About Gita

Gita Patel, Nutrition Consultant, is a Registered Dietitian, Certified Diabetes Educator, and Certified LEAP Therapist (Mediator Release Testing and LEAP Diet Protocol for Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Migraine, Fibromyalgia and more, caused by food sensitivity) in private practice.

She has one simple goal in life: Helping people to feed their health. For instance, foods rich in color are packed with phytochemicals that decrease inflammation throughout the body and stimulate the taste buds. She is passionate about promoting these medicinal qualities of fresh plants within delicious meals and snacks. Our busy, stressful lifestyles require foods that act as medicines to nourish our cells. From fresh plant foods, she builds easy and healthy meals that help people fight cancer, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and obesity.

She was raised in a traditional vegetarian family in India and her first experiences with food involved health and medicine.  For instance, she received cough medicine in the form of ½ teaspoon each of turmeric and clarified butter, a pinch of salt, and 2 ounces of warm milk just before bed.  Now we know that turmeric contains curcumin, which acts as an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory – an excellent solution to a sore throat.  This integral relationship with food was very different from her British boarding school, where medicine involved a pill or liquid and food was simply there for eating.  At age nine, her first year in boarding school, her passion to understand the effects of food on the body emerged. She has followed the resonance of that interest ever since.

In using food to improve healthy outcomes, Gita has helped her family; patients and other health professionals realize the health benefits of vegetarian cooking.  Gita has years of experience both in the science of nutrition and in actual food preparation.  Gita has taught nutrition through vegetarian cooking in a variety of venues including television.  She feels she best shares her knowledge through the combination of education and practice.  As the effect of what we eat on how we feel becomes better understood, Gita believes that food preparation is the one place where we can reflect daily on that fundamental relationship.

She now partners with individuals and organizations that need the science of nutrition translated into healthy vegetarian cooking.  Her philosophy and approach to creative healthy cooking relies on both her traditional Indian background, the varied foods she grew up eating, and combined with modern nutritional science.  As an antidote to our busy, stressful lifestyles, food is health.  Plants offer delicious meal choices that promote our well-being.

Credentials and Certifications

• BS in Nutrition, MS University, Vadodara, India
• MS in Nutrition, Drexel University, Philadelphia
• Post graduate courses in Nutrition, University of New Hampshire
• Registered Dietitian
• Certified Diabetes Educator
• Completed course in “Applying Functional Medicine in clinical practice”
• Certified LEAP - lifestyle eating and performance - Therapist (Mediator Release Testing and LEAP Diet Protocol for Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Migraine, Fibromyalgia and more, caused by food sensitivity)
• Recognized as the Emerging Dietetic Leader of the year by the state of New Hampshire.
• Served on the Diversity committee of the American Dietetic Association
• Served as an analyst for the American Dietetic Association’s Evidence Analysis library from 2005-2007.
• Attended the Leadership Institute, through the American Dietetic Association
• Attended the Johnson & Johnson’s diabetes Institute in February 2009