I graduated from Wisconsin School of Business at UW-Madison in 2002. During 2003-12, worked for Mintel, a leading global market intelligence company, as a consumer packaged goods (CPG) analyst where I specialized in the food & beverage sector. At Mintel, over a period of nearly ten years, analyzed food/beverage consumption habits and food-purchase motivations/behaviors among (U.S.) consumers, read virtually most food/beverage labels (in the U.S.), and studied major scientific studies linking food and health.

My engagement with finding food and health link, however, had started five years before joining Mintel when a doctor prescribed dietary intervention instead of pills to address a health problem of a family member. And, it worked! Since then my kitchen has become the proverbial lab where my family members often participate in everyday food experiments.

In order to get a deeper insight into the food and health connection, I completed a certificate course in plant-based nutrition through eCornell in 2015. In the past, I have also worked with the “Cool School Food” project in Ithaca as a parent volunteer.

My high involvement with food in both personal and professional realms has cemented my belief that if we know more about what we eat and how it affects our health, we can make better food choices and in turn avoid a host of chronic diseases such as type2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, etc. This belief has motivated me to launch a blog www.trafficligthcook.com, where I explore the link between health and food as well as offer “the good, the bad, and the ugly” on food ingredients in the context of their health effects.