By Kathy Chouteau
Childhood friends Dasan Mahaway and Bendrick Foster are hosting a launch event Friday for their new partnership that introduces alkaline vegan food to New Life Café in Richmond.
The event, called “Eat Better. Live Longer. The Way to Healthy Living,” will run from noon to 6 p.m. at New Life Café, located at Market Square Mall, 322 Harbour Way, Unit 7. Like-minded vendors can still sign up for the café’s revamp event, and it will feature a DJ and a chance to sample the menu. New chefs will come on board to help, including Chef Lena.
The combined new venture implements Mahaway’s healthy food expertise from his work at Seamoss’d and Natrully Herbs & More at New Life Café, which provides job training to local teens through Foster’s nonprofit, the New Life Movement.
Rooted in their individual interests and grounded in their collective spirituality, the dynamic duo is sharing the benefits of alkaline vegan food, including sandwiches and smoothies, at the downtown café. Foster said that through this collaboration, their home community can now “come get some healthy food.”
Mahaway described the café’s essence as “a transitional kitchen” that helps people convert to an a alkaline vegan diet, “which will support what their body’s actually looking for.”
“It’s full of minerals and nutrients to help feed the body all the way down to the cells,” he said.
So what exactly is alkaline vegan food? Mahaway gave an example of the café’s fare by sharing details on one of their dishes: A Teriyaki Mushroom Bowl, which he said emulates a Teriyaki Chicken Bowl. The mushrooms are sauteed and prepared to taste like teriyaki, then accompanied by cilantro, green onions, tomatoes and guacamole. “And we make a famous whoop-wop sauce out of walnuts. And then that’s all on top of a bed of quinoa,” he added.
The “alkaline” part of their food is the power behind it, the energy, just like an alkaline battery. “What the human body feeds off of is minerals, and we get minerals from alkaline foods that get [their] electricity from the sun,” said Mahaway.
Foster said the café is also a vocation and training program that additionally educates youth about eating better, such as replacing meat with mushrooms and veggies and so on.
Another café menu option will be a healthy take on soul food, which Mahaway said in its traditional form has grease, starch and toxins. Instead of fried chicken, they do Fried Oyster Mushrooms, which comes with some greens. “And we make our own version of a Mac, no cheese, though,” he said, noting it’s “still very flavorful.” And they also make a red sauce pasta with cherry tomatoes, to name a few items.
Foster and Mahaway practice what they preach when it comes to healthy eating. Foster said he did a 54 day alkaline detox and was not only able to lose weight, but also remove himself from medication. “So we want to help heal people in the community too, about changing their mind and thinking of how to eat better,” he said. Mahaway, a self-taught health advocate added, “Just like Bendrick, I had to heal myself first.”
Mahaway added that eating alkaline vegan helped him feel 10 years younger. “I wake up early and full of energy, full of joy, no depression, no sadness. I can deal with the challenges of life a lot easier than before, because I’m more balanced. And, in turn, I can help a lot of other people notice their imbalances and [help] regulate them.”
Foster is the founder and executive director of the New Life Movement, a nonprofit that empowers youth and young adults to envision new realities for themselves and to uplift their community. The New Life Café is operated by the program’s youth and every purchase helps their programming.
Mahaway is the founder of Natrully Herbs & More, an herb shop out of 4113 Macdonald Ave. in Richmond, while his eatery there, Seamoss’d, will now shift to the New Life Café.
Find the New Life Café/Seamoss’d inside Market Square Mall at 322 Harbour Way, Unit 7, in downtown Richmond. For more information, contact Mahaway at 510-424-9206 or Foster at 510-837-4814 or [email protected].
