Meet Registered Dietitian, Maryke Schouten
Maryke Schouten BSc, RD
Calgary Registered Dietitian & Online Nutritionist
Specialty: Women’s Health, Menopause, Weight Concerns, Emotional Eating, Eating Disorders, Disordered Eating, Heart Health, Diabetes, Chronic Disease, Family Meal Planning, Geriatrics/Seniors Health, Dysphagia/Swallowing Issues, Plant-based & Sustainable Eating
Pronouns: She/Her
Maryke is a natural connector – you will feel her presence right when you meet her! She has a genuine interest in other people, their story and finds creative ways to weave healthy living into anyone’s life.
She was an ‘expat brat’ growing up in far-flung places such as Barbados, Indonesia and Hong Kong until moving to Calgary in her early teens. She moved to Vancouver in her early 20s, travelled, completed a diploma in Asian Studies and then went to the University of British Columbia (after some more travelling) where she discovered there was such a thing as a science-based nutrition program called dietetics! She completed a Bachelor of Science in Dietetics with Honours from the Faculty of Food and Nutrition from the University of British Columbia and Internship at the Vancouver Hospital.
Maryke spent the first twenty years as a Dietitian working in the whole gamut of life for seniors in long term care – from the kitchen to clients themselves – for Maryke it was all about how to spark joy with food for those people living with so many conditions and few choices. She eventually worked as a consultant supporting care homes in three different provinces. Her work in advocacy led to her earning the Dietitians of Canada Marie Taylor Award for Excellence in Long Term Care.
Following that, Maryke took a break from practicing nutrition to pursue her first passion of creative writing and published her debut novel The Beckoning Sky in 2021. At the same time, she had the honour of being reconnected with seniors through the StoryShare Project in which she captured local elders’ lived history in video with the not-for-profit Storytelling Alberta.
Public health education was Maryke’s next undertaking in dietetics. She started working with a large grocery retailer where she has provided countless virtual and in person grocery tours for all ages, on a variety of topics, using her love of creativity and storytelling to engage people in the delight of eating to be healthy and happy. She started to miss one-on-one connections with people so following building her knowledge and skills in counselling, was reconnected with people as a nutrition counsellor specializing in employee health, chronic disease, weight concerns, seniors health, menopause, women’s health, plant-based/sustainability and family meal planning.
Maryke is registered with the Colleges of Dietitians of Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia as well as a member of Dietitians of Canada.
She is an avid gardener and is part of a local not for profit urban farm collective in which ‘we grow food as a community for the community.’ She has a keen interest in where food comes from, the sustainability of the food system and the environmental impacts of the food we eat.
These days, Maryke balances nutrition, wellness and her creative pursuits equally, providing nutrition counselling, grocery store tours as well as working on her second novel and co-hosting writing and creativity retreats. She still has a love of travel and other cultures, including the food (of course!), and loves to experiment with recipes from around the world with a lens to locally grown and sustainable choices. She is a happy partner and mother of a male teen athlete (who is eating us out of house and home!), enjoys long walks in nature with her big black dog, Rocky, while Michelin the cat rests in his cozy bed.
