Etisha Lewis stands on her porch; it is a breezy May evening with the indigo sunset hovering low. She looks out to the snow-capped mountains that seem to touch the sky and listens to the faint sound of the river in the distance. Around the house, the quiet is so strong that she finds herself whispering, instead of talking, to those nearby. Jocko Valley, Mont is a long way from Crown Heights,Brooklyn. Moreover, Lewis’ current life is a long way from where she used to be.
“I was killing myself with food,” she said. “Your body is supposed to be a temple, but I wasn’t treating it like one.”
Lewis is referring to the childhood and teenage years that were spent in the hard-knock neighborhood of Crown Heights. Growing up on St. Marks Street, her after-school snacks alternated from several bags of chips to buy-one-get-one free General Tso’s chicken from the round-the-way Chinese spot.
“Growing up our block was filled with reggae music from the record store across the street and it smelled of Kennedy’s Fried Chicken from the corner,” said Jaime Lewis, Etisha’s younger brother.
What could have driven this 22 year-old from the concrete jungle of Brooklyn to the mountains of Jocko Valley, Mont.? From the ages of 16 to 18, Lewis’ eating habits worsened and her weight had reached its peak, maxing out at 200-210 pounds depending on which scale she used. She needed a change in her diet and her lifestyle on a whole. Over the course of two years, Lewis researched and began to monitor her eating habits and incrementally removed meat, fish, cheese and other dairies until she became a total vegan.
“I think God wanted me to do it really,” she said of her decision to be vegan.
Lewis describes the revelation as more of a series of impressions and individual challenges rather than a slit-second epiphany.
While in the process of overhauling her lifestyle, Lewis was fortunate enough to start her first business venture. She supplied wholesale brownies, cakes and other tasty treats, all of which were vegan, to various coffee shops and cyber cafes throughout Brooklyn. At the height of her venture, Lewis was supplying 15 to 20 outlets with baked goods on a bi-weekly basis. Over this period, she observed and tested each of the different outlets, and weighed the pros and cons of each to see which would best suit her goal of providing quality vegan food products that didn’t taste like the average vegan product.
“Basically, I was getting paid to gather research,” she said.
It is this goal has driven Lewis to Arlee, Mont., a town with a population of roughly 602 people. Here she is one of four interns at the Common Ground Farm, where she is spending the next six months. Part of Lewis’ vision for the future is to operate her own bakery that is stocked and supplied with the crops of the own farm. So here on the 240 acres of Common Ground, she is quickly learning the art of soil irrigation, crop rotation, and tractor maneuvering.
“I’m accomplishing a lot at once,” she says. “Which feels really good.”
What started as a desire to become fit has flourished into a bounty of possibilities and opportunities for Lewis. Now a svelte 125 pounds, and at the tender age of 22, Lewis faces the questions of her future. What is the next step after farm life, whether to open up shop in California or New York, and even deciding on a name for her vegan empire? But mainly, she is stoked about the success of her sprouting seedlings.
“Back in Brooklyn, I was always killing plants and stuff in grade school,” she said. “Now thingsare growing under my hand and that feels so good.”
“I was killing myself with food,” she said. “Your body is supposed to be a temple, but I wasn’t treating it like one.”
Lewis is referring to the childhood and teenage years that were spent in the hard-knock neighborhood of Crown Heights. Growing up on St. Marks Street, her after-school snacks alternated from several bags of chips to buy-one-get-one free General Tso’s chicken from the round-the-way Chinese spot.
“Growing up our block was filled with reggae music from the record store across the street and it smelled of Kennedy’s Fried Chicken from the corner,” said Jaime Lewis, Etisha’s younger brother.
What could have driven this 22 year-old from the concrete jungle of Brooklyn to the mountains of Jocko Valley, Mont.? From the ages of 16 to 18, Lewis’ eating habits worsened and her weight had reached its peak, maxing out at 200-210 pounds depending on which scale she used. She needed a change in her diet and her lifestyle on a whole. Over the course of two years, Lewis researched and began to monitor her eating habits and incrementally removed meat, fish, cheese and other dairies until she became a total vegan.
“I think God wanted me to do it really,” she said of her decision to be vegan.
Lewis describes the revelation as more of a series of impressions and individual challenges rather than a slit-second epiphany.
While in the process of overhauling her lifestyle, Lewis was fortunate enough to start her first business venture. She supplied wholesale brownies, cakes and other tasty treats, all of which were vegan, to various coffee shops and cyber cafes throughout Brooklyn. At the height of her venture, Lewis was supplying 15 to 20 outlets with baked goods on a bi-weekly basis. Over this period, she observed and tested each of the different outlets, and weighed the pros and cons of each to see which would best suit her goal of providing quality vegan food products that didn’t taste like the average vegan product.
“Basically, I was getting paid to gather research,” she said.
It is this goal has driven Lewis to Arlee, Mont., a town with a population of roughly 602 people. Here she is one of four interns at the Common Ground Farm, where she is spending the next six months. Part of Lewis’ vision for the future is to operate her own bakery that is stocked and supplied with the crops of the own farm. So here on the 240 acres of Common Ground, she is quickly learning the art of soil irrigation, crop rotation, and tractor maneuvering.
“I’m accomplishing a lot at once,” she says. “Which feels really good.”
What started as a desire to become fit has flourished into a bounty of possibilities and opportunities for Lewis. Now a svelte 125 pounds, and at the tender age of 22, Lewis faces the questions of her future. What is the next step after farm life, whether to open up shop in California or New York, and even deciding on a name for her vegan empire? But mainly, she is stoked about the success of her sprouting seedlings.
“Back in Brooklyn, I was always killing plants and stuff in grade school,” she said. “Now thingsare growing under my hand and that feels so good.”
