This goes out to anyone who has ever wondered what my business story is — how I created Eats 2 Know and all things related to fire department work. Ten plus years in, and I’m here to share more about my history and working with the fire service than what’s in my bio or a brief interview.
I’ve always loved a good plan, and a good plan has always loved me. It’s a huge part of my type A personality… until I started purposefully blending in a sprinkle of type B. My career path was meant to be a straight line (starting in my early teens); that was, until I discovered the world of nutrition, setting it off on a windy path. You see, nutrition was plan H. While plan H doesn’t sound as cool as plan A, I like to consider plans A-G as warmups with a purpose. Maybe being a ballerina or singer weren’t quite the obvious warmups for where I’m at now, but potential researcher and/or neurologist absolutely were.
Pre-med was a go until the second semester of senior year when I took a nutrition class and decided I wouldn’t apply to med school after all. Dang. There were clues that I wasn’t in it to win it for all things medical and research related when the negatives stuck out more than my passion did. It was too early for me to be unhappy in a career I hadn’t started yet, so I ditched it. I remember calling home with such anxiety to share the news that I had a newly discovered love for nutrition and a not-so-secret passion for teaching and simplifying a difficult subject (education electives were my favorite); only for it to be anticlimactic. Because, like in so many other areas of life, I had been my own harshest critic.
I started to look at my why. Simply put, I loved food. I loved understanding how to cook it, how it impacts the body on a biological, physiological, physical, and psychological level. I loved that food had an emotional piece, and for someone who cherishes memories, I held on to the fact that sometimes eating a certain food could transport you back to a specific moment in time. I also loved that there were so many variables that shaped how we eat — cultural, socioeconomic, taste, interests, and more. I wanted to understand it from every perspective, with science at the forefront.
Fast forward to nutrition grad school. A few ups and downs (understating all of this here) but I knew I was on the right path. An interest in combining food and exercise (kinesiology) was somehow considered wild and I created a combined thesis project out of it. And then there was a fire, something that most of us don’t experience. (It’s hard to explain unless you’ve been through it, but file it under awful.) One that spread across multiple condos and eventually caught up to mine. One that I had the privilege of watching tear through people’s valuables, destroying all and spreading so quickly. Privilege it was, as I had 30 seconds to grab anything I could. I say privilege for so many reasons, the main one being that I made it out, while someone else was not as lucky.
As I watched firefighters from multiple departments fight the fire for hours on that cold wintery night, I felt helpless. The Red Cross hadn’t arrived yet, so I did what I knew best — got food. Dunkin, of course, because that’s what was available. I handed out coffee, bagels and donuts. Here I was in school for nutrition providing options I candidly wouldn’t bring to a firehouse and to this day lecture in my work with the fire service about why not. And then there were the homemade peanut clusters I dropped off to the fire station as a form of gratitude. These are details I hold on to…
While timelines got pushed back, I eventually graduated, and I went on to attempt to start my nutrition practice. That grad school fire felt like my one small connection to the fire service until I had a nutrition client, a boxer who was trying to make the cut for a specific weight class, who happened to be a firefighter. A firefighter who crushed his nutrition plan and met goals like woah. A firefighter who showed my work to his department, which led to an interview process to create a nutrition program. Spoiler alert, he’s the firefighter and now dear friend who reminds me that surviving is thriving. That was the start of my career working with the fire service. The spark I call it. From then on out I knew I wanted to make this situation work. So, I went for it.
Interested in what happened next? Read Part 2.
Interested in free resources surrounding my nutrition for firefighters? Check out these blog posts.
Firehouse Magazine features can be found here.
Interested in applying to work with me and create a nutrition program for firefighters? Click here to apply!
Interested in learning more about the nutrition services I offer ? Click here to learn more.
I’m the nutritionist and educator behind Eats 2 Know, LLC. With a simplified approach to nutrition, I showcase that eating healthy is attainable, even if you’re on a budget or crunched for time.
The nutritionist and educator behind Eats 2 Know, LLC.
Great article glad you are doing so well.
Thanks Dave! I appreciate this comment big time. Right back at you. Wishing you well, in health.