The lady who changed my life when I was9 years old.

I’ve been called delusional. I’ve been called a hippie. I’ve been called a tree hugger. And my all-time favourite, I’ve been called crazy.

But what can I say? I’m a stubborn believer. What do I believe in, you might ask? Well, here’s the thing.

I believe that our overpopulated planet isn’t a picture of health. A bit like us humans, when we feel misaligned, we get a bit depressed and sad. I think our planet is a bit depressed.

Not that I want to put emotions on a 4.5 billion-years-old rock gravitating in space, but I can’t help myself thinking that all the weather events, season changes, and ocean temperatures rising—not to mention anything else—seem like cries for help from our great big sturdy rock that we call Earth.

And how in the world is this even related to a sustainable meal delivery service, you might ask? You really do have great questions.

What I learned in school

I was only a child when sustainability was about to walk into my life forever. It all started at school. One day, a guest came into our class to speak about waste. The lady looked quite serious in her dark clothes, but her face was very friendly. Her voice was energetic and her words captivating. Our brains absorb so much at 9, and I drank every word she said like a thirsty camel. She spoke mainly about water waste and recycling. She patiently explained why it was important to regulate our water usage and why recycling mattered.

Long story short, I still remember sitting on my orange plastic chair in the class and feeling blown away. The room started feeling so big, and me, so small. How was it that these easy actions—like opening a tap and throwing things away—had such a potential to harm our planet? Why do we do it if we know they can be wrong? So many “why” questions were unanswered.

Nine-year-old me returned home and unwrapped all my new knowledge to my mother, eager to tell her everything I learned about how the world works. To my excitement, she had no clue. I taught her all the ways we could save some water—my favourite was turning off the tap while brushing your teeth—and all the rules about recycling and how to do it to optimize the resources.

My mom was equally eager to learn and to do the right thing, and to this day, she’s still a recycling champ.

That was in 2002.

An ocean passion

Many years have passed since that incredible day, but nothing has changed. I’m still eager to learn how I can improve, get better, and live without harming our home.

I’m born in Canada, and as life went, I made the decision to move to this country—another occurrence of getting called crazy. Little did I know, I would call it my adoptive country in 2019. In Canada, we are blessed with mountains and beautiful fluffy snow, but not so much with the beaches. Human nature being what it is, we often tend to develop a fascination with what we don’t have.

So, I was in awe of the ocean.

I have always been a strong swimmer and naturally gravitated towards surfing. And I fell in love for the first time in my life. I can’t get enough. Pulling me out of the water is torture (barely exaggerating!).

I’ve spent countless hours in Australian waters since 2019 (I like to think that I need to catch up with the lost time). But there’s one thing that I struggle with every time I surf: finding rubbish. I struggle with the powerlessness I feel about it ending up in the water and on the beach. Twisties, single-serve chocolate wrappers, face masks—you name it. It’s all in there. I get silently devastated. I pick it up, stash it in my wetsuit, and put it in the bin.

And life goes on.

With a little bit of deceit in my heart.

With this recurring event, I’ve come to believe that this rubbish I find is mine too if I’m using these products. It’s mine, yours, and everyone’s if we accept the use of these products and call it normal without questioning it.

I thought, there was no turning back now.

Things had to change.

That was in 2022

For me, sustainability always started in the kitchen, so I started cutting out foods that are packaged in single-use plastic. Forever curious in the kitchen, I’ve learned how to make many things from scratch, including soy milk, pasta and wraps. It’s been a long journey, and I will not lie, a hard one. But a rewarding one.

And one day in 2022, one evening around a meal with my partner while we were camping in Tasmania, we started dreaming. How can I help the world do better with plastic and join it to my passion for cooking? And the answer was simply:

One meal at a time.

What to know more about my journey of ditching plastic?