Physician-Chef-Dietitian Partnerships for Evidence-Based Dietary Approaches to Tackling Chronic Disease: The Case for Culinary Medicine in Teaching Kitchens

Abstract

Since the middle of the 20th century, the American food environment has become increasingly ultra-processed. As a result, the prevalence of chronic, diet-related disease in the United States has skyrocketed. Meanwhile, physicians are still poorly trained in nutrition. A recent innovation that aims to address this is “culinary medicine” programming taught by teams of physicians, chefs, and registered dietitian nutritionists. Culinary medicine is an evidence-based, interprofessional field of medicine that combines culinary arts, nutrition science, and medical education to prevent and treat diet-related disease. It employs hands-on learning through healthy cooking and is typically taught in a teaching kitchen, either in-person or virtually. It can be dosed either as a patient care intervention or as experiential nutrition education for students, medical trainees, and healthcare professionals. Culinary medicine programs are effective, financially feasible, and well-received. As a result, healthcare systems and medical education programs are increasingly incorporating culinary medicine, teaching kitchens, and interprofessional nutrition education into their patient care and training models.

Keywords:

• nutrition
• interprofessional
• innovation
• education

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the many individuals whose forward thinking was foundational to building this field. We are grateful to the team at Health meets Food and the Certified Culinary Medicine Specialist board for providing actionable training, curricular resources, and much inspiration. We appreciate the vital role of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine in advancing the field from fringe to mainstream, work through which the relevance and support for culinary medicine has grown. We are also very thankful for the thought leadership of the entire Teaching Kitchen Collaborative team for building connections in this work internationally and always asking questions until we find answers (while eating really delicious and nourishing food).

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.