Hey! We are Dustin and Tara, the team behind The Messy Veg, a blog devoted to providing you with delicious vegan and vegetarian recipes, vegan and vegetarian restaurant reviews, and resources to help you eat a healthy, plant based diet.

Dustin and Tara

We started The Messy Veg as a way to share our passion for cooking delicious plant based food. Our hope is that sharing with you the food we eat will encourage more people to adopt a plant based diet and become healthier as a result.

The Name

You know those food blogs you read with the perfect pictures and artistically designed kitchens? We are the opposite of that! I am the messiest cook you will ever meet. I use more dishes than I need to and I hate washing dishes. It’s a terrible combination. Luckily, Tara, can’t stand a mess and loves my cooking so most nights she is happy to clean up with me! When I first had the idea of starting a food blog, The Messy Veg, was the first name that came to mind and it stuck.

The cooks

Dustin

When I first became a vegetarian in 2012 I didn’t eat nearly as healthy as I could have. I consumed a lot of pastas and other high carb foods and while I lost weight I didn’t feel any healthier than when I was eating meat. Luckily, my goal of eating healthier renewed my enjoyment of cooking. Each week I would scour the internet looking for new vegetarian and vegan recipes and would spend my days off cooking. Overtime, I became better and better at cooking and began to enjoy it even more. My sister says that I get more excited about food than anyone she has every met and it’s true.

Tara

When Dustin and I first met I wasn’t vegetarian but I couldn’t stand preparing meat, it grossed me out. I swore that I could never become a full vegetarian because I love baseball and whats baseball without a cold beer and hot dog? Of course, a short time after Dustin and I started living together the WHO came out with their report on how processed meats caused cancer. Since that day I have yet to eat any meat. Since becoming vegetarian I feel healthier and get plenty of comments on how great I look!