PLANT-BASED

The Healthy Hour

By Angie Ruiz

Photos by Azul Sordo

Agriculturalists Ursula and Steven Nuñez founded one of Fort Worth’s

first urban farms after Ursula’s father suffered from heart disease and had to go in for quadruple bypass surgery. A lifechanging surgery that would save her father’s life – and hers too. Mind Your Garden is their contribution and mission to obliterate food deserts.

“The doctors told me that I would be next if I didn’t change the course of my life,” Ursula says. Only 15 years prior, her grandmother, too, had a quadruple bypass surgery. “We started thinking, ‘What foods did my grandmother and father both consume that got them to this point?’ It’s the foods they taught us to eat,” she says.

As we helped my father recover from his quadruple bypass surgery, we started wondering, What got him here?”

- URSULA NUÑEZ, Mind Your Garden

The Nuñezes spent 38 years of their lives consuming the ever-delicious fajitas, tacos de birria, salt-rimmed margaritas and beer by the cases. These foods and beverages, although delicious and on many menus across the world, come at an unhealthy cost. When their health was served as the main dish, the Nuñezes knew they had to make a change. And while some diseases are genetic, Steven says bad habits are, too. “We needed to completely break the cycle and decided, in order to do that, we needed to go plant-based,” Ursula says.

Left: A vibrant potato graden sits in front of the Nuñez property in Fort Worth, Texas. Right: Ursula Nuñez passes a ripe tomato to her husband, Steven Nuñez, while attempting to clear a path in the greenery.

As new habits were explored, a new lifestyle emerged, but that shift came with a cost.

“Our support system disappeared,” Steven says. “Most times our family and friends didn’t know what to do with us, because they didn’t know what to feed us.” Steven and Ursula discovered a void in the plant-based community: Some people do not know how to socialize outside of what they are used to, and especially, without alcohol.

“That is how we were taught to socialize, over unhealthy foods and alcohol,” Steven says. “So, we thought, ‘How do we bring people together in a healthy, positive way?’”

Ursula’s daughter picks tomatoes alongside the family. In addition to helping in the garden, she enjoys reading— particularly a book about Iris Apfel.

The culture shock from this lifestyle change shifted the dynamic within their families, as well. Foods that were once considered mandatory for family gatherings quickly changed with their first plant-based Thanksgiving in 2021.

“My aunt offered to bring chicken. Imagine her shock when I told her she couldn’t bring chicken,” Ursula says.

The Nuñezes reassured their family members that they would be cooking in a way that would leave them satisfied and feeling

That is how we were taught to socialize, over unhealthy foods and alcohol,” Steven says. “So we thought, ‘How do we bring people together in a healthy, positive way?’”

- STEVEN NUÑEZ, Mind Your Garden

good about themselves. They incorporated familiar recipes that had been passed down through generations with slight alterations — no chicken stock, no lard or animal products.

“There’s a misconception that if you go plant-based that you’re only going to eat lettuce and carrots, but we eat a lot of hearty meals,” Steven says. Through curating their urban garden, they have found ways to recreate favorite meals such as tacos, pozole and even tamales. Through this family experiment of recreating popular Mexican dishes through plant-derived ingredients, a lightbulb went off in Steven’s head — how could they help others in their situation to try something new?

Their answer was Healthy Hour, which is a happy hour space curated by Ursula and Steven where people can still come together, talk, joke, listen to music, dance and enjoy themselves, but with healthy options while still connecting over food. What began as a small personal garden to support their newfound lifestyle quickly turned into a 3.5-acre urban garden right in the middle of Fort Worth.

Left: The basket of tomatoes quickly begins to fill within a few minutes of veggie-picking. Right: Ursula Nuñez zip-ties tomato vines to a fence as they’ve grown unruly but abundant.