express out loud was, oh, I can figure out what is wrong with me. I can fix what I thought was wrong with me. So, I mean, the first time I realized I was fat, or larger bodied kid was when I was five years old. And so I've had quite a few struggles with, you know, weight and body image, things like that. And so I figured if I studied nutrition and if you know about dietetics, now, it's so conflated with weight management, it's like they're one in the same whenever I would tell people, I'm a dietician, they're like, Oh, well, you can tell me what to eat, so I can lose weight. The first thing that people go towards, I was thinking, yeah, if I do this, like a fixed what I thought was wrong with me at the time. And I went into, so I went to Howard University, for undergrad, and I went to the nutrition program, and like when I like, like Freshman Orientation Week, or whatever, I can't remember all the details is a while ago now. But I think it was a freshman orientation week, I met with the woman who would become my academic advisor. And my mom, like three of us met. And my academic advisor explained the different paths that I could go down with a nutrition degree. So at our school, we had a pre-medical, pre-dental nutrition program, we had community nutrition, and then there was dietetics. And my academic advisor was registered dietitian. And she was explaining that, you know, after the four years, it was a coordinated dietetics program where I did all of my didactic coursework, and then the internship all in the same, like in the in that four year period. And so when I graduated, I would have been eligible to sit for the national registration exam become an RD. And you know, this was (Washington) DC. So like, I could get a good government job. And all that stuff. So my mom was like, that's what you're going to do. And so I just kind of went along and chose, I chose that. And, to be honest, I didn't even really know what a dietitian did. I don't think I've ever had ever met a dietitian before it was for my, you know, academic advisor. So yeah, I didn't know exactly necessarily what I was getting into, besides, you know, of course, like the nutrition Nutritional Sciences aspect of it. Yeah. So that's how I ended up ended up in the field.

Melissa Toler: Yeah, it's interesting that you say that, being a dietitian, or dietetics is almost synonymous with weight management. And, you know, it's interesting, as I've over the years, become more familiar with dietetics and become friends with dietitians, there's so much more that could be involved, like there's nutrition therapy, like there's a lot of different roles for dietitians. And so you say that you provide individual and group culinary nutrition, and dietetics services that are culturally sensitive, weight inclusive, and grounded in social justice. And I think anyone who knows about the field of dietetics knows that this is not something that you find pretty frequently. So I'm curious to know, why did you decide to go in that direction? What was important to you about doing that?

Veronica Garnett: Yeah. So you're absolutely right, that in dietetics this is not the norm. Yeah. Dietetics ,as its doled out, the dietetics education and the profession itself, how it's typically... what's the word I'm looking for? Like "provided" or whatever. It's very Eurocentric, very fat phobic. Yeah, it just... it upholds these kind of oppressive systems in healthcare. And the reason really why I went in the direction where I went is because of lived experience. I know when people think of a dietician, they think of a thin white woman for the most part, thin, you know, cisgender heterosexual, what else? Affluent or like middle class, you know, white woman, poor, yeah, thin, thin white woman, and I've not that never been that...

Melissa Toler: Won't ever be...

Veronica Garnett: And, yeah, it has, it has been a struggle, like it's just occupying my body in this space, in this profession and career. And then also so like, when I first became a dietitian, I just so happen to kind of I kind of fell into HIV, too. I worked in HIV for 10 years. And so I was working in the community. I was working, I worked for several community based organizations that provided HIV and AIDS services. And I mean, most of my clients, there were people who they were Black and brown. They were LGBTQ+, they were living in poverty and, of course, living with this chronic illness. And all the other things that come with that. And in order to do my job as effectively as I could, and it's really hard, it's really hard to be to be a nutrition specialist in that area, when people are a lot of people are in survival mode. And I kind of think that I think of nutrition in some ways as inaccessible. Nutrition therapy, nutrition services as kind of inaccessible, or it's kind of like these tertiary needs, if you have enough money, then you can go to the farmers market and Whole Foods and, you know, the special fancy grocery stores, you could eat a certain way. But that's not the case for you know, everyone, I was working with clients who, you know, relied on food pantries, and soup kitchens, and you know, public assistance. And so like, I just realized, working out in the field and like, with my own personal experience, that food is never just food, it's about the context in which we live, it's about our lives, it's about these systems of oppression that have so much influence on everything, like access to health care, access to food. And yeah, like, I guess, I don't even know if I even chose this direction, or it just kind of happened, like, organically or naturally. But then I always also realize like, there's so few dietitians who maybe have these similar experiences.

