Meet The Woman Helping Millions of Black Women Go Vegan For Their Health

Award-winning public health nutritionist Tracye McQuirter is tackling diet-related diseases and preventable illnesses in the black community by raising awareness of healthy plant-based food. Now, her ‘10 Million Black Vegan Women Movement’ is her biggest project yet.  

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Credit: Tracye McQuirter

Award-winning public health nutritionist and best-selling author Tracye McQuirter, is launching a new campaign encouraging ten million black women to go vegan.

“[There’s] nearly 800 black folks a day dying mostly from diet-related diseases”, McQuirter recently told The Washington Post. McQuirter has long advocated the health benefits of a plant-based diet, having authored the first vegan diet book for black women over ten years ago, By Any Greens Necessary. 

Now, the launch of McQuirter’s 10 Million Black Vegan Women Movement is a public health intervention which she hopes can change the health paradigm of black women now and for generations to come. 

The movement offers a free, 21-day online program of cooking videos, recipes and meal plans, designed to actively encourage black women to embrace veganism.

"Black women experience the highest rates of chronic diseases, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer, but most of these illnesses can be prevented and often reversed by eating healthy plant-based foods”, McQuirter explains. 

McQuirter’s previous project last year encouraged 10,000 black women to sign up to her vegan lifestyle plan. Over 15,000 black women took part, and the results revealed that 82 percent completed the entire 21-day program, and 67 percent improved their general health. 

McQuirter’s new campaign aims to build on that success and reach more women than ever before, with a target to encourage one million black women to go vegan each year for the next ten years.

“We've seen the devastating impact these pre-existing conditions can have, especially during the pandemic. The 10 Million Black Vegan Women Movement gives black women the tools we need to take back control of our health," McQuirter adds.

An increasing awareness of the health benefits of a vegan lifestyle has driven a surge in the number of black Americans cutting out meat and eating more wholefoods. Recent polls show that black Americans are nearly three times more likely to be vegan or vegetarian than the general U.S. population.

About Tracye McQuirter, MPH: 

Tracye McQuirter is a transformative leader in the field of plant-based nutrition and black women's health, and has been helping people go vegan for more than 30 years. Based in Washington, DC, McQuirter is the author of Ageless Vegan and By Any Greens Necessary, the first vegan diet book for black women, as well as the creator of the first free African American Vegan Starter Guide (with 500,000 copies ordered). The New York Times cited her work as a key factor driving the rise in veganism among African Americans, who are the fastest growing vegan demographic, at 8% as compared to 3% of the U.S. overall, according to a 2016 Pew Research Center study. McQuirter was also a health advisor for the Black Women's Health Imperative, which was then the nation's largest health advocacy organization for African American women and girls; a health advisor for Spelman College, the nation's top HBCU and oldest college for Black women; an adjunct professor at the University of the District of Columbia Center for Nutrition, Diet, and Health; the director of the first federally funded vegan nutrition program, the Veg Society of DC Eat Smart program; and the co-creator of the first vegan website by and for African Americans in 1997. McQuirter has a Master's degree in Public Health Nutrition from New York University. 

For more information, please visit 10millionblackveganwomen.org.  

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