Synergy Nutrition

18/11/2025

My 15-Hour Plant Based Nutrition Course is back! 🌱
Join me online on Thursdays 8am–11am PST starting Jan 8th until Feb 5th via Pacific Rim College.

We’ll cover how to build a balanced vegan diet, meet nutrient needs, and cut through all the conflicting nutrition noise on social media and beyond. Perfect for anyone curious about going plant based or working with vegan clients.

Registration is through Pacific Rim College - message me if you have questions! 💚

03/08/2025

🌱 Thinking about going vegan or supporting clients who are?

📚 Want to cut through the confusion and actually understand how to meet nutrient needs on a plant based diet?

My 15-hour Plant Based Nutrition course at Pacific Rim College is back this fall!

📅 Wednesdays, Sept 3 – Oct 1
🕛 12–3pm PDT
💻 100% online + open to everyone

Whether you’re a future nutritionist, a practicing professional looking to deepen your knowledge, or someone ready to make the shift to a plant based lifestyle — this course is for you.

We’ll explore science-based strategies, tackle common myths, and break down the facts on how to thrive on a vegan diet.

📩 To register, contact registrar@pacificrimcollege.com

Tag a friend who might want to join!

01/05/2021

When I was in university studying nutrition, it was ingrained in us that it was essential to eat dairy to get enough calcium. We would have representatives from the dairy industry come and talk to our classes of 300+ students about the importance of dairy, and we even visited local dairy farms for Agricultural Science class.

"What about plant based sources like broccoli and tahini?" I would ask, the professor would respond with "well you'd have to eat 10 cups of broccoli a day"*

This was over 10 years ago, so I am hoping there is more dialogue in university nutrition programs about meeting calcium needs from plant foods now, especially since approx. 65% of the population is actually lactose intolerant. Also, higher milk consumption does not seem to lower the risk of bone fractures, but it does seem to be associated with higher rates of cancer.

So, how can we meet our calcium needs on a plant based diet? Do we have to eat cups of broccoli all day? Is it something vegans even need to worry about?

The RDA of calcium for adults 19-50 years old is 1000mg per day. For children 9-18 years old it is 1300mg, and for adults over 50 years old is it 1200mg.

When you start looking at the calcium content of your favourite plant foods, it may first seem difficult to reach 1000mg each day.

Incorporating fortified plant milks is a great way to increase your calcium intake, as one cup provides about 300-400mg.

Calcium-set tofu is another great source of calcium. It provides about 250mg per 1/2 cup serving, but do check the labels as the calcium amount does vary.

When it comes to dark leafy greens, the amount of calcium we are able to absorb depends on the amount of oxalates in the greens.

For spinach, beet greens, and Swiss chard, only about 5-10% of the calcium in is absorbed.

With lower oxalate greens like kale, broccoli, Chinese greens, turnip greens, and mustard greens, the absorption of calcium is between 50-65%. Collards can be considered a good source as well, even though they are slightly higher in oxalates....

If you'd like to read the full article & check out the amount of calcium in some of these greens the link is in my bio 🌱

23/03/2021

Happy Spring everyone! 🌺
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I've been really missing my wonderful community here, so I wanted to give you a little update 💕
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I've been focusing a lot more of my energy on & these past few months. Along with working closely with my clients.
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Now that Megan and I have the new website for up and running, it is time to redo my own 😁
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I definitely plan to start posting here again soon! If there are any topics you'd love to see a post on please let me know 🌱

13/12/2020

🎄Vegan for the Holidays: This will be my 28th Holiday season leaving animals off my plate. I've experienced every sort of uncomfortable, awkward, & stressful dinner situation possible, especially in my early veg days (not so much anymore).
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🌱 I want to share some tips that have helped me over the years:

• Decide on how much of your 'why' you want to share when someone asks (because they will). Whether it's for the animals, health, or the environment - you get to decide how much you want to talk about when someone asks why you are vegan. If you just want to enjoy dinner and family time, maybe you'll just give a short answer like "I've never felt better" or "I don't want to eat animals". If you feel like going into more detail just be prepared as it can sometimes get heated, people will feel defensive when their habits are challenged.
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• Bring your own food, even if they say there will be vegan options it may end up being just salad and potatoes. If you bring some dishes to share, be sure to bring enough. I've brought food to share before and it's usually the first to go, and then you end up with no options. It's great that everyone wants to try the vegan options, just make sure you still get to eat.
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• Comments about how amazing the animal-based main course is may feel uncomfortable, especially if directed at you. You could try to find common ground, express how delicious one of the sides are that you're all enjoying, or that you're so happy about how many vegan options there are for a main courses now.
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If you're interested in this topic and want to hear about more tips, I'll be chatting with on the IG Live on Monday December 14th at 12pm PST. We'll be able to take your questions live, or can you send them in beforehand in a DM or by commenting below 😊
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This year the Holidays will of course be unlike any we've had before, but these tips may still be helpful for small dinners and/or dinners over Zoom etc
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📷 from
last year with

