Iris Mercado, associate professor and member of the Health Education Unit in Hostos’ Education Department, drew upon her expertise in the nutrition field to help answer the perennial holiday question: “Is Coquito Healthier Than Eggnog?” Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Mercado knows a thing or two about health and the mainstay holiday drinks. Her thoughts on the matter appeared in an article written by Rachel Meltzer Warren and published in the December 2020 issue of
Consumer Reports.
Mercado, a health a nutrition expert, received her Ed.D. in Health Education with a minor in Exercise Physiology from Columbia University and a M.S. in Nutrition and Public Health from the School of Public Health, University of Puerto Rico. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Puerto Rico and received a Certificate of Training in Adult Weight Management from the Commission of Dietetic Registration (2002).
Her research interests and expertise are in the areas of fitness, weight management, diabetes and HIV/Aids. She has worked as a bilingual nutritionist consultant for over 25 years providing nutritional assessment, counseling, health education trainings, and workshops to various health centers and organizations throughout New York City. Mercado teaches Nutrition, Introduction to Community Health, Contemporary Health Issues, and Health for the Young Child. She is also currently working on a Latino food guidebook about food patterns, with emphasis on the different names used by Latin Americans for the same food items.