Melissa Toler: So it sounds like you saw that there is a need or was a need and still a need for people who are surviving, or barely surviving, to also be offered and have accessible Nutrition Services, right? Because one of the issues with the larger health and wellness model paradigm/ system/community is that it feels like and comes across as wellness and well being and health as we define it is only available and accessible to certain people. There are only some people who deserve to be healthy and well, and if you don't have enough money, or if you're not in the right body, then you fall out of that. Like services. and messages are not directed toward you. And it sounds like you saw a need to be able to provide essential services to people who are usually left out of the conversation.

Veronica Garnett: Absolutely. And so like now, so I'm not working in the community anymore and I'm I have my own virtual private practice. And it was really important to me that like I'm very clear, like the majority of my clients, I think, yeah, all my clients are plus size, larger bodied fat folks. And it was like if you go onto my Instagram, you'll see that I put that I'm fat positive that I'm LGBTQ+ friendly, that I'm like inclusive disability ability inclusive. And it's just really important to me, because these these groups of marginalized, like these marginalized identities and people hold these identities are left out of the conversation. And I think maybe things are shifting a little bit shifting or, or in certain circles. I think with the anti culture movement, some people are, are kind of waking up especially what happened like the uprisings and the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and Ahmuad Armery this summer. Like I think people kind of woke up a little bit and are talking about these, like intersecting identities, issues that affect people, there's still a lot more work that needs to be done, though. But it was important for me to let my clients or future clients know that I'm like, creating this safe space that I am, or brave space, whatever you want to call it, and that it's okay to bring all of their identities into this therapeutic relationship, like their cultural values, their worldview is important to me and that, like can affect you know, how we work or how I work. Like I take their cues, you know, and a lot of times, like traditional dietitians or doctors, a lot of people in healthcare, it's, it's not like that. It's like some parts of your identity are just, you know, they're just ignored. And, yeah, it's unfortunate.

Melissa Toler: Yeah, and I yeah, thank you for that. Because, you know, one of the things I've been reflecting on in some of these conversations that I've been having is the amount of care and compassion, and like, very simple, and obvious actions and messages are often not shown or felt, like you said, by practitioners on a large scale, like just acknowledging a person's full humanity, which sounds so simple, is not is not the norm, though. Like you know, there are people who, who may feel like they have to cut off parts of themselves in order to engage with health care professionals. And that is not supporting someone's well being.

Veronica Garnett: Yeah, it makes me like, it makes me angry really, when I like think about it. And I think when you mentioned like compassion and stuff, I think because because I am a personal color and black woman, because I'm a fat person, like I get it, I understand, like certain things I just understand. And also, like, I have a history of, like mental illness, depression and anxiety. And so I've spent like years and in therapy, doing coaching and personal growth and development, like trying to heal all these wounds and stuff. And so I just, I feel like, I get it, and that I can hold space for my clients in a way that I might not have, or be able to if like, if I didn't have the identities that I have, I didn't have the experiences that I had, but a lot of folks just don't have that lived experience.

Melissa Toler: Yeah, yes, I get that. And it seems, and it's possible that I'm oversimplifying, but when you go into a field where you say that you want to help people and your work and services and products are directed towards supporting people's health and well being, it seems like accepting them as full and complete and complex human beings is just a baseline thing.

Veronica Garnett: Yeah, it should be. It should be.

Melissa Toler: You shouldn't have to be Black and fat and a woman, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, that's a whole other conversation. But that sort of bugs me a little bit and, and, you know, I recognize, though that there is a lot of unpacking and unlearning that even we as healthcare professionals and providers have to do because of our own indoctrination. And so I get that part. I think now, though, there's no shortage of information directed toward everyone, but especially helping professionals to be able to unpack and unlearn that stuff so that they can better support their clients. But anyway, don't get me to going off on a whole tangent about that. No, but thank you, that was a really good, good discussion. So you know, I wanted to go back to what you were saying about how you got into dietetics. And part of the reason was because you wanted to learn how to fix yourself. And, and so it can be very difficult to unlearn fatphobia and weight normativity just as a regular layperson, right, but I think it can be even harder when you're a helping professional or health care professional, however you want to call it, where your training reinforces that weight normativity and fat phobia. So can you take us through how you have unlearned that along the way.

