About

I didn’t come to plant-based living from the outside—I came to it from the heart of agriculture.

My life has been immersed in farming from the beginning: working in commercial poultry, in a neighbor’s family-owned butcher shop, in cattle farming, and as a dairy herdswoman. I was even certified to artificially inseminate our dairy herd. Agriculture wasn’t just my background; it was my world. Food, animals, land, and labor were part of daily life—not ideas, but lived experience.

In 2017, everything shifted after watching Forks Over Knives. The science behind plant-based eating—and its implications for human health—was life-changing. For the first time, I saw food not only as tradition or sustenance, but as something with the power to heal or harm over time. That realization stayed with me, even as the journey to fully live it took years.

After my third difficult pregnancy, I found myself needing to lose a significant amount of weight. I lost 50 pounds the first time through calorie restriction alone. I managed to keep most of that weight off for years, but middle age brought a quiet return of 30 pounds—slow, creeping, and familiar to so many women. By summer 2025, I was once again overweight, dealing with high blood pressure, and living with crippling anxiety.

By then, I was also a cancer survivor—a reality that brings its own physical and mental challenges.

This time, I chose a different path. I committed fully to a whole-food, plant-based way of eating—not as a diet, but as an act of stewardship and care for the body I had been given. The changes were profound. The weight came off again. My blood pressure returned to a healthy range. The anxiety softened. Food became supportive rather than controlling, nourishing rather than stressful.

But this work is about far more than physical health.

My approach is shaped by a broad and deeply rooted faith background. I was formed by my mother’s Old Order (horse-and-buggy) Mennonite life, where simplicity, restraint, and stewardship are practiced daily, and by a Roman Catholic father, whose tradition emphasized reverence, rhythm, and the sacredness of the physical world. Later, I was ordained in the Church of the Brethren, a denomination that further shaped my understanding of humility, wholeness, and care for the vulnerable. Eventually, I came back around to the Mennonite faith that feels most like home to me.

Together, these traditions taught me that faith is not abstract. It is embodied and practiced in everyday choices—in kitchens and fields, in how we care for our bodies, and in how we walk with one another through suffering. This grounding informs everything I do, from how I approach food to how I hold space for grief to how I understand healing as something that involves body, mind, and spirit.

Grief, in particular, has been a defining teacher in my life. Following the death of our daughter, I spent years as co-founder and director of a non-profit my husband and I started, offering peer grief support, learning firsthand how deeply loss lives in the body as well as the heart. That experience continues to shape my work, helping me approach health and lifestyle change with compassion, patience, and deep respect for each person’s story.

As a foster and adoptive family, we’ve also seen firsthand how limited access to nourishing food can affect behavioral regulation, emotional steadiness, and learning—especially in children whose lives have already been shaped by stress and uncertainty. We’ve also witnessed how consistent, nourishing meals can, over time, support calmer bodies, clearer thinking, and a greater sense of safety. These experiences deepened my conviction that good nutrition should never feel exclusive, complicated, or out of reach, and that food can be a quiet form of care long before it becomes a clinical intervention.

Today, I bring all of this together—agriculture and science, faith and food, grief and healing.

I specialize in whole-food, plant-based living grounded in evidence, shaped by lived experience, and offered with gentleness, all while living in a “mixed-eating” household. I am currently pursuing certification as a plant-based coach through the Food Revolution Network, and I support people seeking sustainable health, a peaceful relationship with food, and steadiness through seasons of loss, change, or transition.

I don’t believe in quick fixes, shame, or perfection. I believe in simple, nourishing food; thoughtful stewardship of the body; and meeting people exactly where they are—with honesty, hope, and practical support.

Regina Cyzick Harlow is the founder of Dwelling & Dish, helping people cultivate vibrant health, peaceful rhythms, and grace-filled homes through whole-food, plant-centered living. Pull up a chair; there’s room at my table for you.