Heather McCrory does not remember learning the meaning of the word dietitian as a child. But she knew by age 10 it was what she wanted to be when she grew up. That desire possibly came from childhood events involving her family.
“I had a young, skinny cousin who went to California and returned at age 19 after winning a bodybuilding contest,” McCrory said. “He talked a lot about being fit and he followed a very strict diet. It made an impression on me. I was also really interested in how the earth and what it produces can affect your body physically, specifically your health and nutrition.”
That interest was encouraged by grandparents on both sides of her family.
McCrory’s Dutch grandfather was a small-scale farmer and equipment inventor from Iowa. Her mother along with six siblings was raised in a frugal lifestyle and she followed a similar simple lifestyle as she raised her own family, including diet habits.
“We ate pretty basic, such as deer or elk, canned vegetables and a starch nearly every night,” McCrory recalled. “For my parents it was because the game was a good source of lean, affordable protein and they liked it. As a kid, I didn’t care for it as much,” she admitted wryly.
Another source of food as well as nutrition info for the young girl was native plants from the Yakama reservation. On her father’s side, McCrory’s heritage is German and enrolled members of the Yakama Nation. McCrory has fond memories of picking huckleberries, camas, wild carrots and “buttons” (a small flat root).
“As little kids, we mostly just went out for entertainment,” McCrory said. “We picked them and ate them right away. But I always thought it was neat that we could go out and harvest things that grow wild.” McCrory explained that she spent a lot of time on the reservation, visiting her grandfather and great grandma, including trips to the Toppenish Pow Wow.
Now McCrory realizes many of those events helped guide her toward her childhood dream — and to fulfilling her adult goal of making a difference in our community.
The Yakima native is a Davis High, Yakima Valley College and Central Washington University graduate. She is a registered dietitian who serves as the Washington Women, Infants and Children regional manager for the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic. She began working at YVFWC in 2009, wanting to advance its mission to serve the underserved.
“Poverty in Yakima is high and the area has a big potential to struggle with nutrition,” McCrory said. “With WIC we are making a difference and are able to offer proper nutrition some folks would not have otherwise.”
She also relies on family heritage when feeding her own family. By combining her own background with the Italian ancestry of husband Kyle, the couple’s four children benefit from a fun and varied eating experience, something probably common in many of our melting-pot homes.
Her ancestors are buried on Yakama Nation land so the family visits that site, giving McCrory the chance to point out the landscape and wild horses she grew up with. McCrory explained that she is not an enrolled member of the Yakama Nation, so she cannot hunt foods on the reservation and has not been able to find most of them elsewhere. But the family has picked huckleberries and annually picks berries in their own backyard — raspberries.
“We grow an obscene amount of raspberries,” McCrory said, “but they usually don’t even make it into the house. We snack on them in the yard and share with others.”
Just as her parents before her, McCrory feeds her children lean, healthy protein, albeit not wild game. McCrory attributes traits she shares with her great-grandmother for the belief that you can carry some of the past with you while changing the parts you don’t like.
“She and her two sisters attended the Fort Simcoe school and I feel fortunate that she still embraced her heritage and was able to retain her interest in the old traditions,” McCrory said, adding that her great-grandmother went on to teacher her own children to fish and pick roots and berries.
Another favorite McCrory family activity is making Dutch cookies stroopwafels and jan hagels, and McCrory has taken an interest in making her own pasta.
“My husband is Italian, his grandma was from Italy,” McCrory said. “We make the pasta and use it in alfredo, fresh spaghetti and fresh lasagna. Those old recipes take time, they are a process, but they are so good and the kids enjoy helping in the kitchen.” And that seems to fulfill another of McCrory’s life goals.
“I hope my kids recognize that good food comes from the earth, that their health is important and that food is related to that.”