NATCHEZ \u2014 Patrick Biglane has been passionate about fitness and healthy eating for most of his adult life.<\/p>\n
He studied kinesiology in college and considers his 5 a.m. workout time sacrosanct \u2014 it\u2019s his time to himself to get his mind and body right before he begins the day as a busy working single father of three children.<\/p>\n
Likewise, Brooke Cangemi\u2019s life is based on similar fitness principles. She, too, is a single parent with three children. Interestingly, they both independently developed businesses preparing and selling meals for others, in addition to their full-time jobs.<\/p>\n
Biglane loves to cook. At one time, he considered going to culinary school. However, he married and had his children and life got in the way of those plans. Still, cooking for himself and others has always been a source of enjoyment for him. His side hustle \u2014 which was called Pat\u2019s Preps \u2014 began because of his enjoyment of preparing food for others.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was meal prepping healthy meals for myself and a couple of people I work out with asked if I could do it for them. That\u2019s how it started,\u201d Biglane said.<\/p>\n
For a year and a half, Biglane\u2019s meal prep business grew rapidly by word of mouth. He would put out a list of what he was making for the next week to his Facebook friends. They would choose what they wanted and pick up meals from his home beginning on Sundays. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was making two different entrees, then added a couple more, and then I added a breakfast and a dessert and the protein balls,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Biglane has become famous for his protein balls \u2014 known as PPP, Protein Power Peanut Butter Balls \u2014 packed with 12 grams of protein each and are 150 calories. \u201cCustomers really love them. They are great for a snack,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Soon, Biglane had more than 300 friends who were ordering meals routinely and it became more than he could handle on his own.<\/p>\n
Across the river in Vidalia, Cangemi was preparing food for others, but it wasn\u2019t always healthy. Her business was Cangemi + Fork.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was making Southern-style food,\u201d she said. \u201cPatrick had to kind of train me up on this. I didn\u2019t even use recipes.\u201d<\/p>\n
When it reached a tipping point for Biglane, he reached out to Cangemi and asked if she wanted to collaborate. The two cooked out of Biglane\u2019s kitchen for a number of months until they launched The Little Green Fork, located at 312 Main St.<\/p>\n
The meals Biglane and Cangemi make are a step beyond those others offer in the area in that they are rooted in healthy, freshly-prepared foods all made from scratch.<\/p>\n
The Little Green Fork customers know not only the calories in each meal, but the macros, too. Macros refer to macronutrients \u2014 carbohydrates, proteins and fats \u2014 important information for many who are working to lose weight, build muscle or who are dealing with a number of illnesses, such as Type 2 Diabetes. All of this information is available for each meal offered on their website at <\/a>The Little Green Fork<\/a>. And the menu of dishes changes weekly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NATCHEZ \u2014 Patrick Biglane has been passionate about fitness and healthy eating for most of his adult life.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[97,4910,269],"class_list":{"0":"post-346910","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-newsletter","10":"tag-nutrition"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}