Recipes for Success

From a young age, Reuben has always found food to be something of a magical experience. “I was very taken by the process of putting something into an oven and having it come out different,” she says.

As a teenager, Reuben’s relationship to food was deeply affected when she watched her father change his diet after a heart attack, noting that “he truly used food to help fix his body.” Her experience with her father’s health inspired her to pursue kinesiology. And while she loved studying the body, it seemed like there was still a piece missing.

“We only learned about food under the guise of fuel,” says Reuben, “but if you’re talking about how the human body performs, why aren’t we taking a more holistic approach to integrating food?”

Facing a crossroads after graduating, Reuben and a friend used a neighbor’s kitchen to test recipes for a heart healthy cookbook inspired by her father. Unfortunately, a miscommunication led to both the neighbor—a notable actor thought to be out of town— and his private chef returning early to find Reuben in the kitchen.

While Reuben remembers being mortified by the mess (she admits that she had managed to get almond butter on practically every surface in the room), she also recounts how the chef ended up not just tasting her food, but serving it to his guests for lunch. Suddenly, a new career path was born.

Reuben had always longed to be in both the food and nutrition worlds, but until then, she hadn’t discovered a career that blended the two. “Then this nutritional chef who traveled on the road with rock bands and cooked on movie sets showed up and I was like, ‘what is this career?’” she recalls of her first encounter with chef Wayne Forman, owner of Wayno’s Catering.

Following several years of mentorship under Forman, she’s now a celebrity chef in her own right. Reuben’s clientele ranges from celebrities like Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, and Brie Larson, to Olympic athletes and the Dalai Lama.

The power of plant-based

Whether she’s cooking for Hollywood A-listers, friends and family, or just whipping up a meal for herself, one thing about Reuben’s food stays consistent—plants are the star.

“I call myself plant-forward because, working for so many different people with different diets and very specific requirements, cooking with vegetables allowed me to make the healthiest version of whatever they needed to be eating,” she says. “Over the last 15 years as a chef, as long as I kept my food plant forward, the person thrived no matter what diet I was cooking for.” Reuben recently released her cookbook Eat to Love: Where Health Meets Flavor (Appetite by Random House, 2025). Each recipe features detailed nutritional information to cater to unique dietary needs, as well as easy ways to incorporate sauces and protein add-ons, perfect for both seasoned chefs and plant-curious beginners.

Reuben’s goal is to show how healthy, plant-based cooking can be as exciting (and as delicious) as any carnivorous competitor. “When I cook lots of plants for people and show them the diversity and versatility of ingredients, I notice a huge difference in so many aspects of their lives,” she says.

But it’s not just celebrities embracing this type of produce in their cooking, plant-based diets have been on the rise for the past several years, with one study finding that veganism in America increased by 500 percent from 2014 to 2018. Another survey found that 40 percent of respondents were trying to reduce their consumption of animal proteins. Like Reuben’s father, many consumers are interested in what plants can do for their health, including lowering the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

While extolling the many health benefits of plants may sway even the pickiest adult eaters, there is one frontier that Reuben admits is understandably tough to tackle—the family dinner table.

Family matters

When it comes to getting a balanced meal on the table, few appreciate the difficulty as much as parents. Getting kids to eat a diverse diet, especially vegetables, is often a high-wire act that can leave dinner feeling like a battleground instead of time to connect as a family.

As a chef that’s cooked for a variety of clients with children, Reuben has a refreshingly down-to-earth viewpoint on the struggles a parent faces at mealtime. “At the end of the day, if you’re cooking for your kids, you’re a star,” she says. “Raising kids is a lot to balance, but if you’re keeping your kids fed, my hat goes off to you.”

The war between kids and vegetables is one that parents have been fighting for generations. According to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 60 percent of children don’t consume enough fruit, while 93 percent don’t get enough vegetables. While it can be tempting to give in and avoid dinnertime tantrums, it’s important for parents to find ways to help their kids embrace greens.

Studies show that diets rich in fruits and vegetables can help lower children’s risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and even some cancers. Key nutrients provided by fruits and vegetables, like fiber, folate, potassium, vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin K, are especially crucial for development in the first five years, and often set the standard for later in life.

Tricks of the trade

From her time as a professional chef, Reuben has learned a few tricks to help encourage kids to eat their veggies. She recommends sticking to neutral-flavored vegetables. “When I cook for families,” explains Reuben, “I do things like adding steamed zucchini into smoothies, putting handfuls of spinach into blueberry dishes, or adding dark beans and avocado into chocolate mousse.”

Experts have advised that taking the time for a hands-on approach can be beneficial, including letting kids help with meal selection and prep, embracing fun colors and shapes, and giving food kid-friendly nicknames.

Reuben has seen these approaches work firsthand. “The more color, the better!” she says, “I don’t often see a child picking up a whole head of cauliflower, but if we do cauliflower sushi rice, they’re pumped. Let them get messy with it!”

From healthy dips and crispy tacos to “meal makers” like her ginger tahini sauce, Reuben’s recipes nourish the body as well as the soul. It just goes to show, while we can’t all be an A-lister, everyone in the family can still eat like one.

This article was originally published in the September 2025 issue of alive magazine.