What’s in a name? The Eat With Me RD.

I’m Tara, a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist. And while a majority of people think I’m about to judge their food choices hard core because of that title, I can assure you I am not. No food-related judgments here, I promise. I may or may not be going to get ice cream after I write this. And you want to know why? Because I think ice cream is delicious and eating dessert, or your favorite so called “unhealthy” snack food, every so often isn’t going to hurt you when it’s part of an overall balanced diet.

And I am starting this blog because I want to help others enjoy their meals and find a way to sustainable, balanced eating over the long term which makes for an overall healthier life. As a dietitian, I have six years of schooling and thousands of hours of experience in the field of nutrition and dietetics. And my main goal is to take the information I have learned and the experiences I have had to make creating meals, choosing foods, and functioning in a very food-centered society an affordable and relatively easy task through the subsequent posts on this page. I want to help you so that you can go into the kitchen if you don’t have a recipe and whip up something that is quick, delicious, and nourishing for your body.

We are going to go through a lot of recipes/meal breakdowns and some other nutrition-related information that will hopefully help bring all of the scientific, evidence-based information in the field of nutrition down to everyday, useful, easily digestible information. We often hear the results of a new study proclaiming the amazing features of a certain food or nutrient, but what does that actually mean for our eating and how do we incorporate more of that into an overall balanced, healthy diet? Well hopefully, we are going to be able to uncover that as we go forward.

A few things to note as we continue:

All of the recipes we discuss are plant-based. It’s not that I don’t think meat can be part of a healthful, balanced diet--it can be! It’s just that I personally am a plant-based eater and a majority of the time I hear people say that they would eat more plant-based diets if it weren’t so expensive and difficult. And as there are a plethora of magazines, blogs, and food shows that do show you how to make quality, delicious recipes with meat, I am going to leave that to them and focus on how to show you that incorporating more plant-based meals into your everyday life can be both affordable and easy. And, I think we can all agree that even if you don’t think going completely vegetarian or vegan is the right decision for you, incorporating more plants into your diet is going to be a healthy choice that makes for a balanced diet. Questions about what a plant-based diet is? Check out our post that breaks it all down for you here.
I personally don’t believe in “diets”. I am not talking diets in the sense of medically necessary diets for those that have certain health conditions; or diets in the sense that your diet is your eating pattern; or diets in the sense that short term cutting of calories may be ideal for the health state of some individuals. No, I’m talking about fad diets. I’m talking about the diets that you see on the covers of magazines that require you to cut out complete food groups/nutrients, saying you can’t eat fruit or fats or carbs or whatever new thing rolls around the next time you see the cover of a magazine as you wait in the checkout line promising that you’ll feel the best you’ve ever felt and drop those last ___ pounds you’ve been trying to lose. Because those diets are short term and they generally result in more harm over the long term. I do, however, believe in creating for yourself a diet of eating habits that consists of all the things you want it to — creating a balance of more nutrient-dense options along with those more energy dense items you want to eat (e.g. that ice cream I mentioned I was going to get in a little while). I’m not saying you should be eating ice cream all day, every day but I am saying that everything in moderation is kind of my motto when it comes to food.
I’m really excited to create some awesome content and share it with everyone that is interested in this sort of thing (i.e. affordable, healthy, plant-based meals and snacks), so let’s go!