Personal chef Nina Bryant creates healthy, delicious food for the famous

Nina Bryant is a personal chef, nutritionist, and chef instructor. She is the owner of LoveLustFood, a sustainable business where she provides athletes and affluent clients with fresh farm to table meals. The veteran created LoveLustFood to teach people about healthy eating. She is also passionate about helping busy moms, new moms and working women re-establish themselves in the kitchen.

We spoke to Bryant about how she changes the lives of her clients with healthy and delicious meals.

How would you describe your personal brand?

We are fun, innovative and educational at the same time.

Why did you decide to get into this business?

I didn’t, the business chose me. I’ve been around food all my life. I was raised by my grandmother and I think that I love food more than the average person. I started discovering that a lot of us [African Americans] have ailments such as diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, and people will use the excuse, ‘I cook how my mom cooks,’ or ‘This is how we cook,’ and a lot of those diseases stem from food. I wanted to be able to show that a woman of color can still eat that same way by making better food decisions around those same dishes that we love.

Tell us a little bit about your day to day working with clients?

My current clients are NFL athletes and affluent families. Everybody says I need this many macros or this many calories a day, but my favorite question to ask is, ‘What is your favorite fast food place?’ If you can tell me that then I can figure out exactly what you like. So if you are a Popeye’s person, I know you like Southern food.

I have a client who is from Atlanta, but went to school at UCLA and is in love with tacos. We just find healthier ways to make those dishes work for you. I do all the shopping for them. I organize their kitchens from refrigerators to pots and pans. Every day or every three days they see me with food drop off or I’m in their kitchens daily cooking for them.

What advice would you give to a young person who has a passion for cooking? 

I would find a mentor. Do what I did. I went to into a restaurant and talked a chef’s head off for two days. Start visiting places where you want to cook. I’m in love with Thomas Keller, a top Michelin Star chef who owns restaurants from here to Napa Valley. And if fine dining upscale, avant-garde is the style you like, then follow them. If you want to do Southern cooking take trips to New Orleans, Alabama, and Florida to start connecting. In the food industry, you can go anywhere, you just have to have a direction.