Welcome to the CULINARY NUTRITION CONFERENCE
*The Culinary Nutrition Conference was live in 2021.*
Enjoy the replay of the panel discussions, plus some extra special food demonstrations!
Session Details
Panel 1: Stories of Transformation: How Culinary Nutrition Can Transform Your Health
In this session, our panelists explore:
- How to accept the role nutrition plays in our wellbeing
- Braving the first step in taking responsibility for our health
- How to cope with naysayers in our lives
- How natural nutrition can merge with conventional health protocols
- How to maintain health practices long term
Featured Panelists
Related Posts and Resources
- What Can a Culinary Nutrition Expert Do?
- Unexpected Things I Learned From the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program
- What Does Prevention Really Mean?
Panel 2: Taking Your Food Product Idea To Market (and Retail!)
In this session, our panelists explore:
- How to know if your idea is a winner
- How to best test your idea in a low risk way
- When to take on investors (or is it even needed?)
- How to navigate regulations
- How to scale into commercial production
- Moving from market to retail
Featured Panelists
- Candi Haas and Rita Childers, Core & Rind
- Christine Bullajian, Paleo Nut
- Keisha Luke, Keisha Luke Nutrition & Catering
- Renée Mackey Burson, Soul Purpose Bars
- Shiru Macharia, Nutrisnack
Related Posts and Resources
Cooking Demonstration
In this session, our speaker explore:
- The power of healing spices
- Simple substitutes for common allergens
- How to integrate spices into your everyday cooking
- The joy of making something new
- A simple beverage that is a staple in traditional Indian cooking
Featured Culinary Nutrition Expert
Related Posts and Resources
- Creating Online Indian Cooking Classes: Meet Geeta Sakhuja
- Potent Herbs and Spices to Add To Your Kitchen
Panel 3: How Your Passion For Health and Food Can Change The World One Community At A Time
In this session, our panelists explore:
- How to get started in not-for-profit work
- What food security areas need support now
- How to make a living and fulfill on a bigger purpose
- How to create sustainable food systems
- Surprising ways culinary nutrition knowledge can serve local communities
Featured Panelists
- Alica Diehl, MBA Student in Sustainable Business Practices
- Katherine Boggs, Thrive for Good
- Melissa Flynn, Chicago Food Advocate
- Richard Blackwood, Impact Kitchen Community Outreach Manager
- Shannon Mayernik, Mayernik Kitchen
Related Posts and Resources
- What Is Food Security and Organizations Making a Difference
- How to Apply Your Passion for Health in Your Current Job
- How to Get Started Growing Your Own Food
- How a Culinary Nutrition Expert Gave Back To Thrive
Cooking Demonstration
In this session, our speaker explore:
- Practical meal-time solutions for busy people
- Tricks to get healthy meals on the table fast
- Simple shortcuts to make meal prep easier
- Keys to nourishing expectant and new parents
- A meal that is a winner at the family dinner table
Featured Culinary Nutrition Expert
Related Posts and Resources
Panel 4: One Meal For All – Getting Little Ones (And Selective Older Ones) On Board
In this session, our panelists explore:
- How to introduce healthier food into the home
- Effective ways to talk to your kids (and partners!) about food choices
- Establishing a healthy relationship with food from a young age
- What language to avoid when talking to kids about food
- How to best manage the selective eaters in the home
Featured Panelists
- Christine Flynn, Executive Chef at iQ Food Co. and Cookbook Author
- Cindy Spratt, Nutrition Counselor and Cooking Instructor
- Erin Ysunza, Family Recipe, LLC
- Michael Tannenbaum, Consciously Kosher
- Michelle Fox, Culinary Nutritionist
Related Posts and Resources
- Interactive Family Meals: Choose Your Own Adventure Meal Ideas
- 12 Family Friendly Recipes to Cook Together
- Talking to Your Kids About Their Health
- How to Raise an Adventurous Eater
- How to Get Kids in the Kitchen – And How This Can Change Everything
MEET OUR PANELISTS and speakers
Panel 1: Stories of Transformation: How Culinary Nutrition Can Transform Your Health
Jenny Bradley
Jenny has been thriving with her cancer diagnosis since 2017. She equips others to confidently advocate for themselves and have more peace and less overwhelm on their cancer journeys. Jenny has a Master of Arts in Intellectual Leadership and is a Certified Culinary Nutrition Expert who shares her cancer insights and tips through her Shrink the Mutant School.
Instagram: @shrinkthemutant
Website: shrinkthemutantschool.com
Melanie Connolly
Melanie is a Culinary Nutrition Expert and Functional Nutrition & Lifestyle Practitioner. She graduated from the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program at the Academy of Culinary Nutrition, The Institute of Transformational Nutrition (ITN), The Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) and Holistic Nutrition Labs Full Body Systems Program. She is also a Program Coach in the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program. Melanie’s focus is women’s health and teaching strategies and tools for getting healthy meals on the table.
