What happens at 6 PM? 

Kumain ka na?
It’s a common greeting in Filipino culture, like hello, or aloha, but the literal translation means, “Did you eat yet?”

At the beginning of my recent conversation on the Kitchen Activist Podcast, Dr. Faith Karas explained that in her family, asking Kumain ka na? was another way of saying, I care for you. Are you okay. I want you nourished.

At 6 p.m., when she opens DoorDash, she isn’t just ordering dinner. During the pandemic, on the heels of a painful breakup, during our reflection on her current food habits, she understood it had become, “a way to receive care.”

She laughed as she told me this.

“There’s so much shame around this,” she said. She is known among her friend group as the person who doesn’t cook, instead she reaches for her phone at mealtime. Even if it costs $25 for a salad. Even if it didn’t align with her politics.

In every other area of her life, she is intentional. She bikes everywhere. She moves daily. She shows up for her work and her loved ones. And yet dinner gets pushed aside. But it has taken a toll on her health and her pocketbook.

“It’s just me,” she said.
“It’s not worth it.”

That stopped me.

Because I have heard that story before.
And not just from others.
From myself.

Years ago, while researching and writing Eat Less Water, I was searching for a way to align my meals with my values. I wanted my food choices to reflect my concern about water scarcity and the future of our planet. But I would make excuses, as to why I was, “cobbling meals together,” as Faith describes, for myself, accepting convenience over quality ingredients.

If I wanted my meals to reflect my hope for the world, they required intention and structure. That is when I developed a weekly meal-planning rhythm, not as a productivity trick but as scaffolding. A structure sturdy enough to hold my ideals.

That structure became the foundation for everything that followed in my kitchen. In many ways, it gave birth to Kitchen Activism. Because once you plan intentionally, everything begins to align: what you buy, where you shop, how much you waste, what you spend, how you feel.

My entry point was water.

Faith’s entry point is health — and the reality of a tighter budget.

Yours might be those reasons. Or Climate action. Politics. A desire to reduce food waste. Or maybe because you are just tired of being tired of cooking food for yourself.

But as you’ll hear in this episode, how we approach dinner is never just about dinner.

Faith watched her mother cook full spreads for the family — and eat bread alone when no one else was home. Faith promised herself she wouldn’t do that. And yet here she was, cobbling together cheese and crackers for lunch or ordering in, telling herself there were more important things to do, that she didn’t have the time or the skill.

This season, I’m going deep with two brave women who have generously agreed to record their meal planning journeys in real time. I’ll be their accountability partner. You’ll hear the doubts, the wins, the small shifts, and the mindset work along the way.

In this first conversation, we touch on so many things. I invite you to listen in.

And consider joining us on your own food journey and download the Meal Plan With Purpose template. Please send me a quick note to let me know how it’s going for you. I want to know!