Culinary Medicine and Cooking
The CNP Culinary Medicine Research Category consolidates research exploring culinary medicine within the field. To view each original study on the open internet, click “Original.” To view the CNP-written abstract summary, click “CNP Summary.” While only some of the CNP-written abstract summaries are available below for free, all abstract summaries are available to CNP members through the CNP Library Membership.
FEATURED CNP RESEARCH SUMMARY
This 2021 study examines whether medical students would benefit from additional education on culinary medicine. This article aimed to address the little to no training that physicians receive on dietary interventions despite poor diet being rated as the top risk factor for early death globally. Therefore, this experiment added a culinary medicine elective to the course at an undergraduate medical school. These medical students who took part in the elective were surveyed before and after completing the culinary medicine course. Compared to before the elective, students participating in culinary medicine were more likely to feel confident discussing nutrition with patients, to feel familiar with the Mediterranean diet, and to understand the role of dietitians in patient care. Before signing up for the culinary medicine lectures, 29% of students felt confident discussing nutrition with patients, compared with a 92% confidence rate after taking the elective. In conclusion, culinary medicine lectures are promising as an educational strategy among first-year medical students to enhance their counseling confidence and improve their understanding of their future role in addressing lifestyle-related disease.
2022
How a 7-Week food literacy cooking program affects cooking confidence and mental health: Findings of a quasi-experimental controlled intervention trial
This 2022 study examined the effectiveness of a 7-week cooking program in improving the cooking confidence of healthy Australian adults. Cooking interventions aim to help individuals develop their food literacy skills, and increase preparation of home-cooked meals, potentially having a positive impact on health. Thus, this study also assessed whether the participants’ behaviors surrounding food change, and how mental health is affected. Subjects who took part in this cooking program showed enhanced cooking confidence and satisfaction, ability to change eating habits and overcome lifestyle barriers. The intervention also improved people’s mental and general health. However, these modifications were not seen in the control group. No changes were observed for acquisition and consumption of food, or nutrition knowledge in either group. To summarize, participants of this 7-week cooking program benefited from higher cooking confidence and better mental and general health but did not change their dietary behavior. This demonstrates that greater effort is needed to recruit people with below-average nutrition knowledge and interest in cooking, to increase adoption of nutrition-related behaviors associated with better mental health. [NPID: cooking program, cooking intervention, eating behaviors, healthy diet, diet, cooking confidence, food literacy, mental health, home-cooking]
CNP Research Summary can be found in the CNP Library Membership
2020
The first, comprehensive, open-source culinary medicine curriculum for health professional training programs: A global reach
This 2020 paper presents the Culinary Medicine Curriculum (CMC), the first comprehensive open-source guide created to support the implementation of culinary medicine at health professional training programs worldwide. This curriculum design was completed after the successful roll-out of the culinary medicine elective course in Stanford University School for medical students. The CMC aims to present healthy foods as tasty, quick, and inexpensive, and to facilitate the practice of motivational interviewing on healthy dietary behavior changes. Another objective of the curriculum was to reduce the barriers to creating courses on culinary medicine for healthcare professionals. During the first 2 months of becoming available, the CMC was downloaded 2379 times in 83 countries by many healthcare professionals interested in teaching culinary medicine. This high level of early interest in this curriculum highlights the demand for resources on culinary medicine. [NPID: culinary medicine, diet, health professional education, medical education, nutrition, teaching kitchen, dietary intervention, cooking]
2019
Culinary medicine and community partnership: Hands-on culinary skills training to empower medical students to provide patient-centered nutrition education
This 2019 article describes a project that aimed to improve the nutritional knowledge of medical students in the United States. Currently, 71% of medical schools in the U.S. do not provide the minimum benchmark of 25 hours of nutrition education set by the National Academy of Sciences. It is becoming increasingly important to educate these medical students on nutrition and preventive medicine since the economic burden and the morbidities associated with obesity and poor diet are both growing. The Keck School of Medicine of USC (KSOM) therefore partnered with LA Kitchen (a local teaching kitchen) and the Wellness Center at LA County Medical Center to develop a hands-on culinary and nutrition course. This course was designed to teach students practical skills and knowledge that they will be able to apply to their own lives as well as pass onto patients. After the first 3 years of the course, the class was well received by the students and their nutritional knowledge appeared to have improved. Moreover, the course seemed to enhance the students’ confidence in lifestyle counseling and their personal culinary skills. Thanks to these highly promising findings, the project now aims to incorporate nutritional education more broadly into the required preclinical curriculum at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. [NPID: culinary education, cooking, nutritional intervention, medical students, medicine, diet, nutrition]
CNP Research Summary can be found in the CNP Library Membership
2019
Culinary medicine: Advancing a framework for healthier eating to improve chronic disease management and prevention
Dr. Irl et al. (2019) claim that there is currently a demand for low-cost, high-impact interventions in the United States that can be simply implemented into people’s lives. This article focuses on culinary medicine, which incorporates the art of preparing, cooking, and presenting food with the science of medicine to enhance health-related outcomes. The purpose of this paper was to explain how the components of culinary medicine can improve the current nutritional interventions. There are references to various interventions that integrated culinary medicine and demonstrated better well-being and reduced resource use (compared to other interventions). Furthermore, novel culinary medicine strategies (for individuals and organizations) are suggested by the authors. [NPID: culinary medicine, chronic disease, disease prevention, nutritional intervention, well-being]
2021
Nutrition from the kitchen: Culinary medicine impacts students’ counseling confidence
This 2021 study examines whether medical students would benefit from additional education on culinary medicine. This article aimed to address the little to no training that physicians receive on dietary interventions despite poor diet being rated as the top risk factor for early death globally. Therefore, this experiment added a culinary medicine elective to the course at an undergraduate medical school. These medical students who took part in the elective were surveyed before and after completing the culinary medicine course. Compared to before the elective, students participating in culinary medicine were more likely to feel confident discussing nutrition with patients, to feel familiar with the Mediterranean diet, and to understand the role of dietitians in patient care. Before signing up for the culinary medicine lectures, 29% of students felt confident discussing nutrition with patients, compared with a 92% confidence rate after taking the elective. In conclusion, culinary medicine lectures are promising as an educational strategy among first-year medical students to enhance their counseling confidence and improve their understanding of their future role in addressing lifestyle-related disease. [NPID: culinary medicine, cooking, nutrition, nutritional interventions, medical school, medical students, diet]
CNP Research Summary can be found in the CNP Library Membership
2019
Culinary medicine: Bringing healthcare into the kitchen
This 2019 article highlights the urgent need for greater widespread attention and knowledge on lifestyle and nutrition. While chronic diseases account for around 80% of healthcare spending, almost 80% of these chronic diseases are said to be avoidable by following healthier lifestyle behaviors. Thus, focusing more on lifestyle and nutrition is critical to reducing the burden of chronic disease and healthcare costs. Teaching people to eat healthier is much cheaper than providing medicines and carrying out invasive procedures needed to manage chronic disease. However, this transition is not an easy or quick process. Clinicians are not trained with the education or skills to deliver nutritional counseling, nor is there reimbursement provided for such counseling sessions. Mauriello & Artz believe that culinary medicine must be integrated to a greater extent into the healthcare model for it to truly reduce healthcare costs and improve health. With this initiative in mind, the authors have developed a culinary medicine program over the past 3 years in which there are many presentations and hands-on classes for residents, healthcare professionals, and patients. The aim is to encourage healthcare and health-promotion professionals to implement programs in their own organizations and communities