Adante Hart

Adante teaches A Taste of African Heritage in Baltimore, Maryland, as a means of addressing the various food and nutrition-related health disparities present in many of the city’s underserved residents. Always interested in food, Adante’s passion for nutrition, in the context of public health was sparked at Johns Hopkins University, where he received his bachelor’s degree in Biology, and where he experienced the phenomenon that is Jollof Rice for the first time. While at Hopkins, he became involved in nutrition education as part of the Healthy Bodies, Healthy Souls project, a lifestyle and environmental intervention aimed at reducing the risk of diabetes within African-American faith-based populations, a project which he later co-authored a publication on.

Adante learned about the Oldways African Heritage and Health Program when reading a Washington Post article about the food justice work being done in nearby Washington, DC by Tambra Raye Stevenson, an original ATOAH instructor. The article (and subsequent browsing of the Oldways website) spoke to his passions, and at that point, he knew that teaching this class was something that he absolutely had to do. Shortly afterward, he began teaching a class at his church, then taught at Terra Café, a local Baltimore eatery. He has also done a number of “mini-classes” at various venues throughout the city. Currently, he is teaching a group of seniors living in affordable housing as part of an Oldways program in conjunction with the NHP. Looking forward, Adante hopes to partner with urban gardeners in order to incorporate sustainable gardening into the class, and would also like to do more work with inner-city children. His goal is to show them that cooking is fun, and is a great (and delicious) way to learn about African heritage.

Helping people to discover and enjoy foods rich in nutrients and heritage is what makes Adante come alive and fuels his passion for spreading the messages packed within each class lesson. Teaching and learning more about the benefits of plant-based lifestyles has also caused him to significantly reduce his own meat consumption.

In addition to being an ATOAH instructor, Adante currently serves as a Research Assistant at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. When he isn’t teaching a class or whipping up a meal in his (or someone else’s) kitchen, he can be found either reading a book, perusing the local farmer’s market, browsing through cooking blogs, or learning how to play musical instruments (at an andante, or very slow, pace).

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