Veggie tale

Clermont couple discovers joys and benefits of a meatless diet.

STORY: ROXANNE BROWN ≈ PHOTOS: NICOLE HAMEL

here’s nothing like coming across a good food sel e on Facebook, especially if it’s one that inspires you to ask for the recipe.

Scroll through Ernie Prado and Julie Hanks’ Facebook page and you may nd yourself repeatedly asking. Every dish highlighted on their feed—from butternut squash pumpkin soup topped with black beans, spinach, and tomatoes, four cheese macaroni, chili with cornbread, lemon berry yogurt cake, to asparagus and yellow squash casserole, guacamole, sweet potato black bean burgers, and Cuban an—looks heavenly.

“We started posting some of the stu we cook, and people started commenting and private messaging us asking for recipes,” says Julie, who with husband Ernie, own and operate Appliance Parts of Clermont.

Ernie adds, “It’s a win-win for everyone. It helps our business by giving us exposure and something relatable to talk about with our customers, but most of all, it feels good to know we can help other people interested in a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle by educating them about where to start from heartburn, gastroesophageal re ux disease (GERD), stomach pain, nausea, tiredness, and more. And no doctor or medication had been able to cure her.

“I was very sick literally all day long and all night; I couldn’t sleep,” Julie says. “I went from doctor to doctor, I raised my bed, took all the medicines like Tums, Tagamet, and whatever other prescriptions my doctors would give me, and nothing worked.”

Today, Julie’s a whole new, much happier, more rested, healthier woman. And she owes it all to going green.