Why the name?

To consume deliciously, a lifestyle

I've been told I'm a picky eater, but as a child I ate everything. It's weird transition to grow into a picky eater but growing up on a constant weight-loss diet made me hyper aware of what I eat forever and always.  As I gained control over my dietary choices, I changed the basis of those choices from strictly healthiness to healthy, nutritious and delicious. Luckily I found that nutritious and delicious can totally trump healthy sometimes, but diet is always about balance. Becoming a picky eater allowed me to put my health and standard of food I eat first. I announced my vegetarianism on my 18 birthday which began the development of my eating philosophies. My mom pushed back on my choice saying there was no way she was going to cook for me separately from my brothers and father so that meant I needed to cook for myself, which I happily did and set free my culinary creativity. The summer before I went to college I decided to step up the vegetarian game and try veganism.  To footnote my personal dietary explorations -- once dorm life began, the veganism didn't stick, and three short years later I began incorporating poultry back into my life out of dire longing and need for more protein.

After I had gone off to college and started to explore food activism and animal rights on my own terms, it took some time but I was able to convince my family that they needed to adjust their approach to food away from cost-value and convenience in order to start prioritize food quality which would lead to prioritizing the quality of their lives. I definitely started a food revolution in my family, one my brothers weren't the happiest about since in included lengthy stints of juicing, veganism, and the Paleo lifestyle, but in the end my parents are now more educated and concerned consumers. The initiative required to cook for myself at a young age quickly grew into an attitude where I don’t understand why one would invest time and energy into a food if it won't reward the consumer with full deliciousness. I believe in order to fully judge a food delicious this requires a deeper assessment and valuation of the food supply chain from start to finish.

For example even if you ate the most ideal tasting fried chicken, if the chicken was raised in such tight quarters that it could not exist other than physically on top of or under other chickens then this fried chicken is not delicious. It is vital to analyze the supply chain of the food and weed out negatively sourced, raised and traded foods. Unfortunately our modern age is built on unequal relationships between producing and consuming parties therefore the entire way we consume should be the start for rectifying an imbalanced and inhumane system. I believe that voting with our dollars to support consumption preferences that are fully *delicious* on a daily basis will change how you personally engage with your food. Over time as more people awaken to these concerns, growth in these preferences will shift demand away from its current priority of cost-value and convenience towards a healthy and sustainable supply chain at every level of production.

Overall my approach requires a new definition of the word delicious, but redefining terms drives creative exploration, which is essential for a lifelong love of food.

Key to Delicious Consumption --

Value what you eat, where it comes from, the life it had and the lives that brought it to your table.