Healthy Cooking with Pink Kitchen

It is estimated that 1 out of every 8 women in the United States will develop breast cancer.  That is an astounding figure that I find difficult to wrap my brain around.  Although modern medicine has undoubtedly helped save many lives, approximately 40,000 women lost their battle with breast cancer in the U.S. in 2011.  We continue to hope and pray that a cure is found, for all forms of cancer.  Until then, we must educate ourselves on the different contributing factors and determine what we can change in our everyday lives to help fight this disease.

Enter Lisa Grey.  Lisa is the owner of Pink Kitchen out of Ft. Lauderdale, which has been an online business for the past 2 years and is debuting locally on August 19, 2012.  She has an M.A. in Health Psychology, focusing on the ways that nutrition affects the body and mind.  Lisa is also a breast cancer survivor – going on 5 years.  In her words, it was the cancer treatment that sparked her passion to create Pink Kitchen.  Nutrition is a powerful weapon against cancer and other illnesses.

Throughout her treatment, Lisa had not only her own personal experience to draw from, but the experiences of other cancer patients she met along the way.  She realized that people don’t make the switch to healthy cooking and eating because they believe one of 3 things: 1) it’s too difficult; 2) it’s too expensive; 3) it just won’t taste good.  Once she was finished with her treatment, she began blogging about nutrition.  She wanted to make a healthy, nutritional lifestyle appealing to everyone, and not just to fight cancer, but to improve the overall quality of life.  She knew that in order for it to reach people, the food would not only need to be affordable and simple to make, but it had to be delicious.  The response to her Pink Kitchen bog was overwhelming, with her readers’ requests prompting her to begin the Pink Kitchen cookbook series.  So far, she has Pink Kitchen PESTOS, containing 18 – yes 18 – healthy and easy pesto recipes, Pink Kitchen SCONES with 21 delicious recipes, Pink Kitchen SOUPS, containing 20 comforting vegetarian recipes, and most recently, Pink Kitchen SALADS, featuring 27 sassy salads and dressings, with a bonus of two vegan cheese recipes.  The books were designed with the “one topic at a time” approach so that once you have made 1 or 2 recipes from the book, you can pretty much make anything in the cookbook, with just a few tweaks to the ingredients.

Lisa loves being able to help people learn to cook and eat healthy.  Her biggest challenge is that many people have become so accustomed to the taste of sugar, white flour and artificial flavors in their baked goods, that their palates have been compromised.  Lisa doesn’t think that the majority of Americans understand the consequences of a diet filled with these ingredients.  Luckily, taste buds do change for the better over time, and the switch to a healthy lifestyle impacts everything from weight loss to increased energy levels and less mood swings. “Through healthy cooking and eating,” begins Lisa, “people can not only avoid or fight disease, but they can achieve greater mental and emotional well-being, resulting in a greater quality of life.  There’s a satisfaction in knowing that through Pink Kitchen, I may have played a small part in people’s happiness and quality of life.”  That’s not the only way Lisa Grey is helping.  She donates a portion of the proceeds from the cookbooks to breast cancer organizations.  She tells us that “there was a time I really needed financial help, and people came through for me.  Now I can come through for somebody else.”

We asked Lisa to complete the following sentences in her own words, and here’s what she had to say:

a)     When a customer walks into our business, they can expect…
“friendliness, encouragement, and delicious food.”

b)    What really makes us unique is…
“no one else makes 100% whole grain, vegan scones with no sugar added in the South Florida area.  And no one else has Pink Kitchen’s user-friendly, enticing cookbook series.  We also use locally grown, organic fruits and vegetables whenever possible.”

c)    Supporting, shopping and eating locally are important to Pink Kitchen because…
“an urban area becomes a community when people get to know each other on a personal basis, appreciating the integrity, talent, and hard work that each member contributes.”

We couldn’t agree with Lisa more.  You can catch Lisa and Pink Kitchen at the Las Olas Farmer’s Market every Sunday.

Learn more about Pink Kitchen and how to order their cookbooks by visiting their listing here.  Once there, you will also find their website, facebook page and twitter info.  Happy cooking!!

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