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Britt Howell. Photo Sarah Whiting
Britt Howell is diabetic. So are most members of her family. As she participated in her seventh-grade home economics class and listened to a doctor give her mother instructions about diet, she realized the importance of food to health. The topic became a passion. “I started cooking at a very early age,” she says, “because I became vegan very young. If I was going to be able to eat the way I needed to eat, in a family that’s West Indian Native American, I had to learn how to cook my own foods.”
Originally from the Washington, D.C., area, Howell initially studied cosmetology and worked at day spas. In the mid-90s, her passion for food and health led her back to school to acquire a certification in fitness and nutrition. She started a career as a personal trainer.
At the age of 50, two of her sisters died of complications from diabetes. Howell refocused on women’s health and created BrittFit50 to help others live a healthier lifestyle. The program expanded into BF50 Indigenous Health Initiative, which incorporates cultural arts and emphasizes sustainability and green living in underserved communities.
The Initiative holds events that teach and discuss sustainable food systems, cooking and eating plant-based food, and Native American art. It hosts Open Streets, bike tours, tree-planting projects, and panel discussions about sustainability and access to food.
Howell started the bike tours with routes to Minneapolis urban farms. Participants would begin at Hope Community Garden, bike to Little Earth Urban Farm, then go to Mashkiikii Gitigan Urban Farm, and return to the start. At each stop of the three-mile journey, someone from the location would talk about the farms and gardens and the indigenous food being grown there.
Other bike tours show off the green spaces at the University of Minnesota, or a park built by the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization. One trip invites the residents of a senior living community to see and learn about the solar panels and electric cars of southeast Minneapolis.
Howell, a Black and indigenous woman, says all of her work is centered on indigenous traditions and foodways. Her events start with land acknowledgments and native prayer, and include indigenous food made from ingredients that she grew herself.
Inspirational Teachers
Emphasizing the importance of education, Howell credits several teachers as role models. Her fifth-grade teacher, for example, sought her out in high school and encouraged her to compete for an academic scholarship, which required keeping her grades up through high school. She did, and earned the scholarship. Howell says the bigger lesson she learned from that experience was that every class has at least one person paying close attention; she keeps that in mind whenever she teaches about healthy food.
Howell has her plate full of speaking and networking events. She’s the Minnesota Farmers’ Market Association profitability coach, and has been a keynote speaker for sustainability events around the state. She recently attended a cultural convening hosted by Artists for Understanding, which works to counter hate through the arts and humanities. The program to bridge cultural divides is supported by the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities.
Howell emphasizes the necessity of working with governmental and local bodies to host events and educate about food and sustainability.
“Are we doing enough collectively to work together and break the silos?” she asks.
She has partnered with the Department of Natural Resources, the Minnesota State Horticultural Society, the City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County, the Franklin Library, and Surly Brewing Company, among others. For over 12 years, Howell partnered with Nice Ride to have bikes available for BF50’s bike tours, including electric scooters. After Nice Ride closed, they gave a fleet of bikes to Howell.
Howell wants to see more people involved in her initiatives and others like them, and for more media to celebrate people doing the work.
“If we can keep seeing powerful women, who are doing extraordinary things, on the front of magazines, and inside the magazines,” then others will be inspired to do similar works, she says.
Britt Howell wants everyone, especially people of color, to get outside. “I want to push us to get Black and brown people canoeing, biking, swimming, exploring the earth, birdwatching — all the things they don’t think we do,” she says. “We do. We’re just not amplifying.” In summer 2025, Howell is hosting an event to get people of color onto the Mississippi River with kayaker Devin Brown (who was featured on our August 2023 cover). Learn more: #BrittFit50
