What we eat affects our health and wellbeing. Yet, most physicians receive very little nutrition education during medical school and subsequent training. Many times, they feel ill-equipped to provide dietary guidance to patients with chronic medical issues. Our focus on nutrition education in medicine recognizes the importance of food and dietary practices to aid in management of many commonly seen conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, and chronic pain.
Culinary medicine is a new evidence-informed field in medicine that blends the art of food and cooking with the science of medicine. Culinary medicine is aimed at helping people reach good personal medical decisions about accessing and eating high-quality meals that help prevent and treat disease and restore wellbeing. (La Puma) It is well known that most physicians have minimal training in diet and nutrition.
Curriculum
In 2013, Tulane opened the first culinary medicine center and developed and licensed a curriculum, Health meets Food. Uniquely blending evidence-informed medicine with the culinary arts, this curriculum aims to train healthcare providers on dietary treatments for common medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. This comprehensive Culinary Medicine curriculum (now housed at George Washington University and offering over 30 modules) provides a systematic way to teach providers about food, nutrition and coaching patients on making lifestyle changes.
UCI licensed the Health meets Food curriculum in 2016 and developed a Culinary Medicine Elective for the first-and-second-year medical students. Over 200 learners have completed this training at UCI.
Mission
Our goal is to create a cohort of faculty who have basic training in Culinary Medicine to expand educational, research, and clinical opportunities at SSIHI and UCI.
Faculty Cohort
Our goal is to create a cohort of faculty who have basic training in Culinary Medicine to expand educational, research, and clinical opportunities at SSIHI and UCI.
Our 2022 faculty cohort is a dynamic group, including clinicians and educators from:
- Anesthesiology
- Cardiology
- Epidemiology
- Family Medicine
- Geriatrics
- Hospitalist
- Internal Medicine
- Oncology
In future years, we hope to recruit faculty from across the College of Health Sciences.
Training Methodology
- Online self-study modules from Health meets Food Curriculum
- Online case studies demonstrating commonly seen conditions as well as perceived barriers to healthy eating
- Dietitian leads discussion of how to incorporate motivational interviewing and nutrition counseling tips
- Chef instructor demonstrates culinary skills, supervises participants in cooking tasty recipes, and describes time- and money-saving techniques
Future Events
- Classes for residents and fellows
- Faculty wellbeing programs
- Patient classes
- Community demonstrations and other opportunities for culinary medicine students to apply and disseminate what they’ve learned
Research Opportunities
Faculty participants have opportunities to collaborate on studies of culinary medicine training designs and outcomes with partner sites through Health meets Food and Teaching Kitchen Collaborative, as well as work with UCI and community colleagues to initiate or expand research.
Our National Partners
More information about UCI’s Culinary Medicine Elective