Veronica Garnett: Yeah. Yeah, so absolutely can be hard as a lay person and definitely as a, as a dietitian. And it's definitely it's been a, you know, years long journey, it's been a series of awakenings and unlearnings. It didn't just, you know, happen overnight. But I think I also didn't even have the language like I didn't know that, like, I didn't have the word fat phobia when I was a college student, I didn't have that, that word in my repertoire or "weight stigma". So I felt I was doing the work before I even knew what the work was or what the terminology and all of that, but I think, I mean, a big part of my journey or like why I push back against this wait normativity is because of my own experiences. So when I was an undergrad, that's probably when I was studying, you know, nutrition as an undergrad student that was probably the most disordered my relationship with food has ever been. I, you know, I like lost a significant amount of weight my sophomore year, and then a weight cycle throughout the rest of my college career and I did things like I will I became a vegetarian and then a vegan, and that was a way to, you know, restrict, and probably, you know, fit into these Orthorexic behaviors around food. Like I trained for a marathon, I did like whatever, I did a lot of stuff to try to shrink my body. And I just went on this up and down like with weight cycling, and so it's it's a normal reaction to weight loss. And at a certain point, I was like, I can't I can't do this anymore. Like the the emotional and mental, like turmoil that, you know, I guess trying to lose weight, intentionally lose weight was just too much.

And then fast forward a little bit after I became a Registered Dietician, and in my first job, I worked at a Women's Health Center for Women with HIV, and I was going to grad school working full time going to grad school and one day I think was my mom and my sister came into my room. I don't know it was both of them. I can't remember but they were like, it was like on a Sunday. During the week I went to school, and then I worked on Saturday. So Sunday was my one day off. And they were like, we're going to Weight Watchers. And so I just went along with this. And so I'd only been a dietitian, maybe, I don't even know if it was a full year, or maybe it's just over a year at that point. And like being on Weight Watchers was, like, talk about miserable, the counting points and restriction and the weigh ins and all of that, really just too much I was like: "Is it neuroses?" or whatever the word is, but I would like step on the scale. I remember stepping on the scale, weighing myself six times in a day, and like, you know, trying to manipulate things like don't drink any water or do anything like before the weigh in. It was just no way, no way to live. And if I fast forward a little bit. Like now I'm at another job, they had a Biggest Loser challenge at the job and, and I was like I had already told myself after Weight Watchers, look, I'm not doing I'm not trying to do this. I'm never gonna try to intentionally lose weight, you know, ever again. But the higher ups, I think it was the program director who had she was a dietician and started in like my position moved her way up. The program director was like, well, you have to do this, because you're the dietitian. But really what what she was saying is like, you're the fat dietician, and you have to do this Biggest Loser weight loss challenge. And so I went along with it. And I just like, there's a lot of a lot of times in my life, where I just went along with things like, that's how I ended up in dietetics, instead of just saying, like, no, this is what I really want. I'm gonna go over here and do this, you know, I just kind of went along with like, Okay, well, this is what I should do or what I'm supposed to do. And so once again, anytime I've tried to lose weight, it's, it's been a mess.

So after that experience, I was like, "Yeah, absolutely never again". But also that same exact year, I learned about Health at Every Size, and it was an eye opener. Like, just changed everything for me on a personal level, it helped me heal my own relationship with, with food and my body. So I learned about that, like in the fall of 2011. And in 2012 in the spring, I was writing my master's thesis, and I used Health at Every Size as the philosophical framework. I had to create a nutrition education program. And I created one for Black women, like based on Health at Every Size. And I mean, ever, like just ever since then, I'm like, I'm solidly Health at Every Size, like, the weight that doesn't like that, that doesn't matter. Like I don't have to look a certain way, weigh a certain, you know, amount or fit into this BMI category in order to be healthy. I mean, now, I know, I know that there's some limitations with Health at Every Size. Like, they're like, there's the healthism in there. And like, there's some changes and things that need to be made, I'm sure. But yeah, just for me, that was very helpful. Yeah. And so, yeah...

