THE BRONX — Tito Dudley was just 15 years old when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, news that left him shocked, scared and worried about whether he would get to have a future.
"Many things went through my mind," he said. "Whether or not I’ll be able to grow up as an adult and start a family and pursue my career."
Dudley said the cancer spread from his neck to his chest in a matter of weeks, but after six months of treatment, he managed to successfully beat back the deadly illness.
But he does not give chemotherapy all the credit for his victory over cancer.
"We also met with a nutritionist at the time, before I had got treated, who introduced us to a bunch of alternative ways of going about it, along with the chemo, which I felt was extremely helpful," he said.
Dudley, who is now 34 and lives in Riverdale, became much more interested in fitness following his return to health, as he believes his attention to exercise and eating well helped him overcome the deadly illness.
He initially focused his efforts on bodybuilding and personal training but found that these things were not enough by themselves.
"I felt like I was still missing one more thing, one more key that I could add to my career and feel fulfilled," he said, "and I felt like that was culinary, so I went to culinary school. I felt like food was the way to go."
Dudley gravitated toward eating more natural foods as opposed to processed foods, and this interest eventually spread to not just eating well himself but starting his own health food company a few years ago called Simple Eats with Chef T.
"I just felt like it’s the simple foods that we should be eating," he said.
The company sells products like dark chocolate nut granola, gluten-free chocolate chip scones, seasonal jams and almond muffins.
Dudley currently sells his granola on the artisanal food website Jackeez.com and is working on revamping his own website so people can purchase his products there.
"My goal is not just to have a product but to have a platform where people can not only buy a product but can also refer back to a website for information about health," he said, "whether it’s videos or articles, stuff like that. That's where I'm trying to work towards."
He hopes to get a commercial kitchen and storefront of his own as well and would also enjoy writing his own cookbook.
"I think food is so important. What we eat, it plays a role in how we perform, how our body feels, diseases and so forth that our bodies are vulnerable to," he said. "I think there's a lot of value in eating the correct food."
However, he acknowledged that he thinks it is still fine to eat some unhealthy treats once in a while.
"I do believe in that 80/20 rule," he said. "You know, 80 percent should be health focused, but you should have times where you enjoy a little bit of maybe your favorite meal as a kid."
