Dietitian, food writer, and nutritionist credits BU for finding her culinary passion
Oby Amidor, a food and nutrition industry veteran, began her journey at Binghamton University, where she studied Hebrew and ate with friends in the University Union’s campus pub. In 1996 she completed her studies with a Bachelor of Arts.
Amidor has made a name for herself as the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of nine cookbooks. Amidor also received the Media Excellence Award from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in 2018.
She has currently launched one cookbook and another, The Diabetes Meal Prep Cookbook, was recently published. This book is based on the Diabetes Plates Method and the subject of another book she authored and published by the American Diabetes Association. Her articles can be found on foodnetwork.com and shape.com, as well as on other companies’ media sites.
Amidor said she’s doing “a salad of things” including working as a nutritionist at foodnetwork.com, writing articles as a food expert for major media outlets like Reader’s Digest, working with commodity committees that represent farmers in the United States to help with nutritional education and teaching at Hunter College’s School of Urban Public Health as an adjunct professor. She also gives public lectures on various nutrition topics, gives cooking demonstrations, develops recipes and sees the country at book signing. She sits on the boards of various food companies and media outlets as a consultant, including the Danone Essential Dairy and Plants Advisory Board, Today’s Dietitian’s editorial board, and a member of the Forbes Health Advisory Board.
Your beginnings at the BU can be traced back to two nutrition classes – nutritional biology and nutritional sociology. Amidor wrote in an email that she applied what she learned at the BU right out of college to her first job.
“After college, I taught food safety at a cooking school, and what I learned in class is exactly what I taught future chefs,” wrote Amidor. “Everything I’ve learned has really closed. Today, as a food safety expert, I am asked to write articles on food safety for many national media outlets, including foodnetwork.com and US News & World Report. I was even asked to serve as a food safety expert at Dr. Oz Show when the romaine lettuce recall took place – about three years ago. “
Going forward, Amidor said, she looks forward to continuing to represent US farmers on commodity committees as they are an under-represented community in the media. The purpose of commodity boards is to maintain and expand markets for agricultural goods.
Looking back on her days at BU, Amidor said she didn’t miss the snow and remembered having to clean her car with trays from the school dining room in the second year of winter. She advised students to bring a shovel for their cars as in her experience the school’s trays are not effective.
She said she also missed eating with her friends at the University Union campus pub, an eatery that was on the BU campus until it closed in 1998. Amidor describes BU as a place where she discovered her interest in nutrition and started her career. She said BU students should know that it is normal to take this time to figure out what to do in their life.
“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in college – and BU students should know that’s okay,” Amidor wrote. “My advice is to take different courses so you can see what you like. After only taking two nutrition classes at BU, I realized I loved the information and applied to New York University (NYU) and got my Masters in Science in Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics and then my Registered Dietitian (RD) through the program at NYU. ”
