Sixteen-year old vegan Haley Thomas from the United States is one of the yougest delegates at the two-day Dubai Health Forum.

A firm believer in the adage ‘you are what you eat’, Thomas from New York is attending the forum with her family that includes her parents and a younger sister. A avowed vegan from the age of 13 Thomas has managed to help her dad reverse his Type II diabetes just by giving up on meat, fish, chicken, poultry and dairy.

Thomas a perky home-schooled teenager is the youngest health coach and CEO of a company called HAPPY which is an acronym for Healthy, Active, Positive and Purposeful Youth that strives to inspire healthy eating in younger generations through structured school programmes and summer camps.

Narrating her the transformational three years that made her a vegan, Thomas recalled: "I turned a vegan at the age of 13. I was 8 years old when my father was diagnosed with Type II diabetes and he made healthy choices eating less meat, including more plant based proteins, vegetables and fruits in his diet that helped him manage his diabetes. I was very conscious of good health and read a lot about veganism. So one fine day we all turned vegan, three years ago.”

Thomas says she was not mentored by anyone, just empowered by her own self-discipline and inspired her family to give up on all non-vegetarian items and dairy products and have fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, berries and grains

"I had read that having plant based food switches off your cancer genes, besides being ethical and environment friendly, so I begged my family to join me,” said Thomas who said she never missed the texture of non-vegetarian food as she seasons with the same spices and loves to cook, motivating some of her friends too To maintain a good nutritional balance, Thomas likes to take additional organic supplements that give her B 12 and other enzymes that vegans are known to get deficient in.

A typical breakfast for the young girl is either scrambled tofu with vegetables or a frozen acai or fresh berries blended with granola, banana and cocount milk. Lunch is a mix of vegetables with tempeh, nuts and grains.

Dinner is a chick pea curry and fresh vegetable salad. The change not only impacted the family’s collective health but given Thomas unbounded energy.

“I feel this huge surge of energy and am currently completing an online health coach degree to carry the message of good health to others," she added

 

source : gulfnews