Heidi Van Pelt is a vegan chef and food entrepreneur whose documented work includes Playfood’s cashew-based cheese products and Füd, a Kansas City vegan restaurant that operated for about seven years. She is also widely known as the former wife or partner of Taran Noah Smith, who played Mark Taylor on Home Improvement.
That familiar label needs a legal footnote. Van Pelt and Smith held a marriage ceremony in 2001 and lived publicly as a married couple, but contemporary reporting says a California judge rejected the ceremony. In 2007, Van Pelt sought a divorce while Smith sought an annulment. A final court order resolving the legal characterization was not located for this article.
Her relationship generated the headlines. Her longer public record, however, runs through three kitchens: early raw-food work in Los Angeles, Playfood’s production operation and Füd’s Westside dining room in Kansas City.
Heidi Van Pelt’s documented career at a glance
| Period | Documented activity | Evidence limit |
|---|---|---|
| Late 1980s–1990s | College study, small media venture, production work, nutrition counseling, radio and vegan catering | Detailed by a 2007 profile; no complete résumé or degree record located |
| 2002–2007 | President and product creator at Playfood | Roles and activity reported contemporaneously; later ownership outcome is unclear |
| 2010–2017 | Chef-owner of Füd in Kansas City | Opening, menu, reviews and closure documented by local media |
| After 2017 | No current role verified | New biography pages make claims, but no reliable recent first-party source was found |
This evidence supports “vegan chef” and “food entrepreneur.” It does not support every credential, screen credit or current occupation attached to her name online.
The first kitchen: nutrition, radio and raw-food dinners
The fullest account of Van Pelt’s early work comes from the 2007 Pitch feature “Cheese Nuts”, which interviewed Van Pelt, Smith and people who knew or worked with them.
The profile says Van Pelt graduated from high school in 1986 after attending Oak Park and Blue Springs. She then studied fashion design at Stephens College, German and philosophy at the University of Missouri, and Russian Studies at the University of Washington. According to the article, she left the Washington program with one semester remaining. That is evidence of attendance, not a completed degree.
The same account says she started a media company called Emergent Films and later worked around Los Angeles productions as a production assistant and prop master. It does not provide a verified list of film or television credits.
Food eventually became the clearer professional line. The article reports that Van Pelt obtained an online nutrition certificate in 1994, worked as a nutritional counselor at a clinic in Watts and co-hosted a program called Raw Health on a local Pacifica radio station. Her vegan cooking and dinner events led to catering and counseling work.
Those facts should be described in their historical context. “Nutritional counselor” is the term supported by the source. It would be misleading to upgrade an old certificate into a present-day registered-dietitian or medical credential.
The second kitchen: turning cashews into Playfood
Van Pelt told The Pitch she had developed a cashew-based cheese recipe before meeting Smith. While the pair lived in Lawrence, Kansas, they developed the concept that became Playfood. The feature reports that after Smith turned 18 in 2002, they jointly incorporated the business in Delaware. Smith was chairman and chief executive; Van Pelt was president.
That date is worth noting because later biographies often say Playfood was founded in 2005. The detailed contemporary account places corporate formation in 2002, with the later years representing restaurant plans, production expansion and grocery distribution.
Playfood was more than a proposal. Van Pelt and Smith promoted its food through catered events, an orange branded van and large dinner gatherings in California. A Missouri production operation later bottled the cashew products. By late 2006, The Pitch reported that more than 50 Price Chopper, Balls and Hen House stores in the Kansas City area carried them.
An independent product review in the 2008 Vegetarian Journal described four squeezable, cashew-based vegan cheese varieties. That review confirms the products reached consumers beyond a private test kitchen; it does not establish company profit or national commercial success.
Van Pelt’s contribution was culinary as well as managerial. The 2007 feature consistently connects her to the original cashew recipe and identifies her as company president. It also documents a serious dispute over the business when the relationship ended. Both sides made financial and ownership allegations, and a judge issued an interim injunction in early 2007. Because the final resolution was not located, it would be unsafe to declare either party the ultimate owner or winner based solely on later entertainment summaries.
The relationship record is more complicated than “married in 2001”
Van Pelt and Smith first became national news because Smith was a former child actor and 16 years younger. Contemporary coverage confirms the public relationship. A September 2001 Chron news brief, drawing on reporting from the time, described them living together in Lawrence while Smith disputed control of his acting trust.
The more detailed account says the pair held a ceremony in Topeka on April 27, 2001, when Smith was 17. A lawyer friend was temporarily authorized to conduct it, and the couple exchanged mood rings beside a swimming pool.
But the ceremony did not settle their legal status. The Pitch reported that a California judge rejected the marriage because California did not recognize common-law marriage and Kansas required both parties to be 18 or have parental consent. The couple nevertheless lived and presented themselves publicly as married.
By 2005 they had separated personally while remaining tied through Playfood. In early February 2007, Van Pelt filed for divorce and sought a share of marital property, support and legal fees. The article says Smith’s attorney responded in March with an annulment request based on his age and capacity to consent in 2001.
IMDb and many biographies compress those events into “married April 27, 2001; divorced February 2, 2007.” That may be convenient profile shorthand, but it erases the contemporary legal dispute. Without the final order, the most accurate description is that they held a ceremony, lived publicly as a married couple and ended the relationship amid competing divorce and annulment filings.
The age difference is relevant because it affected the ceremony’s legal context and drove public interest. It does not justify reviving intimate allegations about either person’s sexuality, infidelity or motives. Those claims do not help readers understand Van Pelt’s documented career.
