Nutrition that still
tastes like home.
Samar Chahayedسمر شحيّد
A bilingual registered dietitian in Metro Detroit. Samar works with the food your family already cooks — hummus, rice, olive oil, the Sunday table — using plain science and no crash diets.
M.S. · RD / RDN · DTR
You already know how to cook. You want the science to meet your table.
Most nutrition plans were written for a kitchen that isn’t yours. Samar writes for the one you have.
- You cook Middle Eastern food and you are tired of plans built on grilled chicken and quinoa.
- You want to be understood in Arabic or English — without being talked down to.
- A clinician mentioned your blood sugar, cholesterol, weight or energy, and nobody explained what that means for rice, bread and olive oil.
- You cook for children, for parents, or for both out of one pot.
- You have tried cutting, delaying and “being disciplined.” None of it lasted. You want something that does.
Three moves, in the language you think in.
Sufra is the spread — the table everyone eats from. It is where the work starts, because it is where your food already is.
Four ways families work with Samar.
One to one
Private sessions in English or Arabic, built around your meals, your labs and your week — not a template.
See services →02The whole household
One person cooks for three generations. Meals that meet several health needs from a single pot.
Feeding a family →03Blood sugar & labs
Glucose, cholesterol and blood pressure translated into what actually goes on the plate.
Areas of care →04Kitchen notes
Free essays in English and Arabic: the food she cooks, and the myths that deserve to be retired.
Read the notes →A Damascene table, a Michigan clinic.
Samar Chahayed carries two kitchens at once. One is Damascene: olive oil as a given, rice at the centre of the plate, yogurt and herbs on everything that will hold them, fruit after dinner, coffee allowed to take an hour.
The other is Michigan clinical training — assessment, evidence, labs, and the discipline of not promising what food cannot do.
Metro Detroit has one of the largest Arab communities in the country. The nutrition advice reaching it usually isn’t written for it. That gap is the work.
What she is teaching this month.
Written in English and Arabic. Not a meal plan. Not medical advice.
Za’atar rolls
The savoury cousin of the cinnamon roll: soft dough, good za’atar, and a breakfast that needs no new grocery list.
Tea, yogurt and iron
Tannins and calcium compete with iron; vitamin C helps it in. The fix is a clock, not a ban.
Date cookie dough
Oats, almond flour, tahini and date paste. Built from the pantry she actually cooks with — not diet-food imitation.
Start the way the community already talks — in a message.
Say what is on the table now, what a clinician asked you to change, and whether you would rather speak English or Arabic. That is enough to begin.
Education on this site is not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a substitute for care from your physician. Nutrition counseling is individualized.