Kathleen Benson, RDN LDFoods I Love:Cinnamon Sweet potatoes Apples Spinach Avocados Olive oil Eggs Homemade nut butters Coconut products Grass-fed lean beef and butterFoods I Avoid:Milk (I can have it in baked goods, but milk on its own gives me a cloudy head and makes me feel sluggish) Sugar-sweetened beverages Partially hydrogenated oils Processed meat Most ready-to-eat processed food snacks Food with unnecessary added sugarsMy Recipes & ArticlesWhat a Nutritionist Eats: A Pro Shares Her Top Go-To Foods on February 13, 2016Tummy Troubles? 3 Surprising Steps to Great Gut Health on February 4, 2016My StoryI am a clinical dietitian currently working in an inpatient hospital setting. I see a wide variety of patients each day. I work mostly with patients in the ICU and those with kidney disease, diabetes, various bowel diseases, pancreatitis, liver disease, cardiac problems, and a variety of cancers. I love helping patients turn their lives around by educating them on healthier diets and being able to provide adequate nutrition for those needing tube feeds. While I love helping people get out of the hospital, I have an even greater passion for keeping people out of the hospital and working with preventative nutrition.I received my undergraduate degree in nutrition from Texas A&M University in College Station, TX in 2014. From there, I completed my clinical-focused dietetic internship through Oakwood University this year and subsequently become a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist this summer. I decided to become an RDN after being very involved in sports while I was growing up. Training and competing in figure skating and taekwondo gave me the opportunity to see how much my performance was based on the foods I ate.Fast forward to becoming an RDN, I am still very interested in performance/sports nutrition, but I have also learned that I have a passion for gut health and food sensitivities. The GI and immune systems are my favorite body systems. Food has a direct impact on gut health. I believe that chronic inflammation is at the core of most disease. This is what lights the fire I have for food sensitivities and the immune response that happens in our bodies. Because of this, it is my passion to learn as much as I can and teach as much as I can about new research and practices in preventative treatment of disease to keep you out of the hospital and feeling great. I may be a new RDN but I plan on serving people through whole, minimally processed food specific to one’s own health needs.
