Today we’d like to introduce you to Nina Miller.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
When my son was born almost 20 years ago I had just recovered from two cancer surgeries and moved from New York City to Austin.
I had grown up under the food ideology of a mother who read Prevention magazine in the 1970s. There was no iceberg lettuce in the house, only romaine; no Wonder Bread, only pumpernickel. No fried food was allowed. She eschewed Saran Wrap (only wax paper), no nonstick pans (only cast iron), and never a microwave. I received one of the most important lessons of my life at age 8: never buy anything packaged without reading the ingredient label.
While house hunting in Austin at five months pregnant I explained to my realtor that I was deeply health-conscious. He took me to Whole Foods for an organic lunch: wild-caught salmon atop an artichoke-heart and sautéed-mushroom salad. I told him, “I need to live within 1.5 miles because this is where I’m going to shop, eat, and buy everything for my baby.
After baby was born it became a full-time job keeping toxins, preservatives, and pesticides out of his body. I discovered that researchers were finding harmful chemicals in cord blood, and so I wanted to give my son the cleanest start possible (while allowing plenty of playing in the dirt, which is also instrumental to building a robust immune system).
I had to investigate everything, including household appliances and consumer goods. I learned that bath mats contain a pesticide called Triclosan (later banned by the FDA) so searched till I found one of pure rubber made in Germany. When my son started on solids I started making him plates of cucumber, red pepper, raw cheese, pistachios, sardines, and avocado for breakfast. Sweet potato chunks for snacks, or apple slices with almond butter. And I was surprised to see parents all around me—at preschool, in the park, at playdates, and later at Soccer Shots and all sporting events—giving their children snacks that I knew were detrimental. Packaged sweets and goldfish, sweetened yogurts, bottled juices, synthetic meats, donuts, and on and on.
These parents wanted the best for their children. They simply did not know how harmful these foods were. How could they know? Our food supply has been adulterated by the infusion of thousands of chemicals that were never approved by the FDA. The same scientists who worked for big tobacco were hired by Big Food to make food as addictive as possible. It was a full-time job understanding what was safe to eat and what to avoid.
I decided to start a food blog. Then, when exchanging pleasantries with new contacts I could just slip it into conversation with a gentle preface about the importance of nutrient dense food for preventing (and reversing) disease. I named it Good Food Fighter and decided that I would be a food warrior. Parents were invariably curious. It was working.
I realized that my message was serious and sobering and so decided to deliver it in a fun and irreverent way. I created outrageous images in Photoshop to support my articles. I commissioned a superhero costume and wore it on Halloween while handing out flyers on how to prevent the Sugar Crash.
I got my hands dirty. I wrote articles about lice outbreak in “sustainable fish farms” and how dwarf wheat (the kind predominantly used in America) is low in nutrients and high in gluten. I shed light on the problems with innocent-sounding vegetable oils which deteriorate with heat and light and become rancid before you even buy the bottle.
When my son was about 8 he helped me create a comic strip for my blog. We developed a series of adventures where the Good Food Fighter was battling food villains. “Did you know that a certain brand of tangerines from California are grown with gas and oil wastewater?”
My son became interested in cooking and was obsessed with Chef Gordon Ramsay. He started baking his own bread, making homemade pasta and learning how to perfect dishes like Korean Bibimbap and Seared Rosemary Lamb. I launched a recipe section of my blog featuring “Chef Sizzlesnap”.
People told me, “if you want to be taken seriously you have to design a product” and so I designed, with my son, a Smoothie card game (Smoothie Spree) where players race to make a healthy smoothie, discovering new vegetables, superfoods, and sugar “villains” along the way.
I watched families over Zoom beta test it for me. Parents reported that the family had fun playing and that afterwards kids wanted to make the actual smoothie that they had built in the game. The game piqued their curiosity and inspired them to try the foods they had learned about and to experiment with new ingredient combinations in a blender. I was onto something!
I decided I wanted to grow my company to include all kinds of games to engage kids of all ages. I investigated the gamification of education and found that research consistently shows higher participation and better retention of material, presumably because kids are immersed in the activity and enjoying themselves.
Then came the video game project—why not meet kids where they already are, with a game that builds nutrition literacy? I was off and running. And that’s where I am now—close to the end of the prototype nutrition education video game which which the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Austin Area will pilot at the end of the summer.
Oh—and I have been cancer free for almost 22 years and I credit my anti-cancer diet.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road has been a lesson in self-discovery, adaptation, resilience, and learning to cope with failure and rejection.
I recognized that two salient features of my personality were huge obstacles to success. I was aware of these traits but did not anticipate the problems that they would create professionally.
1. I am an introvert. Everyone says I’m an extrovert because I will (almost) literally dance naked on a table in a restaurant without being drunk. But the little-understood definition of an introvert is someone who eschews large groups, prefers one on one, enjoys almost unlimited solitude, and is most comfortable behind the scenes. In order to be a successful entrepreneur one needs to constantly network, meet new people, participate in social events, and do small talk easily. I don’t do small talk at all—I immediately sink my teeth into a topic that’s meaningful to whomever I’m with.
