“Plant-powered food:
A family game changer”
SunStar Davao, Dec. 14, 2019
SunStar Davao, Dec. 14, 2019
The year she turned 40, Mimi Vergara-Tupas thought
of learning something new.
“I do not have any
formal culinary education. However, I am a person who is ambitious and
enthusiastic to always learn a new skill as long as it allows me to be my best
creative self,” she reveals. Mimi used to be in clothing and retail for 10
years and was founder of a homegrown fashion brand, a multiway dress label, and
swimsuit label for women of many shapes before venturing into pet wellness and
food.
Desiring to elevate their food brand sparked her
interest to take a Raw Vegan Certification in Ubud, Bali in 2018. The mother of
three explains that the raw vegan way of eating means “consumption of food
exclusively from plant sources and is not processed, refined, pasteurized, nor
heated above 48 degrees to preserve all of their living enzymes for optimum
nutrition”.
Staying in Bali, eating raw, and mindfully
listening to her body for 21 days straight opened her heart and mind to
conscious consumption.
“It didn’t just provide me an optimum
foundation for whole and plant-based food. It also opened up purposes that are
bigger than just purely business. Right after my course in 2018, there was no
way to stop me from carving a dream of a 100% plant-powered cafe for Davao,”
shares Mimi enthusiastically.
Mindful eating
Mimi clarifies, however, that her
family is not vegan. Neither is she. But, she has lovingly created several
plant-powered dishes over the years for her family. She believes that there
must be a more conscious way of consumption that is better for our health, our
planet, and the environment.
Her noble aim is to create plant-based
dishes and make them magically taste just as indulgent without having to rely
on meat, eggs, dairy or processed food.
Clean Café has three principles in
creating their dishes: health, flavor, sustainability. “We can't serve it if it’s
not better for your health, or flavorful or better for the environment. That's
what clean food is all about,” explains Mimi who runs the café along with hubby
Jun for the financial and business development side and son Uno for the
culinary aspect.
Family game changer
“My weakness in the kitchen is filled
by our son Uno, who had formal training from culinary school. He is 22 and puts
order in the chaos that I do in my kitchen! He also helped establish the
cornerstone of our menu -- which are the breads and the doughs for our very
popular bread baskets, toasts, and pizzas,” says the proud mom.
Clean Café’s dressings are made in-house,
from scratch. It makes its own bread and life-changing vegan butter. “We even whip our own cream from coconut milk.
We press our juices & nutmylks daily,” she details.
Mimi admits that the plant-powered
café is double the hard work compared to other commercial kitchens because it
practices farm to table, and sources organic produce whenever possible. It also
keeps close ties with the farmers and lets them know of the consumptions so they
will be better informed of what to grow more of and better sense of purpose.
“I am sure I am not the only one in
this day and age struggling to feed their family with healthy fare in the
middle of all this city rush,” points out Mimi. Only a month into its
operations, the hardworking mom was inspired to know that some families have joined
her plant-based food advocacy in their own homes after experiencing her vegan
dishes at the cafe.
This time, the tables have turned
though because, amazingly, it’s the kids who have been clamoring for healthier
options. What a family game changer, indeed!
Clean Café is located at The Compound,
Tulip Drive, Matina, Davao City. Open from 11am to 9pm. Tel. no. (082) 3334133
Special thanks to Mimi Tupas, Angel Go
and Natalie Wee for the photos.
E-mail the author at
mom.about.town.dvo@gmail.com. To view more photos, please visit
http://momabouttowndavao.blogspot.com/.
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