Melissa Toler: So it sounds like you haven't looked back. Like, that's been your… you're firmly grounded in that. Right? Personally and professionally.

Veronica Garnett: Right. But I can, I'll say that it hasn't, you know, I've not been able to function as a Health at Every Size dietitian, and, you know, because I work for other people, I work for these organizations, they have their standards and guidelines. And, you know, doctors are sending the clients to me, like I worked in clinics where, you know, interdisciplinary team. So the doctors would send, you know, would send, like, Oh, this client needs weight loss, so send them to me. So I trying to, like I try to, you know, hold on to those values and use Health at Every Size as much as possible. But still have you know, those restrictions because I was working for, you know, for other people. So it's a challenge because still overwhelmingly, the dietetic profession is still very weight normative.

Melissa Toler: Yeah, it can be challenging to try to institute these countercultural ideas within a system that is pretty rigid in the way that it thinks and treats people, essentially. So yeah, I can see that that's very complex. But you seem to have some really exciting things happening with regard to food in general. And one of those things is Reclaiming Your Plate, which is a collective of black RDs, and you are also working on something called DiaspoRadical Kitchen. And so both of those things sound really awesome. And I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about both of those things and and talk about what your philosophy is behind those things and what you're hoping to accomplish.

Okay, so I guess I'll start with Reclaiming, it's Reclaiming Our Plate.

Melissa Toler: Oh, I'm sorry.

Veronica Garnett: That's okay. But we are Reclaiming Our Plate. So I co-founded Reclaiming Our Plate with Ayana Habtemariam who I believe was on your was on your podcast.

Melissa Toler: Yes! yeah, yeah.

Veronica Garnett: She's my dietician bestie, and my accountability partner and all of that. And you know, we have weekly accountability calls conversations. And like she and I connected because you know, she's a fellow, you know, Health at Every Size, Intuitive Eating anti-diet culture aligned dietitian. And like we were just talking about, I mean, if you look at the face of this anti-diet culture movement, it's still a thin white woman. And I think that I mean, I know that a lot of Black folks don't know about these concepts, don't know about these other ways of like, these, these weight inclusive, you know, paradigms for nutrition and health and well being and all of that. And I just noticed that the people who were driving this conversation like they weren't, they're not talking, you can tell when someone's talking to you or not. And folks weren't talking to Black people, about issues that really affect us and might affect our Health at Every Size journey, whatever, and so on. And Ayana and I were talking and we were like, well, what if there was a way to have like a direct pipeline to the community to, you know, to talk about these things to critically examine diet culture and fat phobia, and how it's inherently anti-black and racist and oppressive and particularly, like it harms black people more than, like, the privileged white folks who are kind of at the forefront of this, you know, of this movement. Like, what if we created a community? And so we're a collective of six dietitians and we're all weight inclusive, and, you know, use different treatment modalities that are weight inclusive. And so yeah, we're working to build a community of Black folks who are divesting from diet culture. And, and yeah, divesting from... I'm sorry, I got tripped up. But we are building a community of Black folks who are divesting from diet culture. And, you know, its oppressiveness, its anti blackness. It's racist, racist ways. So yeah. So like, we our goal, we like we just launched, I think, like, like, a couple of days before COVID, the shit hit the fan with COVID. But before then our plan was to host events, like some in-person events, and Twitter chats, and Zooms, just like community-building exercises. And then also, all of the dietitians in the collective, you know, our have our own private practices and stuff. So [folks} would have an opportunity to work with us. And, but yeah, things kind of, I mean COVID put a monkey wrench in a lot. A lot. A lot of plans this year. So yeah, we're going to regroup. And like try to revisit things in 2021. Yeah.

Melissa Toler: So that's awesome. So Reclaiming Our Plate sounds like a great idea. Because I agree with you, there are very few things that are speaking directly to Black people specifically about the ways that diet culture and fat phobia harm us. And, and I think a lot of times, and we've talked about this quite a bit on the podcast is, you know, we've internalized a lot of those messages, specifically around, you know, being at risk for various diseases and how that means that we are either somehow inherently defective, or we just make bad decisions, or the combination of those two things and we're unable, you know, it's hard to see through that, right. Because you're like, Yes, I do. My, my father had diabetes, my mother has hypertension. And so, you know, there's the, the full story isn't being told, and so it's great that you have aligned with other dieticians to be able to change that.

