Farah Shammas
Managing Director of St Raphael Resort and Marina, a podcast host of Hotel Talk, founder of Cook Award-Winning Vegan and Farah’s Club
Farah Shammas is the mother of three amazing young children, a wife, an awarded business woman and vegan! Growing up in a completely non-vegan environment and not always leading a particularly healthy lifestyle, she started to learn more about healthy eating to help with her psoriasis and stomach issues (mainly Irritable Bowel Syndrome but also ulcers, ulcerations and more). This quest for the healthiest food, better lifestyle and kindest way of living only intensified when she had her children and it become so apparent that much of the information out there was fundamentally flawed.
After yearly detox periods and fasts, which resulted in her eventually becoming pescatarian for a decade, she thought she had arrived a good balance. However, not being a person to stay static, she was always searching for new information, recipes and knowledge, until one day she started to discover veganism and all the many reasons behind it. She watched several famous documentaries, read various articles and books and realised that the only way forward was to make the move.
This did not happen overnight. This was a gradual process where she spent a year plant based, also studying to obtain a certificate in PLANT-BASED NUTRITION from the Colin T. Campbell Center for Nutriiton Studies through eCornell, until finally she become fully vegan, in every way she knows and is still learning today. Anyone who betrays they are the perfect vegan is disillusion and it is ultimately about doing your best and being kind, and kindness must start first by being kind to yourself.
Farah is the Managing Director of a stunning, award-winning hotel resosrt, spa and and marina in Limassol, Cyprus (St Raphael Resort and Marina) and feels blessed that she is in the position to make a real change. At least 30% of all menus are plantbased and she opened the island’s first fully vegan hotel and beach restaurant called Seashells Healthy Living. Her aim is to help her team and guests live the best possible way and reduce the company’s carbon footprint, despite being such a large organisation.
She has been a speaker in many international conferences and forums talking about women empowerement, tourism and veganism among other subjects.
During the first lockdown, with a new born baby literally in hand, she started a Facebook group called COOK VEGAN which within days had reached thousands of members. Her recipes and posts have helped transforms many peoples lives and opinions on what it is to be both healthy and conscious. She then published two vegan books, ’40 Delicious Vegan Recipes’ which the profits were donated to charity and then ‘Theo The Pig’, a childrens story book and recipe guide which she also illustrated by hand.
Her aim is always to encourage, not judge, and to help those seeking to learn more. Her motto is every meal makes a difference and with the right help, encouragement and guidance, we can all improve our lifestyles and become better, in so many ways.