Meet Chef Zu | Certified Herbalist & Holistic Nutritionist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Chef Zu and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Chef, how did you come up with the idea for your business?
Kings Apron was created shortly after Chef Zu reversed his Diabetes with diet and herbs. After working with various nonprofits and organizations, Chef Zu thought what if we were to organize our community by way of food. Food is a universal language and when spoken correctly everyone can understand what is being said. I self taught myself through eradicating Diabetes and decided that if I had some formal education to pair with my research, ability to cook and beliefs that we would one day have our message travel long and far. Chef Zu made the decision to acquire a certification nutrition while moonlight as a chef. After Chef Zu graduated everything started to come together and Atlanta accepted our methodology and teachings. We soon had bookings for cooking classes, workshops, panel discussions and catering by the likes of Tampa Bay Buccaneers, City of Atlanta, Fulton County Commissioner, University of Georgia, Atlanta Fulton County Library System, Taste of Atlanta, Atlanta Food & Wine Festival a laundry list of picture perfect opportunities where Kings Apron would cater and/or offer educational food programming. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere Covid hit the world and all events were cancelled. Restaurants closed down. Chefs were soon labeled as non-essential workers. People were forced to shelter in place and in some situations even quarantine. Almost overnight, years of momentum came to a stop and food was harder to prepare and serve. That’s when I started soul searching and had an epiphany that the herbs that reversed my Diabetes should be what I go back or at least focus on during this worldwide pandemic. Immediately enrolled into Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine and just recently complete my second certification as an herbalist wit great focus on Plant Medicine Making. Kings Apron current primary focus is creating herb based products which help treat our communities many illnesses and ailments i.e Diabetes, Arthritis, Erectile Dysfunction, Fibroids but with a natural holistic approach. Our secondary focus is to provide an innovative educational platform which will help teach our community how to create plant medicine.

What should our readers know about your business?
Part of what makes me different is I am a Vegan Chef who infuses Holistic Nutrition and Herbalism into to my cuisine, but even more importantly I focus on food as a system and not just an art. Let me explain, “The Food System” is comprised of 5 main categories which are Production, Aggregation, Distribution, Consumption and Restoration. Producing the food would be the keystone agriculture component and would include the actual growing process. Aggregation would focus more on the actual gathering or harvest of grown produce. Distribution would look more like selling or presenting harvest produce to chefs, restaurants, chain suppliers, markets and/or general public. Consumption in a nutshell is when people eat the distributed grown and harvest produce but does have various layers besides eating. Restoration could look like composting scraps from dinner plate to preserving peaches right before they went bad in order to prolong shelf life and avoid compost, Also the compost which was created would then be used to cultivate and grow more produce and the cycle would start over again. You see whatever wasn’t used during the mentioned process would be considered to be waste but when you understand the food system your waste would actually cultivate more produce which allows for a healthier plant and a sustainable lifestyle.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I would take visiting friends coming to Atlanta to Lovin’ it Live, Wadada’s Juice Bar, and 8ARM for food. As far as shopping we’d hit Sevenanda’s and Glenwood Health Boutique. i love smoothies so we’d probably hit Moorish Medicine and I Juice Bar. Other that we’d probably spend a lot of time in my personal and community garden as I cooked something that I allowed them to freshly harvest.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I have to mention Dr. George Washington, Harriet Tubman, Nancy Green also known as “Aunt Jemima”, Nathan “Nearest” Green who created recipe for Jack Daniels, Dr. Sebi, Dr. Llaila Afrika and Dick Gregory

Website: www.kingsapron.com
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Image Credits
Photo Credits: Captured by Tabia