Today, Vikki Sgro-Konopka is a raw vegan who whips up delectable French desserts from unlikely sounding ingredients, but it took a health crisis to get her to change her lifestyle.
Vikki grew up as part of a big Italian family in Philadelphia. Food was everywhere, all the time, and holiday dinner tables overflowed with dairy-laden and meat-heavy lasagna, baked ziti, fried meatballs, and Italian cannolis.
Vikki had dreamed since childhood of becoming a chef, and she followed that dream by earning a pastry arts and design degree from The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College in Philadelphia. Shortly after graduating, she was hired as pastry cook at The Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia. She also worked at the Sofitel, working under classically trained French chef Vincent Mary of the famous culinary school Lenôtre.
Vikki fell into a lifestyle commonly associated with 20-somethings working in the restaurant industry: long hours, late nights, and fast times. She began partying hard and morphed into what she candidly describes as “a functioning drug addict, working seven days a week, sometimes up to 18 hours a day.”
On her 25th birthday, Vikki did drugs for the very last time. Not long afterward, she bought a one-way ticket to Honolulu, Hawaii. It was there that she met her husband, who serves in the U.S. Navy, and eventually opened her own bakery, Sunshine’s Cake Creations.
She was baking and delivering orders around the clock, and her own eating habits became less of a priority: She was eating leftover cakes and fast food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. By 2009, Vikki weighed 350 pounds, her heaviest ever. She couldn’t wear her size 26 jeans—only a pair of elastic-waist sweat pants fit.
“I knew it was time to make a major lifestyle change. I started taking my dog for long walks, swimming, hiking up the beautiful mountains of Hawaii, and got a gym membership. I also started to seriously consider my diet,” she says.
While researching food online, she stumbled on video footage of animal abuse at a slaughterhouse. One video led to another, and it was the last day that she ate meat.
In 2013, her husband was transferred to Norfolk, Virginia. Vikki began having frequent headaches and feeling lethargic but attributed the ailments to stress from the move. The headaches intensified, however, and in January 2015, she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
“The doctor prescribed me metformin, which I took for one week, but it had horrific side effects, so I stopped. I thought more about my vegan diet, did some additional research, and decided to try a raw vegan diet. On February 15, 2015, I became 100 percent raw vegan,” Vikki says.
Within six months, she lost 95 pounds, dropped from a size 26 to 16, and reversed her type 2 diabetes.
These days, she eats lots of salads, cauliflower, garlic, avocado, seeds, and beans. She uses dates instead of sugar, and her favorite snack is sliced bananas and pecan butter rolled in collard greens.
In the fall of 2015, she started making desserts and pastries again—this time without animal products—under the name Kahiau’s Organic Sweet Treats & Crafts. You can find her at the Virginia Beach Farmers Market in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where her tasty sweets are flying off the shelves.
Vikki’s motto is “classically French with a Hawaiian twist,” and depending on the day, you can find her offering everything from meringue (made with aquafaba) and macarons to gateaux (traditional sponge cake made with nuts) and ganache. She also sells an assortment of cakes, truffle balls, cookies, and biscotti—all of which are plant-based.
“I’m proud of who I have become,” says Vikki. “But I never would have guessed that I, an Italian girl from south Philly, would end up making Italian meatballs out of walnuts, eating zucchini noodles instead of pasta, and making vegan ricotta and feta cheeses from scratch!”
Erin Goldmeier is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Virgin Atlantic Blog, Smart Meetings magazine, Convention South magazine, and other travel-industry publications. She’s always enjoyed reading about vegan foods and cooking and has recently developed a fascination with vegan beauty and fashion. When not working, she can be found “nerding out”—brainstorming new story ideas and planning her next travel adventure.
