Toby Amidor, a veteran of the food and nutrition industry, began her journey at Binghamton University, majoring in Hebrew studies and sharing meals with friends at the University Union’s Campus Pub. She graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts.
Amidor has made a name for herself as a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of nine cookbooks. Amidor also earned the Media Excellence Award in 2018 from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
She currently has one cookbook being launched and another, “The Diabetes Meal Prep Cookbook,” was recently published. This book is based on the Diabetes Plate Method and the topic of another book she wrote, which was published by the American Diabetes Association. Her articles can be found on foodnetwork.com and shape.com as well as on other companies’ media sites.
Amidor said that she does “a salad of things,” including working as a nutrition expert at foodnetwork.com, writing articles as a food expert for major media companies like Reader’s Digest, working with commodity boards that represent farmers in the United States to help with nutrition education and teaching at Hunter College’s School of Urban Public Health as an adjunct professor. She also does public speaking on different topics of nutrition, gives cooking demonstrations, develops recipes and sees the country during book signings. She sits on the board of various food companies and media outlets as an advisor, including on Danone’s essential dairy and plant-based advisory board, on Today’s Dietitian editorial advisory board and serves as a Forbes health advisory board member.
Her origins at BU can be traced back to two nutrition classes — biology of nutrition and sociology of nutrition. Amidor wrote in an email that she directly applied what she learned at BU right out of college at her first job.
“After college I ended up teaching food safety at a culinary school and what I learned in class is exactly what I taught future chefs,” Amidor wrote. “Everything I learned really came full circle. These days I am asked as a food safety expert to write articles for many national media outlets on food safety, including foodnetwork.com and U.S. News & World Report. I was even asked to be on The Dr. Oz Show as a food safety expert when the romaine lettuce recalls were happening — about three years ago.”
In the future, Amidor said she is looking forward to continuing to represent U.S. farmers on commodity boards, as they are an underrepresented community in the media. The purpose of commodity boards is to maintain and expand markets for agricultural goods.
Reflecting on her days at BU, Amidor said she does not miss the snow, recalling having to clean off her car during the winter of sophomore year with lunch trays from the school dining hall. She advised students to bring a shovel for their cars because in her experience, the school lunch trays aren’t effective.
She said she also misses eating at the University Union’s Campus Pub with her friends, an eatery that used to be located on the BU campus until it closed 1998. Amidor describes BU as a place where she discovered her interests in nutrition and launched her career trajectory. She said BU students should know that taking this time to figure out what they want to do in their lives is normal.
“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in college — and BU students should know that is okay,” Amidor wrote. “My advice is to take a variety of classes so you can see what you like. After taking only two nutrition courses at BU, I realized I loved the information and I applied to New York University (NYU) and received my master’s in science in clinical nutrition and dietetics and then my registered dietitian (RD) through the program at NYU.”