10 Dietitian Side Hustles that Actually Pay
There are hundreds of positions we can take as Registered Dietitians. This industry is so vast, meaning RDs can find all sorts of opportunities to help people and use their skills. However, we get so focused on the 9-5, we sometimes forget that there are plenty of non-traditional side-gig options for RDs too! That same expertise that makes you AMAZING at your day job can benefit you after hours too!
These days, almost everyone is looking for a good side hustle. It makes sense! There are a lot of reasons to do a little extra on the side. For some, it’s making additional income to pay off debt, make ends meet, build savings, or move somewhere exciting! For others, it’s to actually pave the way for a future full-time private practice where you get to work for yourself on your terms. This is one of the best reasons to start a side hustle, because it means you’re not just making extra cash, but paving the way for a legacy and future of ABUNDANCE and MEANINGFUL IMPACT.
So, today, I’m discussing a few side hustles that you can start right now as an RD! Here are some ways you can use your expertise, passion, and unique perspective to earn more money and help even more people in your community:
10 Dietitian Side Hustles that Actually Pay
Be a virtual assistant for an RD.
As a Registered Dietitian, you know that our profession and knowledge-base is unique. Because of this, it can be very hard for RDs to find people to help them with their business because most people have no education in nutrition. So, RDs LOVE hiring other RDs or RDs2Be to help them with day-to-day operations.
Virtual assistant (VA) work usually involves helping RDs with administrative, creative, or technical support for their practice. It’s online, which makes offering your services to other RDs all over the world super easy! Your nutrition education and expertise makes you super valuable to your colleagues. Here are some things you may do as VA:
Assist with email campaigns, newsletters, and other marketing material
Respond to client inquiries and emails
Manage client records, appointment schedules, and other data
Handle billing and insurance verification
Organize and manage their email inbox
Review, edit or create nutrition based content, handouts or resources for the business
Write social media or email content for other RDs.
Content marketing can be a large part of the marketing strategy for some RDs, whether a part of an established company or running a private practice. However, not everyone’s strengths are in Instagram reels and email newsletters. So, if you have a creative side, you can combine those skills with your nutrition background and be very useful to other Registered Dietitians with content marketing plans! Your can save your colleague so much time and energy by supporting with these types of content creation. Never forget how valuable your education and training is!
Start your own blog or ghostwrite for another RD.
Another common content marketing plan for RDs is blog writing! There are two ways you could go about doing this as a side business. First of all, you could do freelance work for an RD who needs someone to write SEO-friendly blog posts rich with RD expertise. Imagine how hard that would be for a writer that does NOT have a nutrition background? RDs need someone that speaks their language and knows their stuff, because the blog posts they upload need to be ACCURATE, EVIDENCE-BASED, MEANINGFUL, and POWERFUL! RDs take their job very seriously and care about their clients (as you know), so everything they put out online that is linked to their business must be insightful and reliable.
However, if you don’t want to work for another RD writing their blogs, then you could launch your own blog! Of course, you already have the knowledge and the perspective, so now you just need to start writing and posting with purpose. When you do it yourself, you don’t have to conform to anyone else’s nutrition ideology or angle. You can share life-changing information online to people for free . . . and make money while doing it!
You can gain extra income from a nutrition blog side hustle by generating ad revenue, selling digital products, landing brand sponsorship, or affiliate marketing. That last one is probably the most common! It’s where you share affiliate links to your favorite nutrition and dietetics products and earn a commission when a follower purchases using your link. Of course, these are just a few options, there are so many things you could do on the dietitian side of things too like offering consultations or a nutrition based subscription/service but more on that in a moment!
Do nutrition analysis for restaurants.
RDs are an essential part of safe and transparent restaurant development! You can offer services that calculate the nutritional content of recipes, assist with menu planning, and ensure the food labels comply with national regulation. Your role is so important in new restaurants, because without you customers wouldn’t have a way to understand the nutritional benefits or drawbacks of the meal they’re interested in eating.
Plus, restaurants may not be able to offer a menu that’s diverse and inclusive without you. It may not be just about having a lot of delicious options, it could be about dietary restrictions! As an analyst, you can help restaurants offer selections that are in line with current nutrition trends and movements, whether that be creating recipes that are free of gluten and dairy or meat and eggs. You have the knowledge to support restaurants and future customers both equally!
Try freelance recipe development and analysis.
Many people don’t realize the Registered Dietitians LOVE food. We’re so into the science behind cooking and ingredients and it naturally fosters a love for and deep interest in food. Though you may have never considered recipe development, for a food-lover like you it could make the perfect side hustle!
