About Tamar

Tamar Samuels is a registered dietitian, co-founder, and the Head of Clinical Partnerships at Culina Health, where she leads efforts to build and strengthen partnerships with healthcare providers. With over a decade of experience coordinating care and collaborating with healthcare providers, health systems, and medical organizations, Tamar is dedicated to bridging the gap between nutrition care and traditional medicine to improve patient outcomes. In her role, she advocates for patient-centered care and champions the transformative power of Food as Medicine as a vital component of health and wellness.

Tamar brings a distinctive approach to nutrition care, seamlessly integrating lifestyle medicine, behavioral modification, and evidence-based practices. Drawing on her expertise in clinical nutrition, psychology, and coaching science, she has helped countless people transform their relationship with food and improve their overall health. As the co-founder of Culina Health and a woman of color, she is deeply committed to making personalized and sustainable nutrition care accessible to all.

Tamar earned her master's in clinical nutrition from New York University and completed her clinical training at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Recognized as one of New York City’s top holistic dietitians by Well+Good, Tamar is a sought-after speaker and thought leader, having recently addressed the Association of Black Gastroenterologists and Hepatologists (ABGH). Her insights have been featured in The Huffington Post, Prevention, PopSugar, Women's Health, Shape, Insider, and on The Tamron Hall Show.

Q&A With Tamar Samuels

Why do you think collaboration between registered dietitians and healthcare providers is so important for patient outcomes?

There's quite a lot of nuance in how to treat and support patients who are managing complex conditions, and working collaboratively with a multidisciplinary team allows us to be more effective and shine within our expertise. There are so many patients who benefit from a variety of different interventions, from lifestyle to medical, and even sometimes surgical. Working together as a team with multidisciplinary providers allows us to fully support patients in a dynamic way that drives better outcomes.

What are some of the biggest misconceptions healthcare providers have about nutrition care, and how do you address them?

We often see healthcare providers have similar misconceptions about nutrition that we all do because there's a lot of misinformation and conflicting findings, even within the scientific literature. To complicate things even more, evidence-based nutrition protocols require a lot of personalization to be effective; nutrition isn’t one-size-fits-all! So yes, while providers are skilled at interpreting research it can be challenging to identify which protocols are appropriate and support patients in adhering them from a behavioral perspective. That's why collaborative care between registered dietitians and other healthcare providers can be so powerful. We can both align on the best evidence-based treatment plan, and registered dietitians shine in our ability to translate that into actionable steps and also personalize that so we can help support patient outcomes and overall better quality of life.

How do referral partnerships with healthcare providers help patients access better nutrition care?

 Seeing your PCP or medical specialist can be a great introduction to working with a registered dietitian. For providers, being able to have a trustworthy RD referral can bring added support to a patient’s overall care plan, and offer the patient a new awareness of a service that's a covered benefit under their insurance. I think more patients know what an acupuncturist does than what a registered dietitian does! Especially when it comes to insurance-covered healthcare services. So in that way, our referring providers are opening doors for their patients, and also for registered dietitians in general!

What trends do you see emerging in the integration of nutrition care within the broader healthcare system?

Right now, more and more providers, health systems, and insurance payers, are recognizing the value of food as medicine and registered dietitians as a core component to health and well-being, especially when it comes to prevention and management of chronic disease and overall wellness.

Why should someone care about their nutrition?

 Nutrition really is the foundation of health. We truly are what we eat, in that our diet impacts every tissue in our body. And the best part about nutrition is that there's so many opportunities for us to make changes, because we eat all day, every day! Each meal, or snack, is an opportunity for us to make a choice that supports our health. There are so many chances to make changes throughout our lifetime. We can start anytime and it will have an impact. We have so much more agency over this aspect of our health.

What makes the Culina Health RD team so special?

Being provider-founded and provider-led gives us an edge, because we’ve really built our company and our team based on shared values of whole-person health and putting patient care first. We know that in order for patients to get good care, we need to care for our clinical team. We create a lot of space for collaborative dialogue and support, both for our patients and one another. By uplifting dietitians as core to our mission, we're able to deliver exemplary patient care and empower the profession to be leaders in the food as medicine movement.