Li-Feng Xie Oria

PhD in progress at McGill University, Canada

Registered Dietitian, Canada

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Text/Tsuki

Photo/Oria

Editing/Lee Wenbo

"A rich and delicate feeling for food is something that can be experienced in a lifetime. feelings can never be experienced in a lifetime. Eating, in fact, has no fixed method; it is a study full of human fireworks, and moreover an improvisational, behavioral art that is intertwined with life." --Cui Daiyuan, "The Taste of Beijing"

Oria grew up following her parents to live in Canada, studying and working all the way there. As a veteran " foodie", Oria found her ideal career and grew to become an accomplished registered dietitian. Now, while continuing her studies and work in Canada, she conducts grounded nutrition science on social media in China, hoping to return to China in the future and contribute to the health of Chinese people.

The following is an oral presentation by Oria herself.

Canada is a country of immigrants, and I was lucky to be exposed to the charms of different cultures from a young age.

For example, in junior high school my classmates brought food and I would observe their eating habits. There were Indians, Africans, and Europeans in the school, and we all had different eating habits, so I found it interesting just to see the different foods in their lunchboxes!

Additionally, volunteering in the community has brought me into contact with people from different countries, whose behaviors and lifestyles are all different in one way or another. I'm interested in these cultural differences, and I've always tried to explore the differences and ****commonalities within different cultures.

China's food culture is profound, but there are many foreign food cultures that we can learn from. The differences in food culture between China and foreign countries regarding the perception of food are what I want to share with Chinese "foodies" and one of the reasons I started my public blog.

For example, one of my recent articles was about quinoa.

The benefits of "quinoa" have been featured in a number of national media outlets. It is indeed a wonderful food, and I do hope that this food can be integrated into the daily diet of Chinese people and add some different colors to our Chinese food culture.

In order to understand the story of quinoa more y, I spent about two and a half months in South America, living with the local people to understand the local quinoa food culture. Then I will combine it with the Chinese dietary habits, and make some dietary improvement suggestions based on the Chinese dietary habits.

Drinking more hot water

is not exclusive to the Chinese!

Diet and nutrition are more than just what you eat every day, they are part of life. I spend about three months of the year exploring the world.

During my travels, not only do I seek out and encounter types of food I've never seen before, but I also observe the way the same food is presented in different civilizations.

For example, rice and dumplings are two of the most familiar foods to us Chinese, but in fact rice is not eaten in the same way around the world. Dumplings are not unique to China, and Europe and Italy have their own dumplings, which are prepared differently, but the Chinese will be able to see the déjà vu.

It was also interesting to see the different perspectives on food. I thought that " drinking lots of hot water" was a Chinese monopoly, but as I found out during my time in Bolivia, it's the same on the South American side.

When I was sick, the locals all told me, you can't drink cold water, drinking hot water is good for your stomach and throat. China is in Asia and Bolivia is in South America, so far apart, but can have so much in common, it is a very wonderful feeling.

In addition, travel can also trace the history of the auspicious feathers, for example, I have been to Turkey, the terminal station of the Silk Road, from the local people's food culture can be perceived, the whole spice market at that time how a little bit from Asia to Europe.

The history of the past has faded away, but there are many "relics" in the culture, waiting for us to discover, and food culture is one of them.

In order to be an authentic "foodie"

I studied nutrition

I worked part-time as a dietitian during graduate school, doing one-on-one nutritional counseling, and also going to the community to teach children some simple nutritional knowledge. I also traveled to South America as an international volunteer, teaching local women in their communities how to eat healthier.

In terms of nutrition, we have three main areas: clinical nutrition, community nutrition and food nutrition. I personally favor community nutrition. That's what I'm trying to promote and popularize. My current research project is also to make an online educational platform to help diabetics change their eating habits for the better.

In fact, my becoming a nutritionist is also related to the fact that my father suffered from type 2 diabetes when I was eighteen years old, and since I was a child, my father has been making me all kinds of food all day long, and would also take very beautiful photos of them, which also gave me a great inspiration, on the one hand, I was hoping to help my father to make his body better, and chose nutrition, and on the other hand, I also wanted to carry forward this kind of " spirit of eating" to be carried forward.

But if you don't know what you're eating, there's no way you can be a 100 percent foodie, and you may even be threatening your own health. To satisfy my foodie goals, I chose to become a dietitian and then accidentally got a PhD in nutrition.

