"We didn't get sick overnight," said Meghan Telpner, a certified nutritionist, "so we can't heal it overnight. If you want to feel different tomorrow, you have to change what you're doing today."

After university, Meghan got a job at an advertising agency. She loved the work. But she kept getting sick. She went to her doctor, but he didn't know what was wrong with her. Meghan's symptoms got worse. She found that by making small changes to her diet, she could cope better with whatever was ailing her. Finally, after 19 doctors, Meghan got a diagnosis: she had Chron's Disease.

An auto-immune disorder, no one knows what causes Chron's. If you get Chron's, the symptoms can manifest themselves anywhere in your digestive tract, but most often the disease takes hold in your lower intestines. Doctors usually resort to surgery, cutting out sections of your intestines and prescribing drugs until the symptoms go away. For some people, that is sufficient. For others, the disease is a recurring nightmare.

When Meghan got her diagnosis, she quit her job and moved to California for three months and sought treatment at a special clinic. When Meghan returned to Toronto, she was free of symptoms, and if she wasn't cured, at least Chron's was in remission. Today, almost two years later, Meghan considers herself healthy. That convinced her to become a nutritionist.

"What I do is try and educate people on the healing properties of foods," said Meghan, "and how they can use whole foods to better their health. If you can feel better on the inside, then everything you do in your life gets better: you work better; you have better relationships; you have more energy."

"I graduated in December 2007," said Meghan. "Then I worked at a resort in St Lucia. I went there to do my internship and ended up being hired through their peak season."

While having your office on a beach might be paradise for some, Meghan became a nutritionist to help people. "What I could do as a nutritionist was fairly limited," Meghan said. "I'd see them a few days before they'd go home. How much I could do was limited." You need to work with someone for weeks or months if they have a specific issue with which they need help.

Meghan is the first person to say she's not a replacement for a doctor. But many foods, whole, natural foods, have healing properties. "Often it's food they should add in," said Meghan. "More often than not, it's the foods they should take out - it's those foods that are causing problems." Most of us like the convenience of processed foods. But while processed foods appear convenient, they're anything but healthy. Dairy is good for us as children, but many adults have difficulty digesting dairy products.

"I try to stay away from meal plans," Meghan said. "If you give someone a week or two week meal plan, they can follow that, but then they get tired of it. Then what do you do?" Instead, Meghan prefers to give suggestions for healthy meals or foods you should include in each meal. Meghan offers other services. She can also visit your home, clean out your kitchen cupboards, and take you grocery shopping.

There are also lifestyle changes that Meghan will encourage. Manage your portions. Go for an easy walk after a meal: it will help you digest your food. Sitting on your sofa and watching TV after dinner won't help. Learn some basic yoga positions to help relax at the end of the day. Everyone loves eating at restaurants, but it's not healthy to do it every day.

While many of us will be quick to say that we don't have time to cook or that cooking is too complicated, Meghan has an answer for that: each week she hosts a cooking class that she limits to six people. "I start by laying out all the food we're going to cook with," said Meghan. "I hand out the recipes. I pair them up. I explain why we're cooking the dishes and how the ingredients affect them. Then we start cooking. At the end of it, we sit down together and eat the meal." Meghan delights in helping people realise that preparing our own meals is easy and need not be boring.

"Most of my clients are women in their early thirties," said Meghan. "Men tend to prefer not to associate what they eat with how they feel. Women tend to be more in tune with their bodies and how they feel."

While Meghan's nutrition practice is growing, the federal government might put a stop to it. They've sponsored an amendment to the Food and Drug Act, Bill C-51, which is supposed to regulate the supplement industry. While anyone can now package vitamin pills, Bill C-51 would effectively allow only the large pharmaceutical companies to do so. But what has the holistic community really upset is that Bill C-51's wording is so vague, it covers anything you might ingest that has therapeutic benefits.

"If I tell you these strawberries are good for you and rich in nutrients, if someone is sick and you bring them chicken soup, is that a therapeutic product?" Under Bill C-51, you're no more qualified to recommend garlic or sage or discuss its medicinal qualities than you are to practise brain surgery. A nutritionist, even if certified, it's feared, won't be able to practise unless they work under a doctor's direct supervision.

Why? "The holistic community feels it's Big Pharma behind the changes," said Meghan. "They would be the only ones able to distribute supplements." Supplements, whole and organic foods used to be the domain of hippies and extreme athletes. But now they're commonplace. Big Pharma sees it as a threat.

But not everything is bleak. Meghan used to live at Avenue and Lawrence. "I moved here a year and a half ago," said Meghan. "My mother has a pottery studio above where I live. She's been here for 15 years." Parkdale is thriving, and while many think of Parkdale as a dangerous place, Meghan considers it perfectly safe and she loves it. "There's a yoga studio, restaurants, boutiques. You don't need to leave the neighbourhood anymore. The people who live here want to make it a great community. There's so much diversity."

While Parkdale doesn't have an organic market of its own, there are other options. "Living downtown, there's a farmer's market almost every day of the week," Meghan said. "There's no reason not to support them. Organic produce isn't really expensive - it's just that it's really cheap to eat bad food."

"I love the Taste Cafe," said Meghan. "Cadillac Lounge is always fun. They have live music and whether I'm there or not I always hear it. Yoga Queen. I shop at Shopgirls. The Dollarama is great."