My name is Darya Pino and I am the creator of Summer Tomato. I’m a scientist, foodie and lover of local, seasonal foods. I also strive to be healthy, happy and eat amazing food no matter how busy my life is.

Currently I am working on my PhD in neuroscience at UC San Francisco, hoping to finish up this year. I also blog full time here at Summer Tomato and occasionally at The Huffington Post. I also write for Edible San Francisco. I was a long time columnist and nutrition editor for the UCSF newspaper, Synapse, where I spent several years as science editor as well. I received my undergraduate degree in Molecular and Cell Biology from Berkeley, and was recognized as one of the top students in my graduating class of 2003.

For the past 8 years I have studied basic science in labs at UC Berkeley and UCSF. I have worked extensively with both human subjects and experimental animals, using a wide range of scientific techniques to explore the basic biological functions of the brain.

Originally my plan was to go into medicine (well, after I switched majors from English literature to biology in my 4^th year of college–I graduated in 6 yrs) because I wanted to help people with diseases of the mind. However after a little digging I learned that there were no cures and very few effective treatments for the kinds of diseases I was interested in. I then questioned how satisfied I would be in medicine and opted instead to go into research.

Thus I began my career believing science would be the answer to curing disease and keeping us healthy.

But although many brilliant people are making key discoveries in health every year, ultimately I realized science wasn’t the answer I was looking for either–at least not in the way I had envisioned. This is because in large part the questions I hoped to answer have already been solved.

Over the past 3 years I’ve used my training in biology to discover a rich body of scientific literature on how to prevent and cure almost all of the major diseases that plague our modern society, including some neurodegenerative diseases.

It turns out the answer is simple. The answer is food.

But to understand how I got to this answer, you need to know a little about my past.

Click here to read my dieting history. (It’s long!)

More:

• My Diet History