Why I Created MyMealAid: The Gap Nobody Was Filling
By Ayman Begum, Founder
It started with my father
When my family immigrated to Canada, my father was in his late forties. Like many immigrants navigating a new country, accessing consistent healthcare wasn't simple or immediate. By the time he finally saw a doctor, his cholesterol levels had progressed so far that he needed surgery near his heart.
He hadn't been eating well. He hadn't had the guidance, the access, or the support to catch it earlier. And I watched that as a child.
That experience stayed with me longer than I realized at the time.
Then history started repeating itself…
Years later, I found myself watching a close family member face the early warning signs of the same thing: high cholesterol and risk factors for type two diabetes. But her situation was different. She wasn't at the worst stage yet. She had time. She could prevent this.
The problem was, she didn't know where to start.
She'd been told to eat healthier, watch her sugar, and be mindful of her cholesterol. But nobody explained what that actually looked like in everyday life, especially when you're cooking cultural foods you love, grocery shopping on a budget, and trying not to make two separate meals for yourself and your family.
So I went looking for something that could help her. Something practical, culturally inclusive, and accessible, something she could use on her phone, on the go, without needing to book an appointment or pay for a private dietitian.
It didn't exist.
What we found when we looked deeper
As a Food and Nutrition Management graduate, I knew the research. I understood the science. But understanding nutrition in a classroom and actually applying it in someone's real life are two completely different things.
We started talking to real people: working professionals, busy parents, immigrants, young adults from culturally-diverse communities;
And the same themes kept coming up over and over again:
"I've been told to eat better but nobody showed me how."
"I don't want to give up my cultural foods."
"I don't want to track calories or follow a strict plan, that’s not what I am looking for."
"I just want something realistic that actually fits my life."
The tools that existed were either too rigid, too clinical, too expensive, or completely disconnected from the foods and lifestyles of the people who needed them most.
And the communities carrying the highest burden of preventable health conditions are culturally diverse, immigrant, lower-income and are largely underserved.
That gap was the answer.
What MyMealAid is aiming to solve:
MyMealAid isn't just an “app”. It's an attempt to make preventive nutrition support feel the way it should have felt all along: practical, personal, culturally inclusive, and actually accessible.
We're building it for the person who just got a difficult health risk and doesn't know where to start.
For the family trying to eat better together without abandoning the foods that connect them to their culture.
For the young adult who wants to build healthy habits before health becomes a crisis.
For everyone who has ever been told to eat healthier and felt more lost after hearing it than before.
We're still building. We're still learning.
And we're doing it alongside a community of real people whose feedback, stories, and lived experiences are shaping every decision we make.
If that resonates with you, we'd love for you to be part of it.
MyMealAid is currently in development. Join our waitlist to get early access and help shape what we're building.
