Celebrity chef Yasmin Nasir has undertaken a culinary campaign to help families make the most of what little they have in the impoverished Gaza Strip, where food supplies are running low and every meal is a struggle.
On her social media accounts, Yasmin has been educating Gazans to modify traditional recipes with basic, everyday items through brief films and recipe guidelines.
Her videos show how to make green beans from cactus leaves, fries from broken rice, a no-oven date cake without eggs or sugar, coffee from chickpeas, and chocolates from sugar leftovers.
"If you have one coal and a bit of lentils, boil it so we can make kebab, ground beef and burgers too," says Chef Nasir in one of her viral videos.
Her videos, widely shared on social media and picked up by various publications, provide step-by-step guidelines for creating filling, comfortable meals with basic ingredients like flour, water, dates, and seasonings.
Yasmin, who calls herself a "thinking more like an engineer than a chef," believes her job is to address the unpleasant reality that Gazans face, not to offer fancy dishes.
"I speak to the people in Gaza directly because I want the insights. I want to respond directly to their reality and not just offer generic ideas," she told CNN.
Her videos often feature recipes that use plant-based animal substitutes. One such suggestion is seitan, made solely of flour and water and often referred to as "vegan chicken."
By experimenting with the least expensive flour available, Yasmin ensures her audience does not spend their limited resources on potentially failed dishes.
"I find it extremely sensitive to make them waste the only resources they have... Let's be very honest. They're sick of alternatives," she added.
The focus of Gaza's food crisis has shifted from nutrition to survival. Families have turned existence into an act of fortitude by collecting even tiny snails to share as famine conditions worsen.
"They don't want alternatives or substitutes to chicken or meat. They want chicken and they want meat, and they want eggs. But this should not be happening in the 21st century," Yasmin stressed.
The celebrity chef did not mince words when pointing to the cause of this crisis.
"Famine is not natural. It's man-made and it's being used as a weapon of war. What I want the world to remember is that Gaza's families are not statistics," she said.
"They are mothers, fathers, and children who deserve dignity. Gazans just want to survive. They want to live," Yasmin said in the plight of Gaza's families.
Chef Yasmin Nasir is a Certified Chef de Cuisine (CCC) who graduated with honours from Le Cordon Bleu London with a Culinary Level Diploma de Cuisine.
Using simple materials, Nasir has been sharing recipes with Gazans in recent months, and the people have taken to replicating her creations.
For almost two years after the October 23 attacks of Hamas, Israel has flattened nearly the entire 362 square kilometre strip, pushing people to the brink of famine. Over 65,000 Palestinians, including a majority of them children and women, have been killed, in what the United Nations investigators have called a Genocide by Israel.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which does not speak on behalf of the world body and has faced harsh Israeli criticism, found that "genocide is occurring in Gaza and is continuing to occur", commission chief Navi Pillay told AFP.
"The responsibility lies with the State of Israel."