Yeah. And all the stuff that you're saying, like it makes me so upset makes me so upset. Like there's nothing inherently wrong with Black folks.

Melissa Toler: Nope!

Veronica Garnett: There's nothing... It's not that we make poorer decisions than anybody else. Yeah, I posted about this on the Reclaiming Our Plate page. And on my Veronica The Dietician page, where like, this was after the Surgeon General, whoever his name, I don't know.

Melissa Toler: Yeah, Jerome Adams.

Veronica Garnett: Yeah, was talking about like us not calling Big Mama and all this bullshit, and this is why were were at increase risk of like COVID. And I felt like we're NOT at an increased risk of COVID because of there's anything wrong with us, because we're not calling Big Mama because we eat a certain way. But it's because of racism. Yeah, like racism. Like in our Western American society, it's all individualism. And like, we just forget these systems that we are a part of, or like these, the stew that we're swimming in, but the social determinants of health, like the context in which we live, the has a huge influence on our health outcomes. Our personal individual behaviors have actually a very small percentage in our health outcomes. And another thing that really pisses me off is that no matter what 100% of us, like, no matter your size, shape, like any identity, you have 100% of us are going to die;100% of persons are going to get sick and die. And if it's not heart disease, there's gonna be cancer. If you found the cure for one, then everyone would die of the other or you know, pretty much like that's what it is. And like we never talked about in healthcare. When I look at health care research, and they talk about like, mortality rates, and blah, blah, blah, the mortality rate for everyone is 100%. I didn't mention to you before we started recording, but I just recently signed to become a certified death doula.

Melissa Toler: Ohhhh...

Veronica Garnett: And I went this direction where it was like really appealing to me, because I kept noticing that there's three main things that really motivate people's behavior. And I think the first one is: I think we have an inherent drive to procreate. So people want to be attractive and want to be fuckable, want to look good. And so then all of a sudden, my clients have these big concerns about looking a certain way, so they can attract the partner and whatever. And then the other thing is, we are, you know, humans are, we're pack animals, we are communal, and we fear being like outcasted. So, we do whatever to try to fit in. And so sometimes weight loss and trying to shrink yourself is a way to fit in and be a part of the tribe. And then the other things like fear of death. That was a big thing. I feel like a lot of the healthism, that people have, a lot of the concerns about developing these chronic illnesses, is because people are really afraid of dying. And, but and it really doesn't matter what we do, you know what we do, we're still gonna die. You can eat all the kale, and you can do all the keto, or whatever the hell and do all the yoga, but we're still gonna, you're still gonna get sick and die. And so I just wanted to, like learn for myself also to like, to be able to hold space for clients. And to kind of, I guess, really, like, support them and seeing like: "What are your views about death?" And like: "What are your views about life really, and quality of life and joy. And like, if I'm gonna die anyway, I'm into, like, I'm not gonna waste another moment trying to restrict what I'm eating, or trying to shrink my body. Because all of it like 100% of us, we're all going to end up like, you know, leaving this good earth at some point. And it's just the is so ridiculous, diet culture.

Melissa Toler: Yeah, death is scientifically proven, isn't it? We know for sure is going to happen. So you know, I think you said a lot of just really incredible things there and the fear of death. And sometimes, oftentimes, in our pursuit of this optimal health, we end up missing out on living life and enjoying life, like we strive, and we're encouraged to strive to do all of these, you know, great behaviors, because 1) I think it like you said, it's a part of belonging; 2) we think it'll help stave off death. And it also gives folks a sense of control over whether or not we die. And, you know, you just don't really have as much control as you think you do over it. One of you'll get sick and die like you just you honestly don't know. And I think that's a very difficult thing for folks to grapple with.

Veronica Garnett: Yeah. And like, we don't talk about it. Yeah. And you know, it it's like, especially like, just in Western society, we don't really have like rituals around death and like communicating with ancestors. I mean, I know people are people are religious, but even in religion, I think there's still like a lot of death anxiety and stuff that we never really, yeah, talk about and process and get to like a peaceful place with and then we just try to manage our death anxiety with with diet culture and healthism and wellness culture. Like all of that.

