Welcome Amanda Terillo, MS, RDN, author of Kitchen Confidence: Improve your Health, Save Money, Waste Less, to my plant chat today. Living in Central Virginia, Amanda has enjoyed a career providing medical nutrition therapy in both inpatient and outpatient setting. While helping individuals improve their life with food, she learned about the role that agriculture and farming play in nutrition. She deepened this passion by pursuing a master’s degree in Sustainable Food Systems from Green Mountain College in Vermont (which is where I am studying too!). For her program she wrote and published the guidebook Kitchen Confidence: Improve your Health, Save Money, Waste Less, which is about creating nutritious meals while reducing food waste at home. She is an active member in Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group, and has worked with farm to school initiatives in Washington DC and Virginia. She also blogs at Nutritious Life RDs. During her free time you can find Amanda working in her garden, beekeeping, taking care of her chickens and dogs, cooking, reading and hiking. Keep reading to learn more about Amanda!
What was the inspiration behind your book, Kitchen Confidence: Improve your Health, Save Money, Waste Less?
I wrote this book for my capstone project for my graduate degree in Sustainable Food Systems. I wanted to create a project that combined my two passions: agriculture and nutrition. I believe that cutting out processed food and cooking more at home are great steps to improve our food system. I have chapters in this book focused on simple recipes, understanding what a well-balanced meal looks like, and lots of grocery shopping tips. I am also passionate about decreasing food waste. Food waste is a huge issue in our food system, and this book helps people to learn how to utilize leftovers and store foods for optimal usage. Food waste is not only harmful to the environment, but also to our wallets!
What are some helpful tips that you can give to help increase people’s confidence in the kitchen?
Cooking nutritious and simple meals does not need to be a difficult and stressful task. Learning how ingredients work, understanding that recipes, especially savory ones, do not need to be followed verbatim, and having several easy 10-minute recipes in your toolbox is a great step to becoming more confident in the kitchen. Once you learn how ingredients work and what a well-balanced meal looks like, you will find creating meals a simple and enjoyable task. The best thing to do is just to start cooking! You never know what you are capable of until you try.
What do you want people to gain from your book?
I want people of all economic and social abilities to learn and understand how to live a nutritious life. Like I mentioned, healthy cooking does not need to be stressful or cost a lot of money. My goal is for people to learn how to be creative, mindful and resourceful in the kitchen to optimize their health.
What is your personal nutrition philosophy?
Initially I wanted to study culinary arts. After taking some classes, I realized how connected nutrition and cooking are. Once I became interested in health and learned about nutrition, I realized how nutrition and agriculture are so entertained, but unfortunately very disconnected in our modern food system. My nutrition philosophy is to eat mindfully, eat simply, eat mostly at home, to not waste food, and to express gratitude for the food you are eating.
What are five foods you can’t live without?
Eggs! I have 11 chickens and their eggs are so tasty and much more nutritious than store bought eggs. I also love veggie pizza (grew up in NY), mushrooms, sourdough bread, and blueberries.
Here is one of Amanda’s favorite plant-based recipes.
