About Coral
My practice is built on these core beliefs.
I believe that every person has the right to a healthy body, and that true health means more than just a lack of disease. I believe that the food we eat has a major impact on our health, both in terms of its nutritional value and of the physical effect the food itself can have on our bodies. I believe that food sensitivities and allergies are becoming more common, and that sensitivities in particular are poorly understood.
I believe that evaluation of diet is critical in the treatment of any person suffering from a long-term illness, whether diagnosed or undiagnosed, or who is experiencing unexplained symptoms. I believe that each person should be approached and treated as a whole human being, rather than just a set of physical symptoms.
Changing one’s life due to food sensitivities and allergies, our own or a family member’s, is more challenging and disruptive than many healthcare professionals appear to realize. Patients need better information and more organized and intensive assistance than is generally available.
My beliefs shape my approach to your health.
It is my goal to work with people who are confronted with a newly-diagnosed allergy or sensitivity, or who don’t feel well and are being passed from one doctor to another, with no definitive diagnosis or improvement in symptoms.
My aim is to assist patients in determining what foods are triggers (if they don’t already know), and to provide education regarding healthy, workable alternatives.
I hope to offer help in the form of nutrition counseling, accurate and helpful information, recipes (including modifying patients’ favorites), identification of innocuous foods in the grocery store, and referral to useful online resources.
As a person who has gone through this process, I feel uniquely qualified to understand the challenges involved in what can be a dramatic upheaval of one’s eating patterns and lifestyle. I hope that my experience, and the fact that I not only survived it, but turned it into my “mission” in life, will encourage my patients to feel that they, too, can manage their food sensitivities and thrive.
I wrote those belief statements as a student. They ring true today.
This philosophy statement still resonates with me, defining my purpose and driving me to be the kind of health care professional I would have liked to have had. I’d been interested in nutrition and healthy eating my whole adult life, so becoming ill and discovering that my body was no longer able to tolerate many normal, “healthy” foods was quite a surprise to me. The painstaking process of learning what was making me sick, as well as how to make satisfying meals without these foods, changed my life and kindled a desire to help others facing similar circumstances. This ambition, in turn, led me to return to school to study nutrition.
About my educational background
My undergraduate education and training at Buffalo State provided me with the general nutrition knowledge and clinical practice I needed to become a dietitian, as well as the opportunity to branch out into my unique areas of interest. After gaining my credential as an RDN, I began studying to become an Integrative and Functional Nutrition Certified Practitioner (IFNCP), obtaining that certification in August of 2020. In 2021 I entered Saybrook University’s Masters program in Integrative and Functional Nutrition and plan to complete that program in 2025. I will continue to study throughout my career, always striving to be the health care professional who makes a difference in my patients’ lives.