9 Latinx Nutritionists Who Are Helping Us Whip Up Healthy Latinx Meals While Keeping The Sazón
There’s no denying that diet culture can be restrictive and highly punitive in some cases. Scores of Latinxs have been led to believe that to be healthy, they need to eliminate much of the food that they have grown up eating. Thankfully, there are nutritionists within our comunidad who are looking to change that perception.
In addition to helping their fellow Latinxs break free from generational food patterns and trauma, they are showing others that they can still have plátanos, frijoles, and tortillas in their meals while still living a whole and healthy lifestyle.
- Zariel Grullón, RDN, CDN, LD, LDN
A self-proclaimed non-diet dietitian, Grullón has built a brand, Love Your Chichos, that focuses on healing people’s relationships with food. The first-generation Dominican and Millennial mom implements a culturally rooted approach that takes into account her clients’ lived experiences and how to navigate the current food culture. She aims to help her gente embrace their heritage and love themselves.
- Krista Linares, MPH, RDN
The Mexican and Cuban-American dietitian tackles food culture with a blend of evidence-based nutrition, heritage, identity, and storytelling. Linares doesn’t believe that you need to choose between your culture and your well-being. She believes that both those worlds can co-exist in peaceful harmony (much to the dismay of those who say otherwise).
As a “public health nerd” and a recipe developer, she created the wellness zine, Nutrition Con Sabor, after her PCOS diagnosis left her feeling “disconnected” from the foods she grew up with.
- Dalina Soto, MA, RD, LDN
The Dominican-American author and nutritionist aims to help her comunidad by teaching them how to achieve true wellness. Her full-flavor living approach considers the day-to-day lives of her clients and how they can make healthier choices for themselves and their families with ease. As the resident chula at Your Latina Nutritionist, the author of “The Latina Anti-Diet” wants to help people love their bodies and shed both weight and body shame.
- Carolina Monroy, RD, LDN
The founder and CEO of Totum Nutrition aims to help her clients make informed choices with confidence, enabling them to improve their overall lives and achieve better sleep. Monroy’s advice is simple, thoughtful and realistic — she will always help you find a way to have your favorite foods (in moderation, of course). Through her business, she and her team offer compassionate nutritional care rooted in science and informed by the traditional Latinx diet. Her informed approach demonstrates to clients that living a better life is achievable, and it all begins with trusting oneself.
- Isabel Vasquez, RD, LDN
The second-generation American of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent leverages her life experiences to inform the guidance she provides her clients on their journey to adopting healthier eating habits. As someone who has had to heal her own struggles with food and her body, she understands how complicated the process of rewiring one’s “food brain” can be. As one of Your Latina Nutritionist’s chulas, she is an anti-diet, health at every size-aligned dietitian who has dedicated her career to helping her clients break free from restrictive food practices and negative body image.
- Dr. Su-Nui Escobar, DCN, RDN, FAND
Women’s health research is something that has been noted by many to be very underfunded, especially things like perimenopause and menopause. That’s why this Mexican nutritionist decided that it would be the main focus of her practice. As a woman, the cookbook author understands how changes within the body can make it more difficult to shed the weight gain that comes with hormonal fluctuations and has established an approach that uniquely caters to the needs and heritage of her clients.
- Diana Rodriguez, RDN, ASCM
The Dominican-American dietitian believes that you don’t have to give up your cultural foods like beef steak (bistec), habichuelas, and rice to shed the pounds. Her nutritional POV focuses on making the protein and veggies the star of the plate while the beans and rice play supporting roles. Rodriguez understands that consistent eating habits (and not restrictive ones) are what will move the needle. The New Yorker and certified fitness instructor uses her acquired knowledge to show folks the proper strategies for getting the most flavor and benefit out of their meals.
- Christy Wilson, RDN
There is something comforting about the foods we all grew up eating, and Wilson knows this. For the recipe developer, teaching and showing people how truly nourishing and good-for-you the foods that mainstream diet culture wants to admonish is a true passion and joy. The Arizona-based nutritionist, loves to create recipes like Mexican Dark Chocolate Quick Bread, Nopalitos con Huevos and Arroz con Leche with Almondmilk Horchata.
- Dr. Hortencia Jiménez, Ph.D
The Mexican-born nutritionist and sociologist of Wixárika ancestry understands how damaging diet culture can be within the Latinx community. Because of her experiences growing up in a culture that felt comfortable commenting on people’s bodies, the podcaster and health coach has spent her career trying to dismantle those philosophies and traumas. To her, food is beautiful and you shouldn’t feel badly about eating your ancestral foods — ever.
