Katie Parker Author

Katie Parker is the founder, recipe developer, writer, and photographer for the food blog Veggie and the Beast. She’s been a vegetarian for twenty-five of her twenty-eight years, and her boyfriend, Ryan—an avowed carnivore, outdoorsman, and bowhunter—came up with the name. With Ryan at the table, Parker has upped her game to serve high-protein, hearty, vegetarian fare that satisfies both of them. They live together in Edina, Minnesota. Kristen Smith earned a BS in Dietetics from the University of Kentucky and a PhD in Nutrition Science from the University of Minnesota. While pursuing her doctoral degree and studying the effects of an isolated component of barley fiber on human health and cardiovascular disease risk, she also completed a specialized dietetics internship through the University of Minnesota and became a Registered and Licensed Dietitian. Smith lives in Richfield, Minnesota.