We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Willande Unelus a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Willande, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I started my business, I.C. Nutrition And Wellness because I like to cook and talk about nutrition with a cultural food preservation lens. Being my own boss was another reason I decided to go in the private practice route. As a Haitian Dietitian Nutritionist, I felt there was a need to support people who come from different cultures with various ethnic food backgrounds. Some cultural/ethnic foods are appreciated by many people but sometimes can be viewed as bad for health by some health care providers when individuals want to improve their health and wellness.

Preserving food culture is very important to me because I believe food, language, music or art can provide ways for people like me and others to keep their cultures alive as people move around the globe. In the field of nutrition and wellness, only a handful of cultures have been “approved” to depict what “healthy foods” look like, which need to change. I believe all cultural/ethnic foods provide healthy options for their people. The U.S. is a diverse country and as a health care professional, I want to support my clients with the option to eat from their cultural foods if they choose to by providing some education on foods that best support their health and wellness goals. My main focus is to help my clients balance meals and add necessary foods or nutrient they may be missing in their diet. The way I see it is, let’s keep our cultural food while staying healthy and well. Cultural food practices can keep us grounded, healthy and makes us better as people.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Willande Unelus. I was born in Haiti. At the age of 10, I came to the U.S. to live with my father. Moving to a new country was challenging. I had to get to know new people and learn a new language. Prior to studying nutrition, I was a computer art/art educator major which did not work out for me. Later on in my life though, I decided to pursued nutrition because my three boys had food allergies as infants. After gaining my credentials as a dietitian nutritionist and seeing a need to help people, I decided to focus on cultural nutrition, to help elevate cultural/ethnic foods in the space of health and wellness, as dietitian of color.

As a dietitian in private practice (part-time basis), I support and help individuals (different age range) improve their health and wellness goals through nutrition counseling, therapy, coaching and food culture education. I meet with clients through telehealth and in-person visits.

Currently, I work with individuals dealing with chronic condition such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, weight concerns, cultural food preservation and more. My goal when working with each client is to show them respect, provide a listening ear and support in any way I can as they are working on improving health goals.

I want potential clients to know that I genuinely care about people’s health and wellness and the preservation of cultural food preferences while pursuing health goals. When a person makes the time to meet with a dietitian who can understand their goals and meet them where they are, it can be life changing. We live in a society where food and nutrition can be confusing at time. My goal is to help individuals navigate through the confusion, in order to find what works best for them.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Becoming a dietitian wasn’t easy. I had to go back to college full time while being a full-time mom. Juggling family and work in the science field is not easy. However, having a vision to serve others made it worth the effort and now I am happy to say the hard work is paying off. I get kind words from clients about how grateful they are during nutrition counseling sessions for the things they are learning about food, nutrition and cultural foods to better their health.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

I work part-time for a different telehealth nutrition company in order to pay for the space I am currently meeting clients in. My goal is to continue working part-time with the company as I grow my clientele and go full time with my business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://illuminateculturalnutrition.com
• Instagram: icnutritionandwellness
• Facebook: illuminateculturalnutrition
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/willande-unelus-ma-rd-ldn-chn-a14b3059/
• Youtube: @IlluminatewellnessbyWillande
• Yelp: IC Nutrition And Wellness- https://www.yelp.com/biz/ic-nutrition-and-wellness-cary

Image Credits

Willande Unelus