On November 7, 2016, at age 65, Dianna Riley Beasley sold her first meal from the first all-vegan food truck in New Orleans – if not Louisiana. She’s proving how flavorful a healthy, plant-based diet can be.  

 When you see her energy level, her strength, you’d think she was a fraction of her age. Good diet is part of it. Exercise is too – about 2-1/2 hours a day. Ms. Beasley has absolutely shattered the myth that getting older means slowing down. 

When she was in her 50s, she got her master’s degree in public health. Now she’s pursuing a degree in food science, extending lessons learned over a lifetime, as far back as childhood when her grandmother taught her which plants had what medicinal properties. Ms. Beasley shares those lessons wherever she can – from the community garden where she grows her ingredients to the menu descriptions of the meals she prepares. She’s currently in production on a series of videos so she can deliver her message to a wider audience. She is focused on helping others improve their own well-being.

 “Wellness is the key to happiness,” she says.

 Ms. Beasley says you can’t change the journey that got you here. But the lessons learned over that  journey can help guide where to go next. That’s excellence through experience. That’s what makes Dianna Beasley a Peoples Health Champion. That, and really good food.

 In her words: “Food is medicine.”