Who are the Veecoco students?

One of the questions we get asked a lot is whether or not you need cooking experience to sign up as a student at Veecoco. The answer is always “Anyone can sign up as a student”.

Our students are incredible and come from all walks of life! Some of them are already professional chefs, others have only ever cooked plant-based pot noodles.

When you sign up to Veecoco, you join an exclusive community of plant-based kitchen heroes so we thought who better to ask than our current students to find out whether or not Veecoco is right for you. Join a few of them as they share their plant-based journeys and experiences of being a student at Veecoco. We hope you find it useful!

Alex Layne

Daniella Chiara Stocchi

Lorena Loriato - @lorenaloriato

Luis Gonzalez - @erchepo

Where are they on their plant-based journey?

No matter your background, dietary requirements, or where you are on your plant-based journey, Veecoco is here to help:

Alex has been vegan “roughly 3 years … I’ve had 2 kids in 2 years, and being plant-based helps my health and energy levels.”

Luis is a chef on the island of Aruba and, while not fully plant-based, is “starting to understand and enjoy the benefits of the plant-based diet.”

Daniella, a fashion designer from Johannesburg, started her plant-based journey 8 years ago as she “started eliminating certain foods because of food allergies and illness, so for both health reasons and ethical reasons.”

Lorena is a professional chef, recipe developer, and kitchen trainer who “started my journey as a raw food chef in 2012 … still eating a vegetarian diet. It was only 3 years ago that I decided to try and eat 100% plant-based. That was mainly because my clients were mostly vegan and I wanted to really experience what they were going through in their everyday life. I loved it and stayed with it.”

Why did they sign up to learn how to cook at Veecoco?

From expanding their plant-based repertoire to learning how to cook healthy meals for their families, Veecoco students have a whole host of reasons for learning how to cook vegan food.

“[I want] to learn more about plant-based cooking because we are so limited in options in restaurants and supermarkets,” says Daniella “because of food allergies, it is a risk for me to eat out at most places so I feel safer cooking at home”.

But Daniella’s ambitions don’t stop there, she also wants to challenge the preconceived idea that ‘there is only so much you can do with vegetables’. We agree Daniella, the possibilities are endless! And we hope that we can help you on the way to opening your own environmentally-friendly deli one day!

Veecoco students also sign up for altruistic reasons. For example, Luis hopes to work on developing his plant-based options “for customers who are vegan ... Here in Aruba, it is not too [common] to find vegan options. Also, my wife needs her diet GF.” Veecoco courses can be helpful for a range of dietary requirements and easily adapted to suit different tastes and preferences.

What have they learnt?

At Veecoco, our students learn so much more than simply how to cook. By enrolling at our plant-based academy, you’ll learn the importance of nutrition, cuisine-specific cooking methods, basic to advanced kitchen techniques, and you’ll gain an increased awareness and understanding of ethical ingredients.

From Japanese to German, Thai, and Swiss, the students at Veecoco have access to a huge range of cuisines taught by native chefs. Although already a very experienced and talented Italian chef, Lorena was able to learn “so many cuisines of the world, carried out by actual chefs with real experience in the industry. This is priceless and gave me the opportunity to see the real deal.”

Whether you’re a vegan or not, there is a lot of value in learning how to make the most of plant-based ingredients and you’ll gain a better understanding of how to cook healthy, whole food meals. Luis, who is “not fully vegan” thinks that Veecoco is “a great site to understand how to enjoy the benefits of the vegan way of life, and to see that the food can be fun and tasty.”

What’s more, you’ll save money by learning how to cook from scratch and develop heaps of confidence in the process! Alex loves her newfound ability to “cook tastier healthy meals for my family”.

Don’t just take their word for it, read some of our other student testimonials here

Student Veecoco creations

It’s really inspiring to get to know all of our diverse and talented individuals from around the world.⁠ That’s why we wanted to shine a light on some of the fantastic students we have here at Veecoco. ⁠Make sure you follow our Instagram profile so you can check out our student spotlights and see some of their exquisite cooking creations!

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