Sarah Lockwood was scrolling on TikTok one morning when she came across a video for bean soup. The vegan recipe - which, you guessed it, contained beans - promised to be a healthy way for women to up their iron intake during menstruation. While the recipe was straightforward, and seemed to be catered to a very specific group of people, a number of comments under the video asked whether they could replace the beans in the bean soup video for another ingredient. “Can I substitute the beans with something else?” wrote one TikTok user.
This wasn’t the first time Lockwood, who is a 26-year-old lifestyle coach and content creator living in New York and New Jersey, had seen comments like this before. Another video for a strawberry milk recipe had someone else wondering if they could still drink the milk, even though they were allergic to strawberries. Enough was enough for Lockwood, and she took to the platform to make her own video describing these remarks as “what about me?” comments.
