My Story and Contact Info

Hello. My name is Elyn Zimmerman. I am a Nutritionist and Community Health Education Specialist who spent close to thirty years serving in many diverse community and clinical settings, both observing the massive changes in our food culture and speaking with thousands of individuals about the intimate art of eating in response to the personal and cultural milieu.

I then shifted over to doing program development work related to nutrition education; and food access and affordability at the state and national level, respectively. I am a perpetual student of the multi-layered science of nutrition and community health issues, thinking about big issues and hoping to contribute small efforts.

Having worked in a Community Health Center, a university-based Medical Center, Ob/Gyn practices, WIC programs, and on a college campus, the good fortune has been mine to have served people from all over the world and from many different life paths. Each of them has informed how and what I think about approaches to nutritional and health care on both the individual and societal level. And, this inspires what I write about.

I am sympathetic and sensitive to the vagaries of how and why we eat; and, I honor the personal experience in a world of generalities. I’ve heard the pain of women, men, and children who hate their bodies and listened to the self-berating that often accompanies the simple joy of loving food. I’ve witnessed the confusion and fear that now accompanies the necessary act of keeping ourselves nourished in order to live.

Much has changed in my time. Certainly, I have witnessed the panic induced by an increasingly unhealthy populace plagued by ‘lifestyle-induced/diet-fueled’ chronic diseases–lifestyles and diets largely manipulated by heavy forces beyond our mere mortal control. I have sat nearby, listening to the table of experts and policymakers responsible for changing dietary advice and figuring out how to solve our nutritional crises. And, I have also observed many amazing people putting forth some creative and caring successful initiatives that are changing the world.

I blog about the conundrums that confound this whole modern eating experience–in hopes of helping others to be kinder and gentler with themselves. I perhaps offer a more quiet message about the care and feeding of the human being than the current cacophony suggests. I wish it could all be more simple–and that everyone could just have some good food. Until then, I hope my writings can contribute to the larger conversation taking place about food, culture, the environment and everything in-between.

I thank you for visiting and reading my blog. I don’t write a lot these days, but still pipe in now and then. I welcome hearing from you and love receiving topic-inspired haikus. Please leave your thoughts and comments on my posts and feel free to subscribe. I can also be reached at zimmermanelyn7@gmail.com.

Warmly, Elyn

15 Comments

15 thoughts on “My Story and Contact Info”

  2. Anne Marie forwarded your e-mail about this site. Love it. As one who is looking for peace with food and my physical being, I look forward to your insights and observations.

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  3. How appropriate to hear about your blog the day after Thanksgiving. We’re entering the holiday season with all its dietary joy and terror. Looking forward to your insights.

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  4. Okay. I’ll subscribe. I read it anyway, but maybe you get some sort of prize for having lots of subscibers? Thanks for being a nutrition goddess all these years!

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  7. Hi there. Long time. Dave and myself and son Max passing through Rhinebeck on way to Hyde Park. Visiting and thought of you. You look beautiful. Margery

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  8. Wow your dedication and the frustration of the cookie story ring true. I teach in a school w a population at high risk for diabetes. The characteristic red gums and rotting teeth of my high school students, the problem of encouraging students to eat food from our high carb lunch program because it is marginally better than their Mountain Dew and chip diet, the candy store that was shut down not because of the candy but because a faction complained when we started selling pizza which they perceived a threat to the
    Lunch program. Giving out liters of soda as rewards for academics. All this in a population that once thrived on wild food.
    A student who passed out in class from low blood sugar, not diabetic but living on sugar and didn’t eat.

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    • Thanks Bill for your response from what I like to call the nutritional trenches and your observations of the effects of poor nutrition on our young people. Your description of the hypoglycemic crash is common and well noted. i have written about our traditional wild food diets as well. thanks for raising these great points.

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  9. Hello,
    I love your blog/website the information you provide to your readers is very helpful especially in a difficult situation like eating disorders. I recently have successfully been in “”remission”” for a whole year since my 3 year battle with a binge/purge eating cycle. Could I please publish a guest post on your blog?

    Thanks. I look forward to hearing from you!”

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