What is your role in WHIT?
I am excited to have conceived of, designed and built the Wellness Kitchen in WHIT.
What inspired you to rethink the kitchen?
As a busy mom and founding principal of a boutique architecture firm, I found myself without time or energy to feed myself, let alone nourish myself and my family with healthy, nutrient-rich meals.
Like many of us over recent years, I’d become acutely aware of the role nutrition plays in empowering wellbeing, longevity, and performance – not to mention the prevention of disease, illness, and premature aging.
My desperation to make healthy eating a reality for my family and frustration with the challenge fueled the inspiration for the Wellness Kitchen.
I had realized two things: firstly, kitchens have changed little over the last 70 years, despite massive shifts in the food industry and secondly, the majority of time-saving elements in kitchens are there to service diets that consist of eating preservative-laden, highly-processed food.
So, the kitchen had to be reimagined to make it more convenient to eat a living, vegetable-based diet, while daily rituals had to be both a realistic and an enjoyable reprieve from the frenetic pace of everyday life in the information era.
Why is the kitchen important to a person's health and wellbeing?
The food we eat powers our existence. It impacts our cognitive performance, physical performance, emotions, and more. In fact, 69% of chronic disease in the United States is preventable, and largely influenced by diet. It's time to add ease and joy to establishing daily habits that nourish us to promote vitality and longevity.
Why did you choose to work at WHIT?
WHIT is unique to the world in that it consists of innovators and collaborators sincerely passionate about improving our daily routines and surroundings in order to enjoy a meaningful and connected life.
What have you learned from your collaboration at WHIT?
WHIT consists of some of the most incredible minds and generous hearts that are capable of driving next steps in the Wellness Industry. I have seen casual conversations morph into ideas followed by action, which is key to realizing next level environments with impacts that go beyond what any one discipline could do on its own. Our work in the kitchen has certainly been enhanced by our collaborators at WHIT.
What are you hoping to accomplish over the next year?
We are expecting exponential growth for Vera Iconica Wellness Kitchen™ with the development of three kitchen lines in order to make both a meaningful impact on individuals lives, as well as to move the needle on the status quo. Our ultimate goal is to revolutionize the kitchen, and this next year is key to establishing design baselines and fundamental relationships with our partners to prepare for market demand.
