{"id":5349,"date":"2025-04-23T06:18:31","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T06:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.positivemayo.com\/?post_type=chefs&#038;p=5349"},"modified":"2025-05-07T06:06:51","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T06:06:51","slug":"mokgadi-itsweng","status":"publish","type":"chefs","link":"https:\/\/www.positivemayo.com\/en\/chefs\/mokgadi-itsweng\/","title":{"rendered":"Mokgadi Itsweng"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Although she grew up surrounded by agri-food entrepreneurs, chef Mokgadi Itsweng initially worked in advertising before reinventing herself in the world of socially conscious cuisine. Food writer, stylist, and restaurateur, Mokgadi has become an activist<strong>. <\/strong>Behind her colorful plant-based dishes, deeply rooted in indigenous traditions, lies a powerful mission: to reconnect South Africans with their culinary heritage, to restore the place of ancestral grains like millet and sorghum\u2014long erased by colonialism and apartheid\u2014and to repair an unequal food system.<em>&#8220;My personal story about food allergies inspired me to explore a plant-based lifestyle. This exploration exposed me to how our broken food system is contributing to lifestyle diseases and planetary health. So, my passion was born out of the necessity to heal myself, to teach others, and to be the change I wanted to see in the world<\/em>. Her commitments led her all the way to COP28, with a plant-based pop-up restaurant showcasing African ingredients. Her book Veggielicious Cookbook, awarded at the Gourmand Awards, celebrates a plant-based cuisine that is healing and connected to the earth. A passionate advocate for \u201c<em>an accessible, climate-friendly, indigenous plant-based diet\u2014for our health and the planet\u2019s<\/em>,\u201d she was also honored in 2024 with the Game Changer Award at the Black Women in Food Awards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":5282,"template":"","pays":[154],"class_list":["post-5349","chefs","type-chefs","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","pays-south-africa"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.1 (Yoast SEO v27.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mokgadi Itsweng - Positive Mayo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.positivemayo.com\/en\/chefs\/mokgadi-itsweng\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mokgadi Itsweng\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Although she grew up surrounded by agri-food entrepreneurs, chef Mokgadi Itsweng initially worked in advertising before reinventing herself in the world of socially conscious cuisine. 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