We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tessa Nguyen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Tessa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.

I started my business because I never saw healthcare providers who looked like me or ate like me. There was such a disconnect from the Eurocentric norms they touted as the “healthiest” from how I was raised and how I was living. This created years of shame in my cultural foods and foodways, when that should never have been the case. This followed me into my work as a chef and registered dietitian, never feeling comfortable to be open about the diverse foods I grew up with and afraid to be too “ethnic” in my recommendations for clients. Over time, I realized this was only making it harder for me to provide inclusive services for my clients and they weren’t receiving what they really needed to achieve their individual culinary and nutrition goals.

After years of consulting and gaining perspective from people all over, I realized I was responsible for how I wanted to represent myself and my business. When I moved back to the states, I decided to found TN Media and consult full time with an emphasis on health equity. My business centers health equity by taking into account social determinants of health before providing appropriate, accessible, and affordable services to underserved communities of color. This includes collaborating with healthcare practitioners, farmers, and related agencies to achieve client-related goals.

Tessa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a chef, registered dietitian, educator, and keynote speaker with over 15 years of experience. I’ve had the privilege of traveling extensively with my work and serve as the founder and principal of my business, TN Media.

TN Media is a consulting agency that provides culinary development, cultural auditing, bespoke content development, speaking engagements, healthcare guidelines and resources, and countless media work for clients across the healthcare, food, nutrition, and agriculture industries. This includes collaborating with healthcare practitioners, farmers, food producers, non-governmental organizations, commodities boards, and related agencies to achieve client-related goals. TN Media’s work, as a whole, centers health equity by taking into account social determinants of health before providing appropriate, accessible, and affordable services to underserved and marginalized communities of color.

Soon I’ll be expanding TN Media into a brick-and-mortar location as TN Media House. TN Media House will serve as the community wellness hub for creatives with a focus in providing private, secure, and safe working spaces for healthcare practitioners of color and the opportunity to develop community with like-minded practitioners. TN Media House will host providers supplying inclusive services for the underserved communities of color in Detroit; both virtually and in-person. This can include everything from accommodating one-on-one client sessions, creating content to be published across multimedia, hosting community events, providing virtual culinary nutrition workshops, and building camaraderie with fellow practitioners. TN Media House will draw upon its culinary roots to implement strategies to increase our neighborhood’s food security, access to healthy and nutritious foods, and empower wellness knowledge through the services provided by credentialed practitioners. TN Media House will also benefit the community by developing a free neighborhood pantry, community garden, and educational events in the urban neighborhood it resides.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

A couple of years into becoming a registered dietitian (RD), I realized I was unenthused by the typical services offered by a chef and registered dietitian working in the industry. Clients wanted me to analyze recipes, develop menu plans, and create a plethora of handouts and resources that were never actually used by their clients or customers. At the time, there were very few chef RDs, so we were often approached to do the stereotypical food service-type consulting.

Even though I was still less than 5 years into practice, I knew if I didn’t pivot my services, I wouldn’t last as a consulting chef RD for very long. It would get boring and tedious for me, as well as not being able to provide services of value to my clients.

Thankfully, there were a few clients who believed in the work I had done previously to give me a shot while I transitioned to providing broader marketing and communications services. It wasn’t easy, but over time I was able to build up my client base and through their referrals, I was able to support myself by consulting full time. Once they saw the value I added from a food, nutrition, and marketing perspective, I knew I hit the sweet spot of how my business, TN Media, could fill the gaps my clients needed to bridge.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn, and am still unlearning, is how Eurocentric the food and nutrition information I was taught in school is. At the time, and even now, the Mediterranean Diet was always “the healthiest,” regardless of if we were talking about living longer or reducing nutrition-related diseases. The reality is, the Mediterranean Diet we’re taught in culinary and nutrition classes is whitewashed and doesn’t encompass the truly diverse foods eaten by all the ethnicities and communities across this area. Most importantly, there is not one diet in this world that is the healthiest. Every culture has a diverse array of foods that consists of proteins, fruits, vegetables, dairy, grains, and others. To say one is more healthy than the other is being uneducated of the fact that there are taste, dietary, religious, and cultural preferences that all have a play in what food pattern is the healthiest for each and every person.

I always thought it was funny when kale was the trendy superfood and my teachers and colleagues would say, “You need to swap out the collard greens you’re eating for kale.” In my mind, I was thinking, “Collard greens are leafy greens. Kale is also a leafy green. They’re the same.” At the time, I didn’t question it, but now I realize how biased and culturally ignorant that sounded to tell someone to swap the same food group for the same food group.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thetessanguyen.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetessanguyen
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thetessanguyen

Image Credits

Domingo Cortez