Tabitha Brown spread joy and veganism through TikTok

Tabitha Brown has become an online sensation after joyful vegan recipes and encouraging messages for her more than 2 million TikTok fans.

Video Transcript

TABITHA BROWN: What veganism means to me is a way of life. For me, personally, when I first started, it was to save my life. It was for my health.

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In January of 2016, I woke up with a headache in the back of my head. Every single day, I had this headache that just would not go away. And then that headache turned into chronic fatigue, chronic pain throughout my body. It felt like my body was attacking itself. And I would go to the doctor, week after week, month after month, and they just still couldn't find what was wrong with me. I didn't think I would get better. I really thought I was going to die.

And my daughter came home from school one day, and she was like, mom, we just saw this documentary at school. I think you should watch it. And it was "What the Health." We watched it together as a family. And the thing that got me is when they said all diseases are not hereditary. It's that we eat the same thing, causing the same disease. My mom died at 51 of ALS. My dad is 68, and he's the oldest male to ever live in our family. In that moment, I thought, well, meat was the common denominator.

I went vegan August of 2017. When we first started, we did it as a 30-day challenge as a family. And in the first 10 days, my headache went away. And then, by day 29, I told my husband, I was like, I'm starting to get the energy again. I'm feeling better. I think this is my path. I think I'm going to go vegan. And he said to me, he said, that's great, babe. But tomorrow, I think I might need a piece of chicken. And I was like, really?

If being vegan is something you want to try, when you first start, know your why. Figure that out first. And make you it means something to you. Because if it truly means something to you, you'll stick to it.

I was driving Uber to make money when I dropped somebody off December 30 of 2017, that morning, by a Whole Foods. I was like, ooh, Whole Foods be having good old vegan options. I'm go in here and get me some breakfast. I got the sandwich got the TTLA. Honey, I ate the first half of the sandwich so fast, I was, oh, I've got to do a video to tell people I've found us another vegan option.

When I got home and turned my phone on, that video had over 50,000 views. And I was like, who is watching this video? And then, the next morning, it had over 100-plus thousand. I told my husband, I said, I think I'm going viral. And he was like, well, what does that mean? I said, I don't know.

Four days later, Whole Foods reached out/ I became their brand ambassador and TikTok took it to a whole new level, child. It took it to a whole new level. So what made you join TikTok was my daughter, OK? She kept telling me, mom, you should get on TikTok. And then one of my counterparts that I had worked for with Whole Foods, she reached out to me and said, have you ever thought about getting on TikTok? I was like, yo, what in the world is this TikTok? Why in the-- why would I get on TikTok?

The first video was me and my brother and my daughter trying to teach us how to work TikTok and do the Renegade. That video went viral first. Every time I go live, there's thousands of people watching. Every time I post a video, there's thousands of views on it. When people watch me, I want them to see freedom. And then I wanted to look at themselves and say, am I living free? Am I being my authentic self?

Being free and knowing that we are enough, just how we are, this is who we were created to be. However you are is how you're supposed to be. And it's enough.

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