The Food Network might want to reach out to Coco Laud and YaLonda \u201cLala\u201d Lolar Johnson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Believe it our not, the popular network dedicated to all things food does not have a cooking show dedicated to vegan and vegetarian cooking. And the cable network could certainly use a boost in melanin. For those reasons alone, execs might want to take a strong look at Laud and Lolar Johnson \u2013 or as their fans know them, Coco and Lala. But beyond fulfilling a programming void, Coco and Lala are just darn delightful to watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Launched on Facebook this past September by the Twin Cities residents, \u201cKeeping Up with Coco & Lala\u201d has amassed nearly 10,000 followers for their weekly chat about vegan and vegetarian cooking and living. The support has translated into the two launching two websites, www.shopcocoandlala.com<\/a> and www.realcocoandlala.com<\/a>. For Laud and Lolar Johnson, their enterprise is about spreading the word on living a healthy lifestyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI lost a family member to obesity and we both want our family members to live long and productive lives, so that\u2019s what it\u2019s really all about,\u201d said Lolar Johnson. \u201cIf what we do is increasing a person\u2019s life by 10 percent or 20 percent \u2026 whatever \u2026 if we can get someone to change just one meal out of their day, that means we\u2019re doing some good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laud and Lolar Johnson are at different stages of the vegan and vegetarian lifestyles. Laud is in her eighth month of converting to vegetarianism, while Lolar Johnson is in her ninth month of veganism after living most of her life as a vegetarian. Both say they were inspired to alter their diets after watching a popular Netflix documentary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe watched \u2018What the Health\u2019 and a lot of it was eye opening,\u201d said Laud. \u201cWe said, \u2018You know, let\u2019s give this (changing their eating habits) a try.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat the Health\u201d examines the impact of meat consumption has on the human body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Laud, changing her dietary habits wasn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to lie, it was hard at first. I was eating meat all my life and giving it up was very difficult because I didn\u2019t have the information I have now,\u201d said Laud. \u201cIt was definitely a learning curve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s difficult for me is eating out at restaurants. It\u2019s just not easy to (eat vegan) at most restaurants,\u201d said Lolar Johnson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What makes \u201cKeeping Up with Coco and Lala\u201d so interesting is their lively personalities and their audience interactions. While recording live via Facebook (Thursdays at 1:30 p.m.), the pair regularly interacts with viewers who post back and forth in the comment section of the livestream. With a growing audience, \u201cKeeping Up with Coco & Lala\u201d may soon jump off the computers and mobile devices and onto a much larger platform. That\u2019s if certain television executives can recognize a good thing staring them in the face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Food Network might want to reach out to Coco Laud and YaLonda \u201cLala\u201d Lolar Johnson. Believe it our not, the popular network dedicated to all things food does not have a cooking show dedicated to vegan and vegetarian cooking. And the cable network could certainly use a boost in melanin. For those reasons alone, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4241,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2657,2659,2658],"class_list":["post-4240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-coco-laud","tag-vegetarian","tag-yalonda-lala-lolar-johnson","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Insight-News-Website-Images-5.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4242,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4240\/revisions\/4242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}