About Taesha Butler

Hi, I’m Taesha! Here’s my approach to fruits and vegetables…

I’ll be honest…I was a pretty late bloomer when it came to willingly eating vegetables myself. So I’ve never been interested in getting people to just tolerate them in the name of healthy. Nope. My goal has always been to help people find HOW they like veggies. And we aren’t just talking steamed, roasted, or in a salad. I’m talking muffins, meatballs, and everything in between. A little veggie-loading here and there adds up to a lot more veggies on your plate, and maybe a whole new way of looking at them.

Before The Natural Nurturer, I spent 18 years as an educator working with kids ages 2 to 14. All those years of watching young humans form their opinions about the world (including food!) taught me this: if we want people, young and old, to eat more veggies, they need lots of positive, varied experiences with them. Over time and with exposure, even the most resistant veggie-eater can (and often does) change their mind, and their taste buds, about broccoli.

That’s the whole idea behind what I call The Veggie-Loaded Approach: eat food you love…just add a veggie. Zucchini that makes muffins extra tender. Cauliflower cooked right into a flavorful pasta dish. Spinach wilted into a cheesy chicken bake. Yes, vegetables are good for us…but they go in because they add something that makes the food better! (And these days, fruit gets in on the action too.)

Credentials & experience

Here’s what fuels my recipe development, and why I think it makes my recipes unique and valuable to you:

• B.S. in Human Development + General Special Education, Rivier University. The foundation for how I understand the way people (big and small) learn and form opinions about the world…including food.
• 18 years as an educator, working with children ages 2 to 14. Years of real-world practice with selective eaters of all ages and backgrounds: building routines, seeing what actually sticks, and finding what helps change the narrative.
• Recipe developer since 2013. Every recipe on The Natural Nurturer is developed and tested in my own kitchen, on my own family. Then my recipe testers make it in their kitchens, for their families. By the time a recipe reaches you, it’s been made by multiple hands, on multiple stoves, and eaten by multiple families. So when I say it’ll work for you, I’ve tested it ahead of time and I stand by it.
• Decades of home cooking. No culinary school here. I learned standing next to my mom in the kitchen and have been cooking ever since. I’m always researching methods and building my skills so the recipes I create are as foolproof as possible for you.

How it all started

The Natural Nurturer really started when I became a mom. When my daughter, Allie, hit the selective toddler stage, I was trying to get vegetables onto our table without turning every meal into a battle, after long days of teaching and commuting.

I didn’t want vegetables to be something we negotiated over, something I had to “hide,” or something I gave up on Allie eating altogether. So I started experimenting. I grated vegetables into muffins, blended them into pancakes, and added them to meatballs, soups, skillet dinners, and baked oatmeal. Sometimes it worked beautifully. Sometimes it very much did not. 😂

Then I started bringing my recipes into my classroom to make with my students, and I saw how much of a difference veggie-loaded recipes made for other kids, too. A child who practically ran away from green vegetables was happily eating a Green Smoothie Muffin they’d helped me make, knowing full well they’d put a handful of spinach in the batter. That didn’t matter to them. What mattered was that it tasted good, and suddenly spinach wasn’t scary. That’s where The Veggie-Loaded Approach really took shape and I started realizing I needed to share these recipes with others.

My cookbook

I’m the author of the cookbook Veggie Loading Every Day: 73 tried-and-true recipes from breakfast through dessert, and every single one includes a vegetable. It’s The Natural Nurturer in cookbook form, made for busy days when you still want to eat well, hungry families who need dinner, and those nights you need inspiration for something nourishing that doesn’t turn home cooking into a big production.

The recipes

Since starting The Natural Nurturer in 2013, I’ve developed and tested 600+ original fruit- and veggie-loaded recipes: weeknight dinners, nourishing breakfasts, comforting soups, handy slow cooker meals, easy sides, healthier desserts, and an admittedly extensive muffin collection. (My longtime followers call me the Muffin Queen of the internet, and I wear my crown with pride.)

I test, tweak, and retest each recipe until I’m confident it works. Then I send it off to my recipe testers to make sure it’s a success outside my kitchen, too. When I test a swap, like gluten-free flour, chicken instead of pork, or less sweetener, I share what actually happened. If I haven’t tested something, I’ll tell you that too. My goal is for every recipe to be as foolproof as possible, so you’re never wasting your time or ingredients.

My husband Ken and daughter Allie have been my live-in taste testers for years, and they’re (lovingly) honest with me. If they don’t love something, they tell me, and that recipe usually gets scrapped. You can read more about my process in the TNN Editorial Policies.

Recognition & features

My recipes and veggie-loaded approach have been featured in:

• TODAY
• Well+Good
• The Everygirl
• The Everymom
• Cooking Light
• The Feed Feed

What I believe about vegetables

Vegetables can and SHOULD be delicious. You don’t need to overhaul the way you eat, make every meal from scratch, or suddenly decide raw kale is your favorite food.

Maybe your way in is broccoli roasted with lots of garlic. Maybe it’s a hearty and flavorful one-pot soup loaded with cabbage, or a skillet dinner with sweet potatoes cooked right in. Maybe it is a chocolate muffin with veggies blended in so that you don’t have to look at or think about them (but you know they are there!) There are SO many ways to enjoy vegetables, and my job is to help you find yours. Start with food you already love. Add a vegetable. See what happens.

A little more about me

• Planted in the beautiful Green Mountains of Vermont, by way of San Diego
• Former vegetable late bloomer, now the person ordering the extra side of roasted Brussel sprouts
• Mom to Allie, who inspired all of this, and wife to Ken, my other forever taste tester
• Our rescue pup Acko takes her kitchen-floor responsibilities very seriously and our former barn cat, Mochi, is always hoping I drop some cheese for her to snatch up.
• Favorite vegetable: broccoli. Roasted. With garlic. Always.

Find me here

• Browse my latest recipes at The Natural Nurturer
• Get Veggie Loading Every Day, my cookbook
• Join my newsletter for new veggie-loaded recipes
• Follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest
• Read more about The Natural Nurturer