Tabay Atkins, yoga teacher and vegan chef, joins Cheddar News to talk about his journey to clean eating and his new food truck. 

Between Bells

Tabay Atkins Talks Clean Eating and Yoga Practices 

Welcome back friends between bells and baker machado and new york are next guest. Such an inspiration to countless people all with his messages of inner peace and healthy living today, Atkins is America's youngest yoga instructor and it's also the face of Nike yoga as well. And if that's not impressive enough, he's also a reiki master and even has his own vegan food truck and by the way he's only 17 years old. So joining us now to talk all about living a clean life is to be Atkins yoga instructor, reiki master and vegan chef to be great to have you here. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Okay, so I am literally running out of things to talk about with how many impressive things that you basically do. I mean you've accomplished so much in your life. Talk about what inspired you to go on this journey of peace and wellness here. So I was inspired to start this wellness career of mine when I was seven years old. And this was in a point of our life when my mom and I were in a situation of that was far from wellness. My mom was actually just diagnosed with cancer. Stage three non Hodgkin's lymphoma and she, we knew nothing about yoga. We knew nothing about veganism or any of the things that we do now. So when I was six is when he was diagnosed and she was misdiagnosed for eight months. So she had to take really intensive cancer treatment. The chemotherapy was very intense as well. To the point where she was broken down physically and emotionally. She couldn't walk on her own. And it was really bad. But when she beat cancer, she got into yoga for the first time and this was without even knowing what yoga was. She was enrolled in a 200 our Vinyasa training and I was there by her side not taking the training, but just watching, I was there in case you needed help with anything. Um if you need help with props and had my little coloring book with me in case I got bored. I was watching, I was paying attention and in the 2.5 months of that training she could walk on her own again. She was happier and healthier than before she had cancer and the things that used to stress her out before it didn't bother her. It's not like yoga took the stress away, but it gave her the tools to help deal with that stress properly. So it really changed her whole entire mindset and uh perspective. I saw this and that's what inspired me to share this practice and help others heal the way I saw my mom and then I started traveling the country taking specialty yoga trainings. Um I got my 200 hours certificate when I was 10 years old and started teaching my own classes. Then then veganism came along. Rickey nutrition and I've been using all these practices of health and wellness to help people live a healthier life and a more compassionate life to be what an incredible story and congratulations to your mother on what an incredible journey she has gone and her and her health and success right now, as somebody who is a dedicated meditator myself, I know how important a mantra is to everyday life. Mine is, you got this, yours is really incredible as well. It's think good thoughts, speak kind words, feel love, be love and give love to talk about the importance of what that mantra sort of means to you in terms of your practice here. So this is a mantra that I share at the end of all my yoga classes and you know the first few times you hear it, we just here is this words, but then eventually something clicks and you really understand it's more than just words the way of living and because you know our thoughts, our words and our actions are so aligned and really affect each other. So if we're not thinking of the thoughts, we can't show up in the world and speak kind words and share love. So all starts with our thoughts, our thoughts are very important. A very big part of yoga is regulating your thoughts. So this mantra really helps people, you know, it gives them something to think about when they're doing the practice thinking good thoughts, speaking kind words give love just a short little phrase or mantra that helps them realize what they're really trying to get from the yoga practice. Absolutely. And by the way, and in addition to all the things that you're working on, you have a food truck now, a vegan food truck called to Be's Mindful Kitchen. How did you sort of get that off the ground? And what's been some of the popular food items that people are really enjoying? So I've been in the food space, I guess you called that for a while since I became vegan five years ago. So I was teaching cooking classes, making cooking content for social media and you know, sharing vegan food. It has been very important to me. I'm trying to show people how easy it is to be vegan by, you know, showing how easy it is to make your own vegan food. Um that vegan food tastes just as good, if not better than the non vegan food that is trying to mimic and um, with the food truck, I'm doing just that I'm trying to give people their favorite uh, fast food items and their comfort food classics. Um, and show them it's vegan. And the funny thing is, you know, it's been working really well because 90% of our customers at the food truck aren't vegan and when I tell them there that the food they was vegan, they just can't believe it. And they told me, you know, I'm far from being vegan. But that food was really good, I'm going to come back for more, which is so incredible because I was looking at the video footage we were just playing and that literally looked exactly, you could have told me it was a big Mac and I would have totally believed you, except it's bigger. Even bigger, wow, it's two quarter pound vegan patties. How do you make vegan food tasting in the box? But the big question is, is this is always sort of the argument to convince, you know, meat eaters to eat vegan, How do you make it taste good? What sort of the secret sauce here? Well, exactly. So the thing is that meet the reason that we love eating all these dishes that have meat in it. Um and it tastes so good. It's not because of the meat is because of the seasonings and the way you cook it. So you can have the same meat and make so many different flavors. So if you find a base that is good, eat that mimics the properties of meat. You just need to cook it and season it the same way you would and you have the exact same flavors that you would have if you're not vegan. So, you know the thing is when making these recipes for the food truck and um choosing which brands to use for mimicking the flavors of non vegan food. I chose the ones that have the closest taste to the non vegan food. I'm trying to mimic that way people can eat the food and like I've seen them do before, not even know why vegan and that's really great because I'm kind of opening people's minds to veganism because it's changed so much in the past few years that so much change, people aren't able to keep up and we, a lot of people see vegan as what it was in the eighties or nineties and it's come a long way since then. So now you can have the food, you love the same flavors, um, and not how many animals or yourself. Yeah, it's good for you, good for the planet. It's good all the way around today. Such a pleasure to meet you. What an incredible story you and your family are today, Atkins, yoga instructor, reiki master and vegan chef Extraordinaire, joining us right here on between Bells