Cibbie Gonzales begins his mission as he grows his green business

This NY-trained 24-year-old wants you to eat your greens

It comes as a surprise that someone as young and fresh-faced as Cibbie Gonzales has started living a healthy lifestyle so early in his life, while his peers are still gorging on fatty burgers and chugging down cheap beer. He credits it to his family’s influence. “My family is very health conscious. Salads are a staple at every meal. My parents are such advocates of healthy living that they decided to put up a farm that produces nutrition-rich, organically grown vegetables that are free of harmful chemicals.”

It is logical, then, that his first business venture would be something familiar, and more importantly, healthy: salads. After a brief stint in a New York culinary school, he took advantage of his family’s string of organic farms and started Go! Salads using their produce. “I chose to focus on salads because we grow our own greens and I wanted to maximize my family’s resources,” he says. Cibbie also wanted to make salads—a very blunt approach to healthy dining—less intimidating. “We give the customers a convenient way of buying it— through takeout. They don’t have to wait that long. It’s simple, just grab and go.”

Like any other kid, Cibbie used to stick his tongue out at his greens when he was younger. “I grew to like it as I learned more about its benefits,” he says, admitting that salads were a bit of an acquired taste for him.

“Caesar Salad was probably the first salad I ordered in a restaurant. I liked it a lot! It made me feel a bit healthy,” he says with a laugh, remembering how naive he was. He’s more discerning of salad dressings now, often opting to avoid those that are chock-full of fat and salt. “Hopefully, I can make more people conscious about what they’re eating, because not everything green is healthy.”

People usually think of salad as rabbit food. They are put off by the bitter greens or alienated by the fact that it is raw and cold. Cibbie, whether through his salad takeout company or through living by example, challenges the way people think of them and hopefully, through his bright-eyed enthusiasm, ultimately changes the way we eat.