Instagram: @melanieconnolly
Website: melanieconnolly.com
Sue Valentine
As a psycho-spiritual mentor for over 20 years, Sue works mainly with folks living with cancer. She practises holistically, integrating body, mind, emotions and spirit with people who want to transform their minds and bodies to create the best chance for healing.
Instagram: @lsueval
Tracey Somerford
Tracey is a personal chef and a mother to a little girl. Her passion is to help others take the stress out of meal planning and preparation. Whether you want help with recipes or would rather let her do the heavy lifting, she’s there for you!
Valerie Whitt
Valerie is a busy full-time working mom who discovered the power of food and the power of slowing down to create healthier ways of living for her family. After experiencing a health scare several years ago, she discovered that food can be medicine and made a full recovery. It has become Valerie’s mission to help busy families find ways to live healthier through nutrition and organizing life to be slower.
Panel 2: Taking Your Food Product Idea To Market (and Retail!)
Candi Haas and Rita Childers
Candi and Rita started selling healthier-for-you items four years ago at their local farmers’ market in St. Louis, MO, after the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program. They took a year and a half to perfect a shelf-stable recipe, and fill the void in the middle aisles of the grocery store with a pantry staple of plant-based goodness. You can now find Core and Rind Cashew Cheesy Sauce in grocery stores across North America.
Instagram: @coreandrind
Website: coreandrind.com
Christine Bullajian
Christine is the founder and CEO of Paleo Nut, a line of nutritious, grain-free and Paleo baking mixes. Becoming a Culinary Nutrition Expert gave her the extra confidence she needed to develop her recipes into products that families can enjoy and feel good about eating.
Instagram: @paleo_nut
Website: paleonut.com
Keisha Luke
Keisha Luke is a Culinary Nutritionist/Digestive Educator, and owner of Keisha Luke Nutrition & Catering which includes juice cleanses and healthy meal delivery. She focuses on how to nutritionally feed the body with the right foods to sustain energy levels, maintain healthy weight management, stabilize blood sugar levels, promote a healthy digestive system on-the-go, while combating cravings.
Instagram: @keishanutrition
Website: keishaluke.com
Renée Mackey Burson
Renée creates thoughtful, therapeutic snacks with real whole food ingredients. The Empower-MINT Bar for brain health, the Golden Glory Bar with anti-inflammatory properties in mind, and the energy-boosting Mocha MCT Bar are all fresh from the fridge. A super rad Mojo Berry Power Granola was also launched this spring.
Instagram: @soulpurposebars.ca
Website: soulpurposebars.ca
Shiru Macharia
Shiru teaches cooking classes, leads group programs and coaches clients to help them achieve their weight management goals and develop healthier relationships with food. She also has a nutritious snack company, Nutrisnack, that creates trail mixes and granola in her local community of Nairobi, Kenya.
Instagram: @my_planted_kitchen_
Website: myplantedkitchen.com
Cooking Demonstration 1 with Geeta Sakhuja, Masala Chai
Geeta Sakhuja
Geeta is a Cooking Instructor with her roots in Marketing & Advertising. She has been working with healing spices and practicing Indian cooking techniques in her home kitchen in Toronto over the last 10 years. Geeta’s virtual Indian cooking classes help you discover the power of healing spices to make healthy and easy Indian recipes free from common allergens such as gluten and dairy, without sacrificing the authentic flavours you enjoy.
Instagram: @geeta.sakhuja
Special Offer:
Mix Veg Pakoras + Masala Chai Demo (On-demand)
3-week Indian Summer Series
Use Password: CULINARYSPICES and get 10% off
Panel 3: How Your Passion For Health and Food Can Change The World One Community At A Time
Alica Diehl
Alica is a change agent for a regenerative food system. After 6 years designing and leading cooking and nutrition education programming for nonprofits, she pivoted into the for-profit realm. As Hungry Harvest’s Social Impact Manager, Alica developed business models that redistributed rescued produce to people facing significant barriers to healthy food access otherwise. Throughout her professional past, she’s also been a personal chef, collective CSA manager, and urban farm volunteer. She’s now pursuing an MBA, specializing in Sustainable Business Practices, at the University of Oregon.
Linkedin: @Alica Diehl
Website: amdiehl.work
Katherine Boggs
After completing the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program, Katherine got involved with Thrive for Good, putting the knowledge gained from the course to use in a different way. Katherine spent ten years of her childhood in Kenya so she’s thrilled to be a part of the work Thrive does and was lucky enough to visit and teach at the training centre in Kenya in January 2020.
