Sarah Garone, a nutritionist in the town of Mesa, Arizona, spends her life tending to her family and spreading the word of healthful nutrition on her blog, ALoveLetterToFood.com. She also spends her adult life practicing her Catholic faith, a step away from her Evangelical upbringing.

“I was raised as a Protestant, an Evangelical,” she said. “I attended Wheaton College, a well-known Evangelical college, which was a strong part of my identity. My family can trace its roots to Reformation Germany, so becoming Catholic was an identity shift for me. My mom was also pursuing Catholicism at the time, though she is now Anglican.”

Sarah’s journey led her to Catholicism in her 20s. “I became Catholic when I was 26 years old. My husband and I attended a Sunday school class in our 20s, and the couple who taught the class were becoming Catholic, which helped spark our interest in Catholicism. My husband had been baptized Catholic, but was practicing his faith as an Evangelical at the time.” In 2009, the couple entered the Church and are parishioners at St. Timothy in Mesa, Arizona.

Her passion for cooking and developing nutritious meal plans began after she had her first baby. “I had some health issues after giving birth,” she said, “so becoming a mom and these health issues led me to look at our diet. I became interested in how to feed my children and in looking at my diet. … Learning how to cook healthy meals came out of that.” What Sarah found was that food, cooking and eating form a very broad industry.

Sarah educated herself on the basics of nutrition by doing research and reading many books to see how food impacts human health. “I started to think about a career in nutrition,” she said, “so I went back to school at Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Chandler, Arizona, to get an associate’s degree in nutrition. This degree involved a year-long internship, which included working in a hospital kitchen and seeing patients and adjusting their diets.”

She then began her very personal food blog, ALoveLetterToFood.com, where she posts recipes and articles about nutrition and ideas for how to entertain and throw parties that feature simple, healthful recipes.

How does she create recipes? As she noted, she takes standard recipes and tweaks them to make them healthier, such as substituting Greek yogurt for sour cream or whole grains for refined grains. She said that the recipes that make it to her blog are delicious. And sometimes she writes on nutrition topics and how to entertain and throw parties with healthy recipes that are not too complex.

“For me, I try to follow the Mediterranean, anti-inflammatory diet. I counsel others to find the right diet plan for them. In my own diet, I focus on eating fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, chicken and seafood, plus plant-based proteins. … I have a sweet tooth and that is my weakness.”

 

Recipe: Sausage, Sweet Potato and Brussels Sprout Hash

This is an original recipe from Garone’s blog, A Love Letter to Food, at https://alovelettertofood.com/2021/02/sausage-sweet-potato-and-brussels-sprout-hash.

A hearty meal for breakfast, lunch, or dinner with plenty of flavor from simple ingredients!

• Prep Time: 10 mins.
• Cook Time: 15 mins.
• Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp. olive oil (or more as needed)
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 2 medium sweet potatoes, diced 1/2-inch thick
• 3 c. Brussels sprouts, halved and/or quartered
• 1 12-oz. package smoked sausage links, cut into 1/2-inch slices
• 4 large eggs
• salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. In your largest nonstick skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add diced onions and sweet potatoes and sauté about 5 minutes, or until the potatoes begin to soften.
2. Make room in the skillet and add the halved Brussels sprouts and sausage slices. (You can add more olive oil, if needed.) Sauté another 3 to 5 minutes or until the sprouts and sausage slices begin to brown.
3. With a large spoon, press four divots into the sausage-veggie mixture. Crack an egg into each divot and reduce heat to medium-low. Cover the skillet and cook until eggs have just set, about 4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.