Place of Residence: Southwest Missouri

Background: Just out of high school and early into her college education, Melinda started out in the business world, specifically in banking. After a handful of years into her career, she realized that she liked talking about food much more than talking about money. Melinda and her husband decided to take a different path. They sold most of their belongings, packed the absolute necessities into their two-door sedan and headed south to college.

Melinda jumped headfirst into the world of nutrition. Five years later, she had finished her Master’s degree, an internship and had passed the exam — she was officially a registered dietitian.

Melinda has spent the better part of the last 15 years since then developing her nutrition philosophy while working with people across the age spectrum (infants to geriatric) and across disease states. She learned the power behind food and nutrients in every aspect of how the body responds. She appreciates the importance of real food, whole foods, home cooking, and being connected to the soil it grows in.

Along her journey, Melinda was given the opportunity to attend an herbal retreat with Dr. Tieraona Low Dog in New Mexico. There, she spent two days hiking, harvesting wild herbs, drinking teas, learning about tinctures and otherwise living a dream. It was there that she felt the strong connection to the study of plants.

Besides being a foodie, Melinda has also always been a self-proclaimed nature bum. Since she was a child, if she wasn’t playing sports or riding her bike, she’d probably be in the woods or just playing in the dirt. She always felt the connection to nature – saving animals and the world, was something that was “just what you do” – which is still her mantra today.

Fortunately, as her career has evolved, Melinda has been able to combine both of these passions together, food and nature. While it may seem obvious to many that the two topics are intertwined, Melinda has found through her discussions with clients, many others do not see the connection at all. It is her passion and goal to bring the connection back to as many people who will listen. She fights to bring home cooking back to the table for everyone — especially the younger generation, inciting that cooking has become a lost art.

From there, it becomes all about mindful eating. After we have the nutrition knowledge, Melinda believes we have to relearn how to eat mindfully. Much of nutrition education is about the psychology of food, which in turn, helps clients make permanent changes in their eating habits, and thus live more mindfully with food and other aspects of their lives.

Current Projects: Melinda is currently building a nutrition communications commerce that provides clear-cut, easy to understand, evidence-based nutrition education via print materials (articles, blogs, books, newsletters, handouts) and in-person presentations. She is also finishing a children’s nutrition book and working toward an herbal product start-up company. She strives to educate as many people as she can about the connection between food, nature, and health.

Connect with Melinda:

All the Wild Things Nutrition

@allthewildthingsnutrition