Stefanie Sacks, MS, CNS, CDN, is a nationally recognized culinary nutritionist, author, educator, speaker, and consultant with more than thirty years of experience at the intersection of food, nutrition, cooking, and health. Personalized nutrition has always been at the heart of her work, grounded in the belief that meaningful nutrition care must consider not only what we eat, but the biology, individual needs, preferences, experiences, and circumstances of the person eating it.
Her book, What the Fork Are You Eating?, is a practical guide to making thoughtful food choices and navigating the modern food landscape with greater clarity and confidence. She is also the founder of WTFork.com, a community education platform that has evolved from helping people better understand their food to helping them better understand themselves—the experiences, beliefs, relationships, and stories that shape how they nourish and care for themselves.
Stefanie holds a Master of Science in Nutrition from Teachers College, Columbia University, is a Certified Nutrition Specialist®, a Board Certified Dietitian Nutritionist, and a graduate of the Chef’s Training Program at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts. Her academic and professional path is also informed by a deeply personal journey through Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), chronic illness, and disordered eating—experiences that led her to look beyond what we eat and explore how our histories can shape our capacity to nourish ourselves.
Over the course of her career, Stefanie's understanding of personalized nutrition has expanded beyond biochemistry and individual food needs to encompass the relationships, experiences, behaviors, skills, and environments that influence how people feed and care for themselves. Today, her work in trauma-informed culinary nutrition brings together nutrition science, attachment and trauma research, behavior change, food education, and cooking to explore nourishment as both a biological and relational experience.
She is currently piloting a trauma-informed culinary nutrition program at The Retreat, a nonprofit organization providing comprehensive services for individuals and families impacted by domestic abuse, bringing this approach into a real-world setting with people whose experiences of safety, care, and nourishment may have been profoundly disrupted.
At the center of her evolving work is Cook Therapy™, Stefanie's trauma-informed culinary methodology exploring how the embodied and sensory experiences of cooking may support agency, self-regulation, connection, culinary competence, and self-care. She intends to pursue doctoral research to formally study and evaluate the methodology, refine its theoretical foundations, and contribute to an evidence base for trauma-informed culinary nutrition.
Stefanie has collaborated with leading integrative and functional medicine practitioners and has advised cultural and culinary figures including Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Her work has included collaborations with Teachers College, Columbia University; the Environmental Working Group; and Luv Michael/US Autism Homes. In 2022, she authored The Health Benefits of a Plant-Forward Diet for the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. A seasoned media contributor, Stefanie has appeared across broadcast, radio, print, and digital outlets, translating complex nutrition science into accessible, practical guidance.
An inductee of Les Dames d’Escoffier, Stefanie serves on the advisory board of A Greener World and the NYC Impact Council for Pilot Light Chefs. She is a member of the American Nutrition Association and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and an expert contributor to the Center for Nutritional Psychology.
She lives on the East End of Long Island with her husband, two sons, and rescue pup Faith. She relishes time with her boys, cooking with family and friends, open water swimming, hiking, reading and writing. You can read Stefanie's story here.