The third kitchen: Füd in Kansas City
Even while the Playfood dispute was active in 2007, Van Pelt showed The Pitch plans for another vegan concept called Füd. She envisioned a café serving cooked and raw dishes, including pizza and plant-based meats.
The plan became a restaurant. An April 2010 Füd opening report identified Van Pelt-Belle as its chef-owner. Before taking a permanent space, she had developed the menu through home dining events and a temporary setup at Bad Seed Farm’s downtown market.
Füd’s food was not designed as austere diet cuisine. The opening menu included meatless tacos, lasagna and chicken-fried steak. Van Pelt described her goal as making familiar food healthy and vegan. Her raw tacos used wild rice, avocado and goji-cashew cheese, extending the cashew technique that had anchored Playfood.
Independent local coverage confirms that the restaurant was a real, sustained operation. A 2010 KCUR food-critics segment described Füd as creative and singled out its nut-based cheese.
Füd lasted far longer than a pop-up. In August 2017, The Pitch reported that the seven-year-old restaurant had closed. Its account described a contentious breakdown involving owners and employees. The claims were disputed and do not produce one simple, proven explanation for the closure, so a general biography need not amplify them.
The supported conclusion is narrower: Van Pelt opened Füd in 2010, operated it as a chef-owner and remained associated with it when it closed in 2017. No reliable recent source reviewed here establishes what work she pursued afterward.
Is Heidi Van Pelt an actress or film-crew member?
No verified acting career was found. The supplied IMDb identifier opens a biography page centered on her relationship to Smith, not a documented filmography.
A different IMDb entry for someone with the same name lists an art-department credit for the 2002 film String Theory. The 2007 profile does say Van Pelt had worked as a production assistant and prop master years earlier, which makes a crew credit conceivable. It is not enough to prove the IMDb entry belongs to her.
Until a production’s original credits, résumé or direct statement connects that title to the vegan chef, the responsible choice is to keep the records separate. She also had no documented role on Home Improvement; that connection comes entirely through Smith.
Heidi Van Pelt age, current life and net worth
Biography pages commonly give Van Pelt an exact July 1968 birth date. Contemporary reporting establishes only an approximate age: she was described as 32 or 33 in 2001 and 38 in the 2007 feature. No authoritative birth record or direct current biography reviewed here confirms the exact day.
Her current occupation and residence are likewise not established. Füd’s closure is a documented endpoint for the public business timeline, not proof that Van Pelt retired, left the food industry or continues consulting privately.
No reliable public evidence supports a defensible net-worth estimate for Heidi Van Pelt. Net worth is personal assets minus liabilities. The sources do not disclose her current cash, investments, property equity, business value, settlement proceeds, taxes or debts.
Playfood’s grocery presence and Füd’s seven-year operation cannot substitute for those figures. Revenue is not profit, company money is not automatically personal money, and an old business dispute does not reveal a current balance sheet. The precise estimates repeated online are therefore speculation. This is the same evidence standard readers should expect across The Fame Mint’s celebrity profiles.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Heidi Van Pelt?
Heidi Van Pelt is a vegan chef and food entrepreneur associated with the cashew-based Playfood products and the former Kansas City restaurant Füd. She became widely known through her relationship with former Home Improvement actor Taran Noah Smith.
Was Heidi Van Pelt married to Taran Noah Smith?
They held a marriage ceremony on April 27, 2001, and lived publicly as a married couple. Contemporary reporting says a California judge rejected the ceremony’s validity. In 2007, Van Pelt filed for divorce and Smith sought an annulment; this review did not locate the final order.
What was the age difference between Heidi Van Pelt and Taran Noah Smith?
Contemporary accounts consistently described Van Pelt as 16 years older. Smith was 17 at the time of the 2001 ceremony, which was central to the legal dispute over whether the marriage was valid.
What was Playfood?
Playfood was a vegan-food business built around cashew-based cheese alternatives and catered food. Contemporary reporting identifies Van Pelt as its president and Smith as chairman and CEO after they incorporated it in 2002.
Did Heidi Van Pelt own Füd?
Local reporting identified her as Füd’s chef-owner when the Kansas City restaurant opened in 2010. It served vegan comfort food and operated until 2017.
Is Heidi Van Pelt an actress?
No reliable evidence establishes an acting career or a role on Home Improvement. A same-name IMDb crew credit could not be confidently linked to her.
Where is Heidi Van Pelt now?
Her current work and location are not reliably documented in recent public sources. The latest strong source reviewed here concerns Füd’s 2017 closure.
What is Heidi Van Pelt’s net worth?
Her net worth is unknown. No reliable source provides the personal assets and liabilities necessary to calculate it, and figures published by biography sites lack a transparent evidentiary basis.
Conclusion
Heidi Van Pelt’s story is more substantial than the age-gap headline that made her name searchable. Contemporary reporting documents years of vegan cooking, an original cashew-cheese concept, a leadership role at Playfood and a seven-year restaurant run at Füd.
Accuracy also requires keeping the unresolved parts unresolved. The 2001 ceremony faced a judicial rejection, the 2007 breakup involved divorce and annulment filings, a same-name IMDb credit cannot be safely merged, and no credible current-career or net-worth figure is public.
The clearest biography is therefore built around the work diners could actually taste: plant-based products and restaurants developed before cashew cheese became a familiar part of mainstream vegan cooking.
Read more carefully researched celebrity profiles on The Fame Mint.