This is a past class that no longer accepts registration.
Learn the basics of the Mediterranean diet, which has been proven to positively affect overall health and wellbeing, as well as disease management. An exciting part of the Mediterranean diet is the abundance of delicious possibilities. You’ll see how eating the rainbow is not a diet, but a lifestyle. Learn how to incorporate Mediterranean diet principles in your daily life through meals at home or restaurants. You will also learn how to choose, safely use, and store knives, essential skills in cooking.
Dishes include:
- Thai Tofu Stir Fry with Basil on Garlic Forbidden Rice
- Gluten-Free Coconut Oat Crisp with Seasonal Fruit
*Please note that some aspects of the class may include working in groups for a portion of the class. Learners may work in groups up to three people per each shared workstation. If you attend the class with a friend, you are welcome to share a workstation with that person.
More Nutritional Education classes here.
Instructor: Jessica VanRoo, Executive Chef
In the skilled hands of Jessica VanRoo (“Chef Jess”), food becomes medicine that melts in your mouth.
A professional chef with two decades of experience and a culinary management degree from Art Institute of Orange County, VanRoo has a keen understanding of the power of food. This awareness feeds her passion for teaching people tips and techniques for preparing food that tastes great and can improve health.
VanRoo is executive chef of the UCI Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute’s Mussallem Nutritional Education Center, a teaching kitchen where whole health flourishes through food as medicine. She is the creative chef who develops institute programs that please the palate and promote culinary medicine. Her menus are rich in produce, reflecting the influence of her upbringing in Taiwan.
Under VanRoo’s leadership, nutritional education center instructors – professional chefs and registered dietitians, often accompanied by physicians – connect the dots between food and health in programs for health professionals, patients and community organizations. She has also equipped the eight-station teaching kitchen and dining space to support group medical visits and culinary medicine research that involves meal preparation and service.
