February Student Member Spotlight: Erik Lindstrom

Erik Lindstrom was born and raised in Minneapolis and took a less traveled path to becoming a nutrition graduate student at UMN – CFANS. After high school I received an Associate of Arts in Culinary Arts from Le Cordon Bleu formerly in Mendota Heights. A sense of adventure took me to the Colorado mountains and Vail provided the opportunity to build my career. A couple highlights include cooking for Michelle Obama and her daughters while they were guests at a boutique hotel where I worked and traveling to NYC as part of a team from a private restaurant to serve dinner at the James Beard Foundation house. After returning to Minnesota, I accepted the restaurant industry was no longer for me. I still valued the power and connection of food to health and wellbeing, so I returned to college to study a different aspect of food, nutrition. I hope to become a Registered Dietitian that works with cancer and/or diabetes patients and that my past experiences will facilitate a meaningful impact for those I work with in the future.  Erik is a member of the MAND Student Board.