She is the creator of the website Southern Soufflé and has contributed to several cookbooks including Feed the Resistance by Julia Turshen, Soul by Todd Richards, and Sunday Suppers by Cynthia Graubart, as well as Beyond the Plate. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Saveur, Food & Wine, Food52, the Kitchn, Essence, and HuffPost, among others. Council has spoken at the Southern Foodways Alliance symposium and was a guest chef for the James Beard Foundation’s Sunday Supper South.

She is a nutritional neuroscientist whose research examines the negative effects of food additives on neurological symptoms, as well as the positive protective effects of certain micronutrients on the brain. The main focus of her research is on glutamate, an excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain which is dysregulated in many neurological conditions—including chronic pain, migraine, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson’s, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)—and psychiatric conditions (such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, and ADHD). Over-excitation in the brain via glutamate can cause excitotoxicity with corresponding neuroinflammation and oxidative stress. Dr. Holton’s research focuses on reducing this neurotoxic triad by eliminating exposure to dietary excitotoxins while also increasing intake of key protective micronutrients, using a “Food is Medicine” approach for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric symptoms. She is currently also working to understand the mechanisms behind the effects of the diet she created, using precision nutrition approaches such as metabolomics and microbiome analysis, combined with neuroscience data from EEG and MRI. Her work informs not only clinical care, but also the ongoing discussion about the health impacts of ultra-processed food, where exposure to food additives may be a driving reason for the adverse health impacts being observed.

She has spent the last decade developing literary programming and education for leading cultural institutions, independent bookstores, and venues in the country—most recently establishing a vibrant program of events and content for Bold Fork Books, D.C.’s first culinary bookshop.

Her stories have been included in the 2019 and 2021 editions of The Best American Food Writing. In 2021, she was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. She has been nominated for a James Beard award and an IACP award, and she is originally from Dallas, Texas, one of the busiest travel hubs in the world.