We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Eileen Elizabeth Popovich a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Eileen Elizabeth, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

My parents taught me the value of hard work, dedication, perseverance. Both of them worked incredibly hard to build a life for their family. They never made excuses, put in the hard work, and achieved success from nothing.

On a more personal note, my mother taught me how to cook, the importance of eating real food, and a deep love for vegetables. She raised me a vegetarian, at my own request. She didn’t allow us to eat sugar. And processed foods, and she made every meal from scratch
No matter how busy she was. We grew up drinking spirulina smoothies and wheat grass shots. She was ahead of her time in that regard.
She also was a strong woman, who raised strong women. She taught her daughters they could be anything they wanted, and there was no such thing as a man’s world.

My dad, well my dad is who made me unstoppable. He loved me so deeply, and so unconditionally that it gave me the confidence to persevere through anything. He was my biggest cheerleader, my biggest fan. He treated me like a princess, and gave me the foundation of confidence I have today. My dad is the reason I look at the world with compassion. He shaped the grown up I became in so many ways.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a private vegan chef and recipe developer. I’ve been working at my craft professionally for the past 10 years. During this time I have worked in private homes, delivered weekly meals, worked with people struggling with chronic illness as a health coach and chef, catered large scale events, catered hundreds of retreats and written vegan menues for both vegan concepts and non vegan concepts.

Currently I am finishing up my cookbook “The Vegan Blueprints” due for release spring of this year. It’s half guide, half recipes. All my tips and tricks for eating vegan, going vegan and cooking vegan.

I am here to help people take control of their health, take ownership in that journey, and fall in love with food and cooking.

I consider myself a vegan chef for meat eaters. I think a common misconception when people consider veganism is that they have to give up their favorite foods in order to do so. This is simply unture. I missed scallops and oysters when I went vegan 10 years ago. So I recreated them out of different mushrooms. The thing is, food is nothing more than texture and seasoning. Nobody eats steamed chicken plain and thinks “wow, I love chicken.” Period. They put their favorite sauce or seasoning or herb on it and that’s what they love. Most of that stuff is vegan from the start. So once you can recreate that same texture using a plant, you are good to go! I trick tons of meat eaters with my food. You would never know the difference.

I’ve also watched a lot of people heal themselves with food. What we consume is strongly correlated with future disease. Changing those patterns often leads to extremely quick recovery.

Eating like this changed my own life. When I went vegan 10 years ago, I lost 30 lbs in 40 days. I went from a size 9 to a size 1. I lost cellulite. I was eating carbs for the first time in a decade, and was losing weight. It was that moment that I stopped fearing food. As a woman, and one that struggled with eating disorders and self esteem issue in my youth, I can not tell you how freeing this was. It. changed my life and I have never looked back. I hope to help others end the food fear insanity in their own lives.

Last year I had my labs done for life insurance. When the results came back I was the perfect score in all fields. They offered me the same policy of that of tri athletes. It was proof, that 10 years into my journey I was an extremely healthy 38 year old. The healthiest I had ever been. And I was practicing what I preached to so many.
This just affirmed my purpose. I love what I do. I know what I am doing is helping others and reducing harm in this world. And honestly, thats all I could could ask for in a career.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

If I could go back, the only thing I would do differently would be to start this journey sooner. To go vegan sooner. To bravely leap sooner.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Word of mouth. When you do a good job, take pride and ownership in your work, treat people with kindness and flexibility, others will recommend you. And it grows and grows.

Also, I’ve heard my food is pretty good.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.letsgovegan.org
• Instagram: @chefeileenelizabeth
• Linkedin: Chef Eileen Elizabeth

Image Credits
I take all my own photos