You’ll spend your extra time getting inspired, sourcing ingredients, calculating nutrition information, and testing new recipes. You could do this for restaurants, cookbooks, food blogs, food companies, or magazines!
Sell an online course or digital product.
There are thousands of people out there who really want to hire someone to support them with their nutrition, but maybe they can’t because of time, are worried something won’t work for them or are looking for someone they trust. However, they are interested in getting control of their health and learning more about their eating habits. This is incredible for you, because it can make selling digital products and/or course based programming relatively easy with the right marketing plan!
To get started, offer something that doesn’t take you weeks to complete. (And make sure it’s digital, selling products means inventory, investment, and lots of risk, which you don’t want initially in a side hustle.) Maybe you could create a basic informational packet or workbook and see if you get any bites. Once you start to understand how you can sell your content and reach your dreamy client, go for the big stuff you’re really passionate about! Here are some ideas of digital content you could sell:
Weekly or Monthly Meal Plans
Grocery Lists
Nutrition Courses
Cookbooks
Nutrition Workbook (based on a specific concern)
Nutrition Charts or Toolkits
Meal Planning Templates
Food Log Printables
Virtual Cooking Classes
Nutrition eBooks
Teach nutrition classes at a local high school or university.
Most universities and high schools don’t require an actual teaching degree to teach. You just need a bachelors or masters (and sometimes a handful of other requirements depending on the state and district.) As RDs we have a natural love of teaching and our profession already involves SO much education, coaching, and encouragement, making us perfectly suited for the classroom.
If you want to pursue teaching further, make it a side hustle! You could easily teach once or twice a week at a university or high school and make a big impact, empowering young people with their nutrition journey or even inspiring them to become RDs themselves! How cool would that be?
Sell food photography or videography services.
Here’s another side hustle for those with a creative side! If you love photography, you can combine that passion and your passion for nutrition by offering food photography or videography. You could either take photos and videos and sell them to stock image sites, or you could advertise your work to restaurants, magazines, food bloggers, and more! Just get a sense of your niche and start figuring out how to reach your target audience.
Offer grocery store tours.
We all know one of the places our clients struggle the most is at grocery stores. Truly, many of our clients don’t know how to shop mindfully to support their nutrition goals, and there is only so much we can do in an online session or hour meeting. Grocery store tours take nutrition out of the office and out into the real world and they can still be done virtually!
Grocery store tours are hands-on educational experiences where you take your clients on a healthy shopping trip. You show them how to make smart food choices, you recommend brands, and you give individualized guidance on the whole shopping process. This is a great add-on service to earn some extra income or a solid side hustle if you want to build it out into its own business!
Build an online part-time nutrition practice.
Working for another company as an RD can be exhausting. So many RDs out there are overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated. It means you’re working a lot and may still be struggling to make ends meet. It might be time to seriously consider opening your own online private practice!
Don’t outright quit your day job. That adds a lot of unnecessary stress. Instead, start your online nutrition practice on the side! There are so many benefits to having your own private practice, including the freedom to help who you want, work when you want, work where you want, and charge what you want. Though there are a lot of challenges in launching your own practice while still working your 9-5, with the right strategy, that extra income can turn into a full-time gig fast!
If you’re interested in building a successful online practice, hire a nutrition business coach. You know as an RD that our field isn’t like any other industry out there. There’s equal parts heart and science, so in order to be an RD in private practice, you need to have a strong PURPOSE, DRIVE, and VISION. No one RD will have the same mission and delivery, meaning you need a business coach who is willing to intimately understand your dreamy client and your personal vision for the future, so they can help you achieve every one of your goals! This is why it’s so important to hire a dietitian business coach like me who gets you and gets the business.
The Rise™ is my proven self-paced, step-by-step group program created specifically for RDs who are looking to take their side hustle online nutrition practice and finally get to fully booked. I’ll give you all the hands-on support you need to have a PROFITABLE and MEANINGFUL nutrition business. Yes, love . . . you really can experience nutrition, business, and live all on your own terms!
You can make a profit and use your RD background working these side hustles!
Your RD education and experience are valuable in so many ways. Of course, you can change lives, but you can also explore many paths within our field. Take time to really understand who you are as an RD and as a person and how your passion for nutrition can transform into an enjoyable and profitable side gig and maybe that side hustle might even turn full time in the future!
For more on how to hone your talents as an RD and find meaning in an online private practice, read more on the blog, and don’t forget to apply here to discover how I can best help you! We can do this together!