Rouses JAN-FEB_2017_FINAL-flipbook

the Eat Right issue

Meet Your Rouses Dietitian

I ate oodles of instant ramen noodles during my college days at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. Chicken, beef, pork, it didn’t matter; I wasn’t loyal to one flavor. On special occasions, I’d even skip the flavor packet and use jarred spaghetti sauce instead. How’s that for living? I may have even believed ramen to be one of the four basic food groups. It wasn’t until after college graduation that I became interested in eating a healthier diet. Researching online, I quickly observed that anyone with the power to blog was a nutrition expert. The information was

I completed a year-long internship at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and my Master of Nutrition at Texas Women’s University. I was then eligible to sit for and earned the Registered Dietician title, passing the exam. I was on my way, a far cry from ramen noodles. It was my work at the hospital that was my ah-ha moment. There I realized I did not want to work in a hospital setting, but rather help people before they reached that point. In Houston I met a dietitian who worked for a big Texas grocery chain. A light bulb

confusing and often inconsistent, and I wanted a more informed perspective. My hunger for the facts led me to Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana, where I earned a second bachelor’s degree in dietetics. The move toThibodaux was not easy. I didn’t know a soul and had to work three different jobs to pay for school. (You may have seen me at Starbuck’s or Chili’s.) But I ending up meeting some of the most wonderful and thoughtful people in Thibodaux, and I was incredibly sad when I left for an internship in Houston after graduation.

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MY ROUSES EVERYDAY JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2017