05/12/2020

Holiday Giveaway! 🎄🎁
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Head over to to enter to win one of the numerous $100 prize packs.
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One of the prize packs will include a Custom 7 Day Vegan Meal Plan 🌱

05/12/2020

One of my favourite episodes🌱
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀melina has always been a role model and a huge inspiration for me, especially with my decision to study nutrition at the University of British Columbia.
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Before smart phones were around, there weren't a lot of places to read about vegan nutrition, so I would always look forward to her articles each month in Common Ground Magazine.
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Her books with are essential nutrition resources for anyone interested in having a healthy, vegan lifestyle.
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This interview is filled with interesting nutrition information, the link to Vegan Boss Radio is in my bio if you'd like to listen to the full episode.
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Thank you to Vesanto and Brenda for being trailblazers in the industry, and literally writing the books on how to be vegan. 💚

02/12/2020

There are numerous benefits to eating a whole food plant based diet, and the results of a recent Randomized Clinical Trial (RCT) adds to the growing body of positive research. 🌱

This RCT involved 244 particiaptes over a 4 month period. The participants all had a high BMI, and were divided evenly into a control group (did not change their diet), and the low-fat, plant based group (changed to a plant based diet with 75% calories from carbohydrates, 15% from protein, and 10% from fat).

At the end of the 4 months, the plant based group lost weight, had increased insulin sensitivity, increased metabolism, and reductions in intramyocellular lipid levels (high intramyocellular lipids can contribute to insulin resistance and the development of Type 2 Diabetes). There were no significant changes seen in the control group.

"A low-fat plant-based dietary intervention reduces body weight by reducing energy intake and increasing postprandial metabolism. The changes are associated with reductions in hepatocellular and intramyocellular fat and increased insulin sensitivity."

If we are in good health, active, and just looking to maintain our current weight, I feel like we can eat a more fat, closer to 20-25% of calories. And of course the types and quality of fat are important. Please also keep in mind that growing children will need closer to 30-40% of calories coming from fat.

I'm not really an advocate for tracking calories or macros as I feel it can take away from the joy of eating, add too much stress, and is not really necessary if you are eating mostly plant based whole foods. It can be helpful when people are just starting out on a plant based diet if they are not sure how much food they actually need to eat since plant foods are generally lower in calories.
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If you have questions about how to balance your plant based meals, supplements, or meal plans please feel free to send me a message. 💚

02/11/2020

🌱Happy World Vegan Day🌱
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Thought I would share my vegan story today, and help answer any questions or concerns you may have.
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I was a huge animal lover as a child. When I was 9 years old I started an animal club with a couple of friends where we would write about and present a different animal each week, and bring a quarter for our donations to the World Wildlife Fund 🐯
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Just before my 11th birthday I was at a neighbour's for dinner. They had ordered pizza, one of the pizza's was vegetarian and I realized in that moment that I didn't need to eat animals 🐮
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Around that same time I had started volunteering at the SPCA. We weren't allowed pets where we lived, but at least I could visit the cats and dogs at the SPCA.
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My parents supported my decision to be vegetarian, but I definitely didn't do it properly in terms of the nutrition. This was in 1993, so not only had I never even heard the word vegan, there really wasn't access to as much information as there is now.
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In high school, I started to pay a bit more attention to the quality of my diet, but really wasn't something I focused on.
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In my first year I college there was an event at school, one of the booths was a vegan group. I actually told them I could never give up cheese 🙈
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Fast forward to a year later, I was in my first year of the nutrition program at UBC. We were doing a project at a small family-run dairy farm. I decided after that to go completely vegan 💚
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I had decided to get a nutrition degree, and go to a natural nutrition school as well, so that I could learn as much as possible about physiology, biochemistry, food science, agricultural science, and how to apply this information to be as healthy as possible as a vegan, and eventually help others do the same.
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In my 3rd year at UBC I organized a Food and Climate Change Conference with AIMS (the Alternative and Integrative Medical Society). So the environmental benefits of eating a plant based diet was also a motivating factor.
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I graduated UBC in 2010 and have been working as a vegan nutritionist ever since.
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Continued in comments ⬇️

01/10/2020

Tomorrow at 5pm PST Rhiannon Whitney from Willow's Wax Bar and I will be talking about our go-to tips for having healthy skin on the Plant Life Nutrition Instagram Live!

If you have any questions you'd like us to go over please feel free to leave a comment or send a DM.

https://www.instagram.com/plantlifenutrition/

We have a very exciting IG Live coming up with our friend & neighbour from 🙌🌱
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We'll be talking about her go-to tips, products, and treatments for glowing skin health, as well as nutrition tips from our nutritionist
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Join us live this Thursday October 1st at 5pm PST
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Rhiannon is a wealth of information when it comes to vegan beauty tips, and we're so glad we're able to share this discussion with our community 💚