WHO WE ARE
Soil to Soul Nutrition™ is a global virtual nutrition education and support practice teaching people navigating cancer, autoimmunity, and complex chronic illness how to nourish themselves with a terrain-based approach, alongside their medical team.
Founded by Heather Cooan, MBA, ONC, FDNP, NTP, the practice is built around a single principle: Deep Nourishment™. Every input across every dimension of your life either builds your body toward wellness or depletes it toward disease. Food, sleep, stress, relationships, environment, and what you carry emotionally. All of it counts, and the balance is always moving in one direction or the other.
Conventional medicine targets the disease. We support the person navigating it, helping you understand your disease process, identify the levers you can pull, and build as much capacity as possible to live well alongside your diagnosis. Those are different questions, and they require a different kind of support.
There is an old idea worth taking seriously: if you do not change direction, you will end up where you are headed. We are here to help you see the full picture and change the inputs that are moving you in the wrong direction.
We are non-licensed nutrition consultants. We do not diagnose, prescribe, or direct medical decisions. We work alongside your physician-led care team, not instead of it.
OUR APPROACH
Our philosophy is Deep Nourishment. Every input across every dimension of your life either builds your body toward wellness or depletes it toward disease. Food, sleep, stress, relationships, environment, and what you carry emotionally. All of it counts, and the balance is always moving in one direction or the other.
The Whole Terrain Systems Analysis™ is how we put that into practice. It is a clinical framework for reading the full terrain: eight internal body systems, the nervous system running beneath them, genetic predisposition as the foundation beneath that, and the external environment as the context within which all of it exists. We use it to identify exactly where capacity is being lost and what needs to change.
There is no script. We read your data, build a bio-individual strategy paced to what you can actually sustain, and refine it continuously as your terrain evolves.
WHY WE EXIST
Most people navigating cancer, autoimmunity, or complex chronic illness encounter a system that is excellent at acute intervention and poorly equipped for everything else. The metabolic picture. The nervous system load. The environmental inputs. The emotional terrain that shapes physiology as directly as anything on a lab panel. These do not fit neatly into a fifteen-minute appointment, and they rarely get addressed at all.
The gap between what the conventional system offers and what people actually need is where Soil to Soul was built.
Heather navigated that gap herself. A vulvar cancer diagnosis emerged from a rare autoimmune condition that went undiagnosed for 25 years, alongside Hashimoto's and complex PTSD. The medical system had answers for some of it. It had no framework for the whole terrain. She built one.
Melissa came to this work after 25 years in pediatric oncology and hospice, watching patients' children return as adults with secondary cancers, and understanding that the system she had devoted her career to was not asking the right questions.
Amber came through her own health crisis. Years of chronic illness and a rare, aggressive breast cancer diagnosis pushed her beyond the edges of conventional answers into the terrain-based and bioenergetic work that now anchors her practice.
None of us arrived here academically. We arrived here because the gap was real, the need was clear, and the conventional model was not going to fill it on its own.
HOW WE WORK
Every client engagement begins with a comprehensive whole terrain assessment. We review medical history, current prescriptions and treatments, lab work, genetics, lifestyle, environmental inputs, nervous system patterns, and goals to build a complete picture of where your terrain stands and where allostatic load is highest.
From there, we develop a bio-individual nutrition and lifestyle strategy designed to reduce allostatic load, support adaptive capacity, and build your terrain toward wellness, paced to what you can actually sustain right now.
We collaborate closely with your medical team. Whether you are working with oncologists, specialists, functional medicine physicians, or practitioners trained in metabolic approaches, we make sure everyone is aligned and working from the same picture.
Our support is ongoing. Terrain is not optimized in a single session. We gather data continuously, refine strategy as your capacity and terrain evolve, and stay alongside you as the work unfolds.
Medical history, current treatments, lab work, genetics, lifestyle, environmental inputs, nervous system patterns, and goals. A complete picture of where your terrain stands and where allostatic load is highest.
A nutrition and lifestyle strategy designed to reduce allostatic load and support adaptive capacity. Paced to what you can actually sustain right now. Your data determines the direction.
We work alongside your oncologists, specialists, and every other practitioner involved in your care. Everyone aligned, everyone working from the same picture.
Terrain is not optimized in a single session. We gather data continuously, refine strategy as your capacity evolves, and stay alongside you as the work unfolds.