Melissa Toler: Oh, so I'm excited to hear how things go with your work toward becoming a death doula. I think that's fascinating. And speaking of speaking to the ancestors, you have also, I don't know if you've embarked upon it yet, because of COVID. But DiaspoRadical Kitchen, which I think is a fabulous idea. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

Veronica Garnett: Yes, I knew we were gonna circle back to it. Yeah, I know the conversation go in different all different directions. So I should give a little bit of context. So three years ago, all the way back. I mean, I mentioned earlier that my dream was to go to culinary school and become a chef and have my own show, and my own cooking show. So when I turned 32. I was like, I'm gonna do everything that I said that I wanted to do and haven't done yet. So I enrolled in culinary school that year, so it's three years ago. And then a month after I started, I quit my job, I quit my job, I had three jobs, I quit, I eventually quit or stopped working. Like I had a consulting gig, but the contract ended. So yeah, it's like, like all those things cleared away, have become the queen of quitting jobs.

And then I just focused on culinary school. And it was one of the best experiences I've had educational experiences I've had in life. And so like, so last spring in 2019, it was my last semester. And in order to graduate, I had to complete a culinary externship, and, you know, have certain amount of hours in order to graduate and I like I really wanted to go to Senegal, it was calling me for some reason. And like, maybe like the year before I actually ended up going, I felt like, Oh, I want to go to Senegal. I think I like I want to be it'll be a graduation trip to my, you know, a gift to myself. But like, it still was like on my mind and it came up and then and then I'm like: "Well, what if I did my externship in Senegal?". And then I realized with my schedule that I have had a six week period where I didn't have to be on campus for classes. So I ended up doing a fundraiser and the community, my community rallied around me and were so supportive. And I was able to raise enough money to go there for the six weeks, I worked at a school. I worked at a school and like with a private cook, and some other like explore the culinary scene there. And the reason…one big motivation, I mean, yes, Senegal was calling me but also, if you look at most culinary schools, Western modern culinary schools, they tend to teach like classical French techniques and cuisine. And I mean, that was, yeah, that's what I learned in culinary school. But there's like no emphasis on African food, Caribbean food. South American food. Like, I had an international cooking class. We had an international cooking class all it was was like different varieties of white cuisine, like white European cuisine. Like one day, it's like Belgian food, maybe then there's Italian food, or British, or whatever. But it was white, white, white, and like we had one day for all of Asia, all of it.

Melissa Toler: Oh my god.

Veronica Garnett: It's really just easy East Asian food, maybe it was Chinese food, but like Chinese American food that we were making, I think. And then there was one day for like Louisiana Cajun, I guess Creole, but that's more like the French. More like Eurocentric food, you know, in Louisiana. So that was it. But nothing else. And like most of my classmates, like we were all black and brown. Mostly people of color. Middle Eastern, East Asian. And I mean, all the professor's except maybe one or two. Wait. We had to like, I had two professors who were Asian: one was from Thailand, I believe. And one was from Malaysia. And then I had one instructor who was from Egypt, but everybody else was white for the most part, I think. Right? And yeah, so that's all like we, we learned these like cultural, these culinary traditions that had nothing to do with the actual makeup of the students, you know, the student body. And so yeah, so I wanted to learn about African food and like the foods from African diaspora. And like, I've always been interested in the ways... Like, there's so many similarities, like if you go to Brazil, or the American South, or, you know, Nigeria, there's similar foods and pathways that traveled from Africa. And that's what was really interesting to me.

