Some News

This is a bit of a deviation from my previous posts so please bear with me.

I set Cynical Vegan up in 2017 to share stories about my life, my health and my venture into the vegan world. It was freeing to share so openly over the years, hopefully with some humour and snark and there was a huge comfort I took from being anonymous, as I wasn’t judged for anything other than my words.

My health was a disaster and I was in a lot of emotional turmoil. It was a rough period after surgeries, an ADHD diagnosis, an existential crisis, lifelong stress and then eventually secondary infertility. My Instagram, blog and later this newsletter became my safe space where I felt seen and I had a lot of fun creating the food reviews and sharing what I ate for lunch.

I haven’t worked properly since 2019 and after having my daughter during Covid, my husband and I decided I would stay at home until my health improved and our family was complete. Our long awaited rainbow baby is now at nursery (it only took him 3.5 months to do a full day ) but it is finally time for me to get back to work.

I am a food photographer but couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do less than hustle for work again after so long. My confidence is non existent, I don’t want to shoot plates of food for restaurants anymore but my bank account is telling me I need to do something.

I mentioned a while ago I was working with a friend setting up a business. She started capturing mums and what and how they eat. After realising it was all eggs and scraps she decided to set up a platform for maternal nutrition. What started with a photo series is turning into a space that includes a weekly (plant-based!) meal delivery service, accessible recipes, a directory of maternal support, tips and advice from a registered nutritionist, a team of midwives and an award winning chef who is going to do the cooking. Mums, or any primary caregiver do so much with so little and society doesn’t support us enough, so my friend is trying to solve a problem.

Anyway, that friend is me.

I needed a project to get me back in the game and have decided to set up the very thing I could’ve used in the early days. I’ve brought together a team of incredible women who have helped me personally to bring it to life so that’s where my focus is at the moment. And I’m terrified of the challenge. Truly terrified.

Not only that, I’m putting on a photography exhibition next month to display some of the images I’ve taken and am crowdfunding to do a pilot of the meal delivery before opening up subscriptions and putting everything else together.

This is anxiety inducing to both put myself out there again and reveal myself here but I believe in the idea so am sharing more widely in the hope of some extra support and to connect with anyone that might want to.

If anyone is in Walthamstow and wants to come to the exhibition it’s on next month and if anyone has anything to spare and would like to contribute to the crowdfunder, all the info and options are here…

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/what-mums-eat - And yes, that’s me.

I will still dip in and out of this space as it’s been so much fun, but until this business is up and running I’ll be mostly over here and here.

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