The Challenge USA is a brand-new reality show premiering July 6 on CBS, where Angela Rummans, a local reality TV personality, is competing with 27 other reality titans from Survivor, Big Brother, The Amazing Race, and Love Island to find out who has “what it takes to be America’s best.”
You might have run into Rummans and her fiancé Tyler Crispen on Hilton Head where they call home, or you might know them from CBS Big Brother where they were both competitors on season 20 in 2018. In addition to her current gig on reality TV, Rummans is a best-selling plant-based cookbook author and activist.
“One of the many reasons I accepted the challenge to compete on this show was to break down the stigma behind veganism and plant-based eating,” Rummans said.
Nick Bergelt is a local entrepreneur and restaurateur who has been elevating the island’s food scene since 2012 through innovative and forward-thinking concepts. His newest concept Healthy Habit, located at 33 Office Park Rd., Suite 227 in the Park Plaza shopping center, is focused on delivering approachable and affordable healthy food without compromising quality and taste.
“My higher aspirations are to change how people think about food, nutrition, and proactive versus reactive wellness by fostering daily healthy habits,” Bergelt said.
Rummans connected with Bergelt and Healthy Habit through their common mission to provide a platform to educate people further on the benefits of clean, whole food, plant-based nutrition and the impact of being a conscious consumer.
Bergelt turned his attention to plant-based eating after a series of personal events and family circumstances forced him to prioritize his health. Rummans found veganism while competing as a professional athlete—a pole vaulter in 2013 and has followed a mostly plant-based diet since.
“I read a book about veganism when I was a professional pole vaulter that turned my world upside down,” Rummans said. “I went cold turkey vegan 30 days before the biggest meet of that year. I expected that I might feel lethargic, but I found that when I loaded up on vegetables, it actually gave me a burst of energy, whereas in the past, when I loaded up on meat or protein, I felt like I needed to lie down and take a nap.”
She had also been nursing a nagging knee injury, and after changing her diet, the symptoms began disappearing. As for the track meet, she finished sixth in the country, her personal highest finish ever in a national meet. After that, she was on again off again until 2019 when she fully transitioned to a vegan lifestyle.
During the pandemic, Rummans’ ongoing passion for cooking and new inspiration led her to deep dive into plant-based cooking. She began creating recipes to mirror her favorite foods that seemed impossibly vegan—so much so that she wrote a cookbook, Angela’s Plant-Based Kitchen, in 2020, and soon followed up with a second edition, Angela’s Plant Based Kitchen, Volume 2, in 2021.
With that experience behind her, Rummans’ participation in a physically demanding competition series lends an aspirational angle to her presence on the show, which is to counter what most people think of vegans.
“On the show, we are doing multiple challenges weekly,” she explained, “so recovery time is super important. I noticed that I was recovering faster than most, which is one huge benefit of a vegan diet.”
Improved mental clarity—another crucial element of the competition—is an additional benefit Rummans reported. She feels that her brain is much clearer without meat, which gives her an edge towards strategizing a winning approach.
Yet, despite their initial motivation to change their diets due to health, both Bergelt and Rummans are passionate about benefits of plant-based nutrition beyond the physical.
“We live in a society that doesn’t think about where food is coming from,” said Bergelt, who started his first restaurant as an advocate for sustainability. “I saw the potential for Angela and me to move people to better health and make them more aware of how they are spending money.”
The two aspire to offer options that are better for their health and the environment, and to lead others to begin slowly pulling back on the consumption of animals. The alternatives they are proposing don’t compromise on quality or taste; rather they are beyond impressive. They want to serve you a dish you love that plants a seed in your head and heart to consider how much of your daily or weekly diet you can shift.
Once Rummans started learning about problems with the food system, she realized that future generations will not have the same earth we have. “One form of activism people are very reactive to is food,” she explained, “so I am creating a way for people to receive the information in a more palatable way. At the end of the day, people don’t want to be confronted with guilt about diet or animals or environment. But if I can give them something to eat that they love and enjoy, then they will be more receptive to learning about the problems the food chain is creating.”
Together, Bergelt’s restaurant and Rummans’ cookbooks provide the perfect synergy to create a seasonal summer menu for the restaurant, bringing her most popular recipes to the public and showcasing the creative possibilities of plant-based eating. They are testing out a variety of different recipes with Healthy Habit executive chef and partner Jorge Covarrubias to find the best of the best for the Healthy Habit + Angela’s Plant-Based Kitchen collaboration, currently landing on the comforting flavors of the island.
“For tourists who come to Hilton Head seeking a seafood-infused week of eating, it’s important to highlight the new menu items that seem ‘impossibly plant-based,’ which include a crab cake sandwich and a lobster roll made entirely of plants,” Bergelt said. “People literally are not able to discern that they are not eating the real thing.”
In trying the seafood alternatives, you can feel good about purchasing an item that is nourishing your body, helping the earth, and not harming any crustaceans in the process.
Stop in and try the new menu items at Healthy Habit, specifically the “crab” cake sandwich and “lobster roll,” pick up a copy of Angela’s Plant Based Kitchen cookbook, and you might even run into Crispens and Rummans having lunch on the patio.
For more information, visit healthyhabithhi.com and tangelainc.com.