I wanted to make a simpler, more interactive, and personal online platform to integrate nutritional knowledge, lifestyle knowledge, and medication knowledge into the daily lives of people with diabetes.

But for the science itself, the popularization of science, most people stay at a relatively superficial level. For example, a friend will simply tell you that eating fat is bad for you. But is fat absolutely harmful? What are the consequences of not consuming fat at all? How much should we eat how to eat is reasonable?

In fact, they just don't know how to utilize it. My purpose, including the purpose of my scientific direction, is to be a health advocate, and I want to incorporate real science into my life, rather than posing all sorts of intimidating scientific jargon. That's why the name of my public website is The Grounded Nutritionist, and I want to make "science" a tool you can pick up anytime.

My tips for starting a self-publishing business

I categorize my tips for starting a self-publishing business into three main points: teamwork, fan interaction, and continuous recharging.

I started out by opening a microblog and updating it off and on for about a year and a half, then I decided it wasn't a long-term solution and wanted to get more seriously involved in the business. But a lot of operational knowledge I do not understand, such as operating mode, marketing, interaction with fans, etc., I do not understand at all, and then I found two great partners to help me.

Now we have become a four-person team, we are responsible for different areas, everyone has their own exclusive work. With the help and encouragement of the team, we support each other in cheering and brainstorming, and our science has become more efficient and interesting.

In addition, I do self-media in the past few years from all directions to meet a lot of netizens, many of them also slowly become a reality in the very good friends.

I think the most interesting thing about doing self-publishing is that I can see and recognize people of different ages and backgrounds, and I can also learn a lot from them. In our fan community, we talk about life and food every day, which is actually a kind of learning. A lot of good ideas are contributed to me by my fans, and I'm very grateful to them.

Besides that, most of the time when we do science, we are doing " knowledge output ". This requires a constant " knowledge input", and when the group is asked a question I don't know how to answer, I see it as a motivation that spurs me to recharge my batteries.

Self-media entrepreneurship is also entrepreneurship, but it is not just as simple as making money. Working hard to improve myself, and then better share my results with everyone, I think that's the biggest meaning of doing self-publishing, right?

The first person to eat crabs

The pursuit of a healthy life by Chinese consumers continues to intensify, and consumers are experiencing significant changes in their life philosophy and health management behavior. The status quo is - nutritional needs are everywhere . The National Nutrition Program (2017-2030) also coincides with that point in time, and establishes a long-term strategy focused on the development of the nutrition and health industry.

In fact, since 2017, the Chinese Nutrition Association has begun to set up the qualification certification of Chinese registered dietitians, and the whole industry is slowly developing in a good direction. Many good nutritionists in China, and registered dietitians overseas are slowly returning to China. But no matter which country, there will be a certain misunderstanding of nutritional knowledge, only the degree is not the same.

The situation facing Chinese dietitians is similar to that of Chinese medicine, which is full of misunderstandings and prejudices.

For example, when I meet a stranger and introduce myself as a nutritionist, the first reaction is: "Are you a nutritionist? I'm a dietitian, so make me a recipe and tell me how to lose weight.

Of course, our work is not just to lose weight so simple, and alone on the matter of weight loss itself there are great misunderstandings. Many young women to lose weight is to make a fuss about not eating, this is not only harmful to the health, the more terrible truth is Originally can not reduce the meat, and then how to starve or can not be reduced .

Once I answered some nutrition-related questions on Zhihu, many people came up and questioned: nutritionist is not the kind of random reading a book to take a test can get? Doesn't anyone get to be one, and can only prepare meals for other people or something?

At that time, I realized that people don't just have a misunderstanding of the scientific theories of nutrition, but also have a great misunderstanding of our profession as registered dietitians. So even my own profession, also have to put into the category of popularization of science, this thing sounds a little laughable, but as the first group of crab eaters, these are the things I have to face and overcome.

Plus the fact that there are so many different cuisines in China, food is really one of the things that the Chinese have carved into their bones. It's too hard for us not to eat, but uniting nutrition and food to make everyone healthier and happier is something that can be achieved through my efforts. My platform has also been sharing more ways to cook nutritious food with you.

In the future, we may expand our business to include food assessment, online classes, one-on-one nutritional counseling, and more. For me, doing self media is the output of knowledge, while doing scientific research is part of my knowledge input, I get nutritional knowledge from scientific research, and then really apply it to everyone's life, forming a virtuous cycle.

For me, the relationship between scientific research and online popularization of science is to take from life and then use it in life. Eat well, treat yourself well, and know how to live.