I was advised “ find new mommy groups on Facebook or wherever, show up, and casually mention that you do food coaching”. No can do. I can’t play that game.
2. The other thing is business savvy. I have always longed for a business partner and never figured out how to find one. I also sought funding, at the Capital Factory, but didn’t know how to sell myself. Not having a firm grasp on finances and business was bad enough, but I also struggled with marketing. The new marketing is social media, and that is not my cup of tea.
I did do Facebook ads for a while but then I was banned for life when an imposter hijacked my site and redirected my audience to a clothing site. I asked my friends to flag the fraud because I couldn’t even access my pages, and FB responded by shutting everything down with no recourse. My marketing dried up completely.
Anyway, I resisted Chat GPT for a while because it is a threat to creatives like me. But then I realized I could harness it to make my job easier. And now it’s my business and marketing partner. 🙂
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My first degree, from Northwestern University, was in fine arts and French literature and my first job out of school was as an illustrator for a serigraphy company in Paris. Then I jumped into graphic design and lived through the golden age of this profession in the 90s in San Francisco. I did corporate identity, product packaging, publishing (book design) and had a stint at ABC Studios in NYC creating props for soap operas. I had a blast doing all of the above.
I then created a product line for lovelorn women called “Boyfriend Replacement”. It consisted of prescription bottles containing different kinds of chocolate and a self-help book with a real chocolate bar on the cover. I met an angel investor in NYC who loved the idea and bankrolled it. At its height the product was sold by 80 sales reps into 400 stores across the country.
Then I got pregnant, moved to Austin, and took 18 months off. Then I got on Craigslist to search for graphic design jobs and was horrified to see someone advertising a logo for $50. I realized that career was over.
I had always loved photography, which was part of my degree at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, CA, and so I opened a studio and focused on the relationship between parents and their kids, and then later, remembrance photography to document—with great compassion and sensitivity but also laughter and joy—the final months with a dying parent.
My clients loved my artful and raw style and came back, but I struggled to find new clients. It was tough going, and when the iPhone and selfie stick arrived, my career was over…again.
My sister remarked, “You use the word carrageenan casually in conversation and no one else even knows what it is, you should go work for a health non-profit”. But I’m a serial entrepreneur (even though I’m an introvert so shouldn’t be) so I launched another career as a health and wellness coach, totally self-taught, but eventually sporting a certificate from a course to earn legitimacy. I did some diet coaching, accompanying families to a grocery store to educate them on better brands and how to avoid toxins. I received a lot of gratitude from clients and felt a calling to change the world.
But I always felt that my claim to fame, even as an introvert, was being ruthlessly funny and irreverent and also my irrepressible sense of fun. I wanted to make games. And also videos: my anti-cancer-Lady Gaga-superhero smoothie dance is one of my proudest accomplishments.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Where do I even start? The changes are cataclysmic. I just attended a Symposium by FoodTank (an Austin-based food think tank) and the director of the Food is Medicine program at Tufts University. Present were senators, doctors, and advisors to HHS. It was about the dire condition of our children and Americans in general—70% of all food consumed is ultra-processed;1 in 3 teenagers being pre diabetic; we have the highest chronic disease burden of any country in the world while spending 3 times as much on healthcare as any other country. The US is bankrupting itself because our population is so sick.
Meanwhile, there is momentum like never before. 30% of searches on ChatGPT are related to nutrition. States are passing bills en masse to remove toxic ingredients from our food supply.
These are my people and my passion and my issue. I myself went to bat at the Texas Capitol a dozen times last year, meeting with and raising awareness of the childhood chronic disease epidemic among our Texas representatives and providing testimony in hearings for bills. I proudly helped pass SB25, strengthening nutrition education for kids and medical students, and HB314, removing toxic chemicals from school lunches. The idea of food as medicine has caught on like wildfire and public consciousness has grown to accept that food really is medicine
I am optimistic also about receiving grant money for my games because foundations are increasingly focused on the health of children and low-income populations. Funders have never been more eager to back programs that move kids from junk food to real food. My goal is to offer all my games for free to schools and organizations, youth groups, and camps, beginning with underserved kids who could benefit the most.
Pricing:
- Smoothie Spree card game, https://good-food-fighter.myshopify.com/products/smoothie-spree-card-game
- Brainy Bunch Tote, https://good-food-fighter.myshopify.com/products/brainy-bunch-tote
- Dance to the Beet T-shirt, https://good-food-fighter.myshopify.com/products/dance-to-the-beat-austin-unisex-t
- Minty Python Tee, https://good-food-fighter.myshopify.com/products/slim-adult-tee-minty-python
- Family Food Coaching, $100 +
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.goodfoodfighter.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegoodfoodfighter/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-miller-608949/
