At 50, after teaching high school and college for 28 years, Dorrie Nang decided she wanted to dedicate the rest of her working days to animals. She started looking for an entry-level job at a nonprofit. Friends and family did not approve, but Nang persisted: “It wasn’t turning away from teaching, it was turning toward something else.”
John Knowles
In 2018, she found the job she was looking for at Humane World for Animals with the Farm Animal Protection campaign. Today, Nang is part of a 25-person team that includes eight chefs and two dietitians who help teach chefs at food service management companies and institutions such as K-12 schools, universities and hospitals how to prepare and promote plant-based food.
Nang grew up outside of Philadelphia eating a 1970s American diet of pork chops, hamburgers and bacon and eggs, but she also ate foods such as tofu, prepared by her father, a native of the Philippines. During grad school, when Nang stopped eating meat, dairy and eggs out of concern for farm animal suffering, her father taught her how to make plant-based versions of family dishes.
Nang had to get creative—an approach she uses to transform food service menus. “It made me a much better cook, much more adventuresome. There’s a lot of emotion tied to food: your family’s mac and cheese, your grandmother’s chicken—but there are so many plant-based options today. You can convince people with food if you make it and they get to taste it.”
That’s what the Food Service Innovation team does, Nang says. Even the most skeptical chefs—those she sometimes sees standing with arms crossed at the back of the room during trainings—will adopt chickpeas and lentils if they’re delicious and filling. It all comes down to offering people tasty food and giving them the recipes to make them on their own.
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