Sugar & Pops
High school sweethearts and Bay City residents, Sugar & Pops have spent their lives laughing loud and loving large! Who could have guessed that retirement would be when they are the healthiest they've ever been?! After learning about all the benefits of a Whole Food Plant Based lifestyle in January 2022, they quit bacon and queso like a bad cigarette habit and never looked back. The health benefits have been infinite! The weight flew off and pant sizes were dropping like flies. Sugar prevented a total knee replacement, decreased her cholesterol, decreased inflammation, increased her energy and sleep hygiene, and is chasing grandkids faster than her daughters. Pops experienced a 30% decrease in his cholesterol, decreased his blood pressure, increased his testosterone, decreased his CPAP airflow, and has more energy than he can ever remember maintaining.
But…he has had to learn the hard way that with increased energy comes…increased Sugar shenanigans.
Sugar couldn’t keep the healing powers of the cruciferous to just her family any longer. She had to figure out how to get more P.O.P.s (Plants On Plates) to everyone she loved! What started as a desire to share salads with friends became an overnight Plant-Powered Madness, chopping over 100 salads in less than 4 days!
The Veggie Stop became inevitable, and they have never looked back.
The freshness, crispness, and convenience of the cruciferous base salads are delightful and scrumptious. Even the stubborn taste buds of a generational rancher can be hooked with the first CRUNCH! The dressing options are a creamy and savory avocado or a sweet and tangy balsamic, but they come without guilt as they are made fresh and without oil and dairy.
The Veggie Stop’s mission is to make eating like your life depends on it DELICIOUS & EFFORTLESS, because guess what…your life DOES depend on it!
So join the plant train and hit up The Veggie Stop at Sugar and Pops’!
They can’t wait to share some healing and delicious Plant Power with you!
Scroll down if you would like to learn more about the specifics of their health journey in choosing a WFPB lifestyle!
“Our cells are highly flexible and can recover from many great insults if we avoid things that hurt them and give them what they need to heal.”
― Brooke Goldner, Goodbye Lupus: How A Medical Doctor Healed Herself Naturally with Supermarket Foods
How I went from being the Big Mac Girl to the Crazy Salad Lady!!
I grew up in North Carolina where homemade biscuits, fried chicken and potato salad were always just minutes away from the table. Just imagine all the delicious southern dishes that come to mind and that’s my childhood, not to mention all the desserts. My mom was a delicious cook, with an insatiable sweet tooth. For some reason though, when I got married, I realized I missed out on the cooking gene and while I could make my mom’s spaghetti, her roast and potatoes and a few other dishes, I was certainly aware that I was very challenged in the kitchen. But I could whip up with ease some mac and cheese and french fries and most of her delicious desserts.
Our daughters were born and I wish I could say that they grew up with well balanced home-cooked meals, and while they did get some home-cooked meals, many times we found ourselves sitting at a restaurant or grabbing fast food. The thing I did not realize early on was that our eating habits would have a significant impact on our health. Maybe deep down I knew it, but in the busy-ness of raising a family, I certainly chose not to give it much thought.
Fast forward to June 2021, where I needed knee surgery from an injury that had started 5 years earlier, a torn meniscus from playing Donkey Basketball. Yes, you read that right! The surgery went great but during my recovery, I somehow developed a bone bruise that landed me in a wheel chair for 3 months. At that time, I had 10 grands to chase around and I love to be on the move, so being confined to the wheel chair was a real struggle. Food brought me lots of comfort during that time, especially Blue Bell, specifically homemade vanilla with Hersheys chocolate, of course.
It was Thanksgiving week that I had a follow-up appt with my doctor, and that’s when he told me my bone bruise was not healing and I would not be able to walk without crutches until I had a knee replacement. Just the day before my mom had been diagnosed with leukemia, so surgery was just not an option.
My dad had passed away in 2017, after a decade or more of chronic health issues, lots of doctor visits and hospital stays. During that same time, my mom also suffered with lots of health issues but the leukemia diagnosis was going to be our greatest challenge.
As I look back over those years, I realize I developed a very unhealthy relationship with food, using it as comfort and truly becoming addicted to sugar and addicted to the ease of grabbing fast food. Slowly without much notice, I started gaining weight, adding an easy 30 lbs over a period of time. I dealt with inflammation in my joints, fatigue and of course my chronic cough, just to mention a few of my health issues. My bloodwork revealed my inflammation was so high that I was sent to a heart doctor for extensive tests because they were certain I had a heart issue. Thank God, my heart was healthy.
A funny fast food memory I have, from many years back, is pulling up to McDonald’s with my bestie from elementary school. She was visiting from NC and I was pregnant at the time. We pulled into the drive thru at McDonald’s and I asked her if she wanted to order anything. She declined but she gave a big chuckle when I placed my order and said, “I NEED a Big Mac with a large order of fries!”
As our daughters ventured off to college, they started learning a lot about nutrition and tried to share information with us but sadly it fell on deaf ears, because we were under the grips of our food addiction and did not want to let go. But in Jan 2022, Sara got our attention and introduced us to a sugar fast and we agreed to start on Jan 17, committing to 15 days without sugar. That was a daunting challenge! She also recommended a few documentaries that she wanted us to watch. We ended up watching them the weekend before we were starting the sugar fast. The documentaries were about the Whole Food Plant Based lifestyle, how nutrition plays a vital role in our health and the role nutrition plays in fighting disease. Honestly we were shocked by what we were learning! Pops and I usually get on health kicks at different times, but by the grace of God, we were both so convicted by what we learned, and with me facing knee replacement surgery, we made a decision to take the suggested two week challenge and see what would happen.
For me, it was all about the inflammation! The first week we both started feeling better and I noticed the inflammation in my knee was decreasing. Three weeks into going WFPB, I was off my crutches and could walk with minimal pain. It’s been a slow journey of healing with my knee but I am very grateful that I was able to avoid surgery.
Taking the challenge and seeing results truly inspired both of us to learn more. I was so intrigued by all this new information we were learning, in April 2023, I signed up for an online course with T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and became certified in Plant-Based Nutrition through Cornell University. I have a new hunger for learning more about nutrition and how our lifestyle choices have an impact on our health.
Our choice to be WFPB is so multi-layered but it's been the easiest thing we have ever done. Watching my mom and dad endure so many illnesses in their “golden” years has been a great incentive for trying to make healthier choices. Correcting joint pain and seeing our bloodwork get closer to the normal range is a big incentive. But our biggest “why” is our beautiful grands that we love to be with and we need lots of energy for them!
So that’s our WFPB journey. We are still a work in progress, learning about nutrition, conquering our food addictions and working each day to make healthy choices, in a world that makes it quite challenging. But the benefits far outweigh the sacrifices. Celebrating our two year anniversary by kicking off a salad business has definitely been our greatest surprise, with Pops being a little more shocked than me. Throughout this journey, we have felt God’s presence in leading us down this path. A scripture He has planted in my soul during this journey is from Genesis…
God also said, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food.” Gen 1:29
He has given us the desire to learn more, to seek answers and to break unhealthy habits. We believe in the power of prayer and the power of plants, just so much POPs! He has opened the door to The Veggie Stop and set us out on our new mission of putting more Plants on Plates. We are convinced that more POPs promotes better healing, health, and longevity and we want to journey with you one salad at a time. Our prayer is to empower others in the hope of taking control of our health by using all the plants God has given us to bring healing.
So that, my friends, is the story of how I went from being the Big Mac Girl to the Crazy Salad Lady!! We hope to chop for you soon and help you add more plants on your plate!! Now it’s time for me to get back to chopping!!