Melissa Flynn
Melissa has been a long-time food advocate in Chicago, starting a community garden and evening farmers’ market on the north side of Chicago. For six years she was the executive director of Chicago’s Green City Market which is a nationally recognized farmers’ market. She was also named number 7 on 2020’s The 26 Most Influential People in Chicago list by Chicago Social Magazine. She now shares her love for food and getting others to learn to nourish themselves for a lifetime in the classroom at DePaul College Prep High School and in the community teaching cooking classes.
Richard Blackwood
Richard is a community instigator, cooking-from-scratch enthusiast, and avid plant parent. He currently works for Impact Kitchen as a Restaurant Manager and Community Outreach & Diversity Coordinator. After having a life-altering accident, Richard turned to cooking to zone out and find peace. He found joy in cooking on the fly and being more mindful of the food he ate. In 2015, Richard became a Culinary Nutrition Expert and also found his passion for advocating against food inequality within marginalized communities.
Instagram: @rtblackwood
Shannon Mayernik
Shannon Mulligan-Mayernik is an herbalist and plant medicine maker based in Northern New Jersey and the Co-Owner of Mayernik Kitchen, a modern-day herbal apothecary. Not only is Shannon creating a community around all things local and homemade, but she is also striving to educate on growing and using medicinal herbs to enhance your everyday routines and rituals.
Instagram: @mayernikkitchen
Website: mayernikkitchen.com
Cooking Demonstration 2 with Lindsay Taylor, Quinoa Fried Rice
Lindsay Taylor
Lindsay is a cookbook author, health researcher, doula, and mom who transforms an academic background into real-food, real-world, and practical solutions to help modern moms feel supported, nourished, and energized as they embrace the challenges and joys of new motherhood.
Instagram: @the.food.doula
Next Virtual Cooking Class: thefooddoula.com
Panel 4: One Meal For All – Getting Little Ones (And Selective Older Ones) On Board
Christine Flynn
Christine is the Executive Chef and Partner at iQ Food Co., a restaurant group with multiple locations in Toronto. She is co-author of the book How to Eat with One Hand: Recipes and Other Nourishment for Expectant and New Parents. With over 20 years of experience in hospitality, her simple, unfussy food showcases her passion for vibrant colours, textures and flavours.
Instagram: @theyamburglar
Website: howtoeatwithonehand.com
Cindy Spratt
Cindy is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist, Eating Psychology Counselor & Eating Disorder Recovery Coach specializing in Culinary Nutrition. Through workshops, working with kids, individual counsel and retreats, Cindy weaves her areas of expertise by infusing nutritional education with emotional guidance and culinary passion. It is her mission to help individuals make realistic, long-term, and sustainable life changes for thriving health.
Instagram: @cindysprattnutrition
Website: cindyspratt.com
Erin Ysunza
Erin is a certified Culinary Nutrition Expert as well as the owner of Family Recipe, LLC, an Oregon-based business dedicated to making meal planning and nutrient-rich cooking accessible to the whole family. Erin lives in Oregon with her husband and two young kids, ages six and three. Together, they love gardening, cooking, trying new flavors, and creating in the kitchen.
Instagram: @family_recipe_llc
Website: familyrecipellc.com/
Michael Tanenbaum
Michael is the founder and editor-in-chief of Consciously Kosher, an online resource dedicated to educating both the Jewish community and the general public on the overall health benefits of eating a kosher diet. The recipes are simple and quick, to accommodate parents juggling careers and multiple kids.
Instagram: @consciouslykosher
Website: consciouslykosher.com
Michelle Fox
Michelle Fox is a Culinary Nutritionist, mom, wife, friend, and yogi. It is her mission to build healthier communities and bring more joy into home kitchens. Michelle has studied at New York University, Inner Connection Institute, Apothecary Tinctura, Arvigo Institute and the Academy of Culinary Nutrition.
Instagram: @michellefoxlove
Website: michellefox.com
Culinary Nutrition Conference Host
Meghan Telpner
Meghan is a Toronto-based author, speaker, nutritionist, and the founder of the Academy of Culinary Nutrition, and head instructor of the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program. She’s written two bestselling books: UnDiet: Eat Your Way to Vibrant Health and The UnDiet Cookbook. Meghan’s success in cultivating a global community of UnDiet enthusiasts and Culinary Nutrition Experts has garnered her a feature in Forbes, and ranked her as one of the top 100 female entrepreneurs in Canada. She is married to Josh Gitalis and together they have a 3-year-old son.
Instagram: @meghantelpner @culinarynutrition
Website: meghantelpner.com culinarynutrition.com