How We Work Alongside Your Medical Team
Who Does What On Your Care Team
Your licensed providers lead your medical care. We support the whole person, mind, body, heart, and soul, during treatment, between treatments, and for the long haul of living well with your diagnosis.
Licensed Care
Medical decisions live here
Your Medical Team
Oncology, primary care, specialists, and registered dietitians
Diagnose and treat your diagnosis and its symptoms. Order and interpret tests and scans. Prescribe medications and any diet used as part of your treatment.
Your Integrative Medical Team
Licensed providers trained in integrative and metabolic care
Advise on supplements, testing, and therapies, and how they fit with your treatment.
Your Mental Health Team
Licensed therapists, counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists
Diagnose and treat mental health conditions. Provide therapy, trauma work, and crisis care.
Where Soil to Soul Nutrition™ Fits
Whole-person support, for the long haul
A few examples of how we support you. The work is broader than this, and it's shaped around you, so it shifts as your needs and your data change.
Food And Daily Function
Nutrition education and food guides that teach you how to build your plate: which foods carry which nutrients, and how the order you eat them in supports steadier blood sugar. All of it supports how your body works day to day, from digestion to energy and sleep.
Nervous System Support
Nervous system tools, and space to talk through the hard emotions.
Plans Into Practice
Help turning your medical team's guidance into meals and routines you can sustain.
Family And Decisions
Support for your family and relationships, and help reasoning through decisions so you land on what feels right for you.
The Line: We don't diagnose, treat, or prescribe.
Questions about your diagnosis, scans, treatment, or medications belong with your licensed providers.
Where Does My Question Go?
A few examples to help you sort it out.
Take These to Your Licensed Providers
"Will a ketogenic diet help with my cancer?"
"Should I take this supplement during chemo?"
"What do my scan results mean?"
Bring These to Us
"How can I keep my blood sugar steadier?"
"How do I keep living well between scans?"
"How do I tell my family what I need?"
An Example
Same Choice, Two Different Reasons
Licensed Care
Lowering Carbs for Ketosis, as Part of Cancer Treatment
Some physicians and researchers study ketosis alongside cancer treatment. Whether any diet belongs in your treatment is a medical decision for your oncology team and dietitian.
Soil to Soul Nutrition™
Lowering Carbs for Ketosis, to Support How Your Body Works
We look at blood sugar balance, insulin handling, and metabolic flexibility, your body's ability to switch fuels. Lowering carbs is one tool we may explore. If your medical team recommends ketosis, we help you put their plan into practice in your kitchen.
Supporting how your body functions is worth doing on its own terms. We make no promises about what it means for your diagnosis or your treatment. Soil to Soul Nutrition™ provides education and coaching support. We are not licensed medical providers. Talk with your medical team before changing your care plan.
WHO WE SERVE
We work with people navigating active cancer treatment or survivorship, people navigating autoimmune conditions, and those living with complex chronic illness that has not responded to conventional approaches alone.
We specialize in the cases others turn away. Multiple cancers. Rare presentations. Stacked diagnoses. Missing anatomy. Developmental and physical disabilities. Clients in active treatment with narrow margins. And those navigating the end of life, for whom quality of daily experience is the whole point.
These are not edge cases for us. They are the center of our practice.
We work with clients globally through a virtual platform. If your case is complex, your situation is difficult, and you want to understand what is actually happening in your body and what you can do about it, you are exactly who we built this for.
WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT
OUR VALUES
MEET THE TEAM
MBA, ONC, FDNP, NTP
Deep Nourishment Practitioner™
"We all have more control over our health than we ever thought possible. What we eat, the community we cultivate, and how we live our lives all matter in our health."
BSN, FDNP, Former RN
Deep Nourishment Practitioner™
"Chasing symptoms is a patch that may buy you some time. Real and lasting wellness results from deliberate daily habit changes. "
BA Psych, ADN, BWS, FMP, Former RN
Deep Nourishment Practitioner™
"There is hope and empowerment in addressing our modern lifestyles. So many premature losses can be avoided."
Client Success Stories
Every client story is different. Every terrain is different. Read what people are experiencing as they work toward living well alongside their diagnosis.
Book Your Intro
Book a 45-minute Intro Consultation with Heather. Bring your questions, your history, and what you've already tried. You'll leave knowing whether we're the right fit and what working together would look like. Service FAQs.