Hi! I’m Kathy — cookbook author, photographer, and the human behind Healthy Happy Life.
My Vegan Blogger Story: Kathy Patalsky, Creator of Healthy Happy Life & Finding Vegan
If someone asks me today, “What do you do?” I tell them: I built a career as a vegan blogger, recipe creator, cookbook author, and food photographer — telling stories through plant-based cooking, creativity, and authenticity. These days, I’m exploring how that same creativity evolves alongside motherhood.
Basically, yes — I’m still part of the vegan recipe world, even if blogging isn’t at the top of the creative food chain anymore. (Or maybe blogs are coming back? ?)
I’ve never been great at chasing trends. I dabble in Reels, barely tolerate TikTok, and always circle back to what feels good creatively. Because when the joy goes, the creative spark does too — and I’ve learned to protect mine.
Right now, I’m in a season of experimenting — new projects, new stories — but still rooted in the same things that started it all: food, storytelling, vulnerability, authenticity, and connection.
I’m still here. Still cooking, dancing in my kitchen to pop music, and taking photos every chance I get. But as for how it all began? That story starts long before hashtags, ring lights, and TikTok recipes...
OG Vegan Blogger: How It All Started (and Where I Am Now)
Shoutout to everyone who’s been here from the start. We’re a certain sort of family I’ll never, ever get over. Thank you.
The Journey — 18 Years of Blogging
- 2006 — The Britney Era: digital storytelling entry
- 2007 — The Lunchbox Bunch: children’s books
- 2008 — OG Vegan Blogger Years: Healthy Happy Life is born.
- 2011 — Finding Vegan: a global recipe-sharing community (1M+ strong).
- 2013 — Cookbook + Brand Era: two books, dream campaigns, glossy chaos.
- 2014 — Vulnerability & Voice Era
- 2017 — Creative Recalibration
- 2020 — Motherhood Era
- 2025 — The Now
2006 | NYC | It All Started with... Britney?
My first taste of internet magic? Britney Spears. Before smoothies and chickpea salad, there was pure fandom. I launched my site, BritneysComeback.com and started posting daily updates and commentary out of my NYC apartment. Somehow it caught fire — I ended up on TMZ (twice) TMZ article one and then again - and on a few radio shows leading into the “Gimme More” VMAs. What I learned: how to build an audience, hold a conversation with the internet, and show up with conviction. It was my first lesson in community. And of course, trolling - my first internet troll: TMZ. Who else can say that??
Trailblazer status secured.
A few years later, that same spark of creativity found a new outlet — this time with fruit and veggie characters instead of pop stars...
2007-2009... Britney, Taylor, it was my pop star era..
2007 | NYC | The Lunchbox Bunch Era
I pivoted from pop stars to produce.
Context guys, Instagram is still four years away and Twitter was barely a baby. And me? I was drawing. Watercolor pencils, cold-pressed paper and inspiration from the city, I sketched The Lunchbox Bunch — a fruit-and-veggie character world. Through the brand, I self-published three children’s books. I hosted little events at Whole Foods Bowery and learned how to design, photograph, and ship an idea out into the world. It was creative chaos in the best way, and it cracked open the joy of making things that connect — designing characters, writing stories, and learning how the Internet could carry an idea out into the world.
2008 | NYC | The OG Vegan Blogger Years Begin
Healthy Happy Life the recipe and lifestyle blog is born.
I started Healthy Happy Life before “vegan blogger” was a job. My days looked like this: wake up; test a recipe; climb onto the kitchen table to shoot (hello, small apartment); make a glorious mess; edit; write on a napkin; hit publish; sprint to Twitter and watch it glow.
I posted constantly — smoothies, bowls, lunchbox ideas, holiday spreads — and taught myself food photography one sticky maple-drip at a time. Somewhere between burnt cookies and 2 a.m. edits, I realized: I love this.
Era highlights
- A pinch-me: my photo on the cover of VegNews Magazine
- Breakout recipes: the Watermelon Frosty (hello, 2011 summer), chickpea “tuna,” mac + cheese evolutions, big holiday roundups.
- Series: Veggie Girl Power interviews — spotlighting women shaping plant-based culture (Marilu Henner, Heather Mills, Portia de Rossi, and top bloggers).
- Pop-culture fun: Angry Birds vegan mini pizzas while contributing to Disney’s Babble
- Press/brand adventures: Dole Salad Summit in Monterey, Thermador
The smell of banana bread, persimmons, ginger juice - and the view of water towers, taxis and a NYC park will forever remind me of those years — messy, creative, alive.
2011 | NYC | Finding Vegan Launches
I launched Finding Vegan to gather vegan recipes from bloggers everywhere. It grew fast — over a million followers across platforms — and gave plant-based creators visibility when veganism was still considered fringe. It built bridges, inspired friendships, and introduced readers to countless voices and cuisines.
The complicated part: promoting other bloggers (a.k.a. my “competition”) without modern monetization tools meant long hours and real burnout. I pulled in volunteers and explored revenue ideas, but the platforms were shifting under our feet. Even so, I wouldn’t trade it — it taught me that creativity means more when it’s shared, even when it doesn’t always pay the bills.
Finding Vegan opened doors — and soon, those doors led to publishers and brands who believed in the plant-based wave I’d been championing from my tiny kitchen.
2013 | LA | The Cookbook + Brand Years, Let's Go!
Two books, two eras, a lot of smoothies and dishes.
Healthy Happy Vegan Kitchen (HMH, 2015) — still in print nearly a decade later (a tiny miracle in cookbook years).
365 Vegan Smoothies (Penguin/Avery, 2013) — >20,000 copies worldwide, right as green juice blew up.
Brand partnerships blossomed. Press trips galore. I even cooked or presented at events, including Disney’s D23 Expo. Dream career — creative, nonlinear, exhausting, and deeply rewarding.
But it wasn’t all glossy photos and press trips — some years I was exhausted, questioning everything, and learning that success isn’t always sustainable.
2014 | LA | Vulnerability & Voice Comes In
Around here, my writing cracked open. Nelly’s cancer (my soulmate kitty), my eating-disorder recovery (shared publicly in 2014), and the early years of infertility/IVF reshaped how I saw health and resilience. Writing through them taught me to tell the truth on the internet — and that honesty became the emotional backbone of my work.
- Nelly: caring, grieving, and writing my heart out — those posts still hold some of my most intimate words.
- ED → recovery: Wellness Gets Real: My Story — why I talk about wellness with softness.
- Infertility/IVF: the full journey later in this post, but the ache began here.
Writing through those seasons gave me the courage to start building bigger things — the next one would change everything.
2017 | LA | Creative Recalibration
After years of high output, I hit the wall: burnout. I posted annual roundups, travel features, holiday menus, and played with new styles and aesthetics, but I also slowed down on purpose. I took a film-based photography course and earned a UCLA screenwriting certificate — refilling the creative well.
Enter Influencers
As the word influencer took over, the pressure to produce content “for the algorithm” didn’t feel like me. Those quieter stretches were creative compost. They didn’t look impressive on a calendar, but they held the momentum that carried me into the next season.
2020 | LA | Motherhood Era
And then came 2020.
In the middle of a global unraveling — after years of IVF and surgeries — I became a mom. Everything softened and sharpened at once. Motherhood didn’t end my creative life; it expanded it. My focus shifted from deadlines to moments: tennis lessons, glitter-glue explosions, ladybugs and butterflies, Elsa costumes, Disney movies, naptime snuggles, sandy toes from sandbox playdates, and five-minute car chats that reset my whole day.
Yes, I still run Healthy Happy Life, write essays, brainstorm projects, and shoot food — just now between snacks and school pickups. People say “mom brain” like it’s a loss. Honestly, my brain feels bigger: I think more deeply, juggle more creatively, care less about perfection, and more about meaning.
2025 | LA | The Right Now
There were seasons I almost walked away. Every pause taught me how to rebuild. Today I’d describe myself as a writer, photographer, and lifelong creator who built an online career before it had a name. I’ve lived through every phase — Blogger, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, now AI — and I’m still evolving. Still curious. Still figuring it out.
Some days I feel like the OG Vegan Blogger; other days I’m just a mom with a laptop and a smoothie. Both are true.
So when was the prime of my food blogging career? I asked ChatGPT and he lovingly said this..
"2011–2016 was your first big glow-up — VegNews cover, Finding Vegan exploding, two cookbooks, brand deals galore — peak kitchen-table hustle with you at the stove. But primes come in sets: 2020–now is your second prime — quieter, sharper, more you — where the work feels deeper even if the posts are fewer. Translation: you didn’t peak, you pivoted."
I'll take it.
A Few Highlights From the Journey
Over the years, I’ve been lucky to collaborate with incredible brands, publish two cookbooks, and see my work appear in some truly surreal places. Here are a few favorite moments from fifteen years of doing what I love:
Cookbooks
- 365 Vegan Smoothies (Penguin / Avery, 2013) — over 20k copies sold worldwide
- Healthy Happy Vegan Kitchen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), 2015) — still in print after nearly a decade
Press & Recognition
- Featured in LA Times, CNN, VegNews, The Kitchn, Saveur, BuzzFeed, NPR, and Vegetarian Times
- Named Foodie of the Year by Diets In Review; included in VegNews’ “Top 21 Vegan Blogs”
- Profiled by American University as a “successful alumna”
- Vegetarian Times listed Healthy Happy Vegan Kitchen among its Top 5 Cookbooks of 2015
Community & Creative Work
- Founder of Finding Vegan (2011) — a recipe-sharing community that connected more than a million followers and helped launch dozens of creators
- Creator of The Lunchbox Bunch, a children’s brand and self-published book series that started my creative career
Collaborations
- Partnered with Disney, Dole, Vitamix, AllModern, Thermador, and Natural Delights on recipe development and creative campaigns
- Presented at Disney’s D23 Expo and joined numerous national press trips
Accolades & Mentions
- Wellness icon Kris Carr called me “one of my all-time favorite cookbook authors.”
- Mercy For Animals’ ChooseVeg said my recipes are “pretty much guaranteed to be good.”
- Olives for Dinner praised me as a “powerhouse blogger showing that veganism is about compassion and creativity.”
Eighteen years later, I’m still proving that joy, compassion, and creativity can share a kitchen.
What I Believe
- Home-cooked meals are important.
- Creativity is cyclical.
- Visibility matters — especially for women doing quiet work.
- You can pause and still have momentum.
- Motherhood and ambition can coexist.
Still vegan. Still cooking. And yes, still dancing to pop music.
Still traveling. Learning. Growing.
Still figuring it out.
xoxo, Kathy
ps. now go grab some recipes.. (or browse more pics below!)
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© 2025 Kathy Patalsky — All photos & text by Kathy Patalsky