So yes, so I been able to have that experience in Senegal came back home and graduated. And I was figuring out what I was going to do after I graduate. Like what am I doing with my life. And I should say that I had let my registration status lapse [my RD status], and I knew it was coming. And I it happened while I was in Senegal, I cried tears of relief because I was like, I don't want to do that anymore. And I'm like, I'm just gonna focus on my culinary career. And so, long story short, with that I ended up paying to be to be reinstated, but I can get into that at a different point. But over the summer, I actually the year before, the spring before I did this leadership training program, and with my and one of the results I said I wanted to create was a like a few episodes, I want to produce at least three episodes of a, of a cooking show that I put up on YouTube. And so I work with my teammates, we were able to produce these episodes, and then like but that was it though. I didn't like I guess my teammates weren't able to. I wasn't able to work with those same folks again after graduation. So that just kind of sat on the back burner. But then once I finished school, I was like I really want to revisit this, but I but I was like but I want to do it a little bit differently. Because in the first round of videos, it was just me being a culinary dietitian and just cooking whatever nutritious food in front of the camera. But I'm like, I want to have liberatory...is that a word? I want to have liberatory conversations. I want to have guests. And I want to cook. And like we can focus on fun foods from the African diaspora.

So one day I was like, one evening, it was a Saturday I was driving around I had to pull off on the side of the road and pause. I was like: “I got it! DiaspoRadical Kitchen.” So "diaspora" because you know, my culinary point of view is the African diaspora. And then the radical piece is the the liberatory conversations that I wanted to have dismantling fatphobia and anti-blackness and racism and like other systems of oppression, like I reached out to some friends and colleagues of mine who like all do some do like amazing things and could like, bring their perspective on these different topics. I want to have those conversations while we also cook and enjoy food. And then of course "kitchen" because we're going to be in the kitchen. So DiaspoRadical Kitchen. So I was hoping in the spring to film a few episodes. I had reached out to folks and was doing like recipe development, all this stuff. And then COVID happened. So so that kind of like on the back burner, but I'm hoping like in a post COVID world that I'll be able to I mean, I'm sure there's things I can do now, but also at the same time I'm have all these other projects going. Yeah, I'm hoping like, in a post COVID world that I get to revisit it and like really make that come to fruition.

Melissa Toler: Oh, man, I hope so too, because it sounds like an amazing, amazing idea. So everyone, keep your eye out for DiaspoRadical Kitchen.

Veronica Garnett: There's a website for DiaspoRadical Kitchen up. So like, so you want to go and like putting your email address, you can get updates. I have an Instagram. Maybe I created a YouTube so people can follow. And then whenever I do post something, yes, you'll get the update.

Melissa Toler: Well, thank you. Thank you so much for being here, Veronica. I really appreciated our conversation today. I think we got into a lot of juicy good stuff that we can definitely expand on perhaps in a subsequent interview for season two. And I'm really looking forward to DiaspoRadical Kitchen and all of the other great work that you're doing. But before we sign off, where can folks find you? what's your website? Are you on social media?

Veronica Garnett: The best I think is, since I'm like a Jackie of all trades, like I'm doing the most I'm doing the least the same time. But I think the best places to start is Veronica Garnett. So I'm Veronica Garnett across the board. And I will say that's my personal page. But if you go to like Instagram, Veronica Garnet, I have the links to all my other [sites] to, to DiaspoRadical Kitchen, to Reclaiming Our Plates, to Black Adventuristas (I didn't get to mention that today). But all the information is there. Or if you go to my website, Veronica Garnett dot com, you'll be able to go there to access all the other information. But for my private practice, that is Veronica the dietitian dot com. And also Veronica the dietitian on Instagram. So that's particularly like for clients, or potential clients who want to do individual coaching work with me, that's where they would go. So those are your two options to find all the info that you need.

Melissa Toler: We will definitely put that in the show notes so people can easily find you. So thank you again, this has been amazing. And I look forward to talking to you soon.

Veronica Garnett: Okay, thank you so much for having me. This was a pleasure.

Melissa Toler: I love how fired up Veronica is over the work that she's doing. We definitely need more health care professionals and helping professionals like her in the world. No doubt about that. I'm personally looking forward to seeing more from Veronica and those awesome projects that she's working on. And I'm sure you are too, so please visit her website and connect with her on social media. All of those links will be provided in the show notes. Thank you again for being here today. I appreciate the time that you've taken to listen to these important conversations. If you enjoyed this episode or other episodes, please let me know by rating following and reviewing wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, if you want to continue to support this podcast to keep it going, please go to Melissa Toler dot com, forward slash podcasts and click on the link to donate. Contributions as little as $1 are greatly appreciated. As always, I thank you for listening to Hearing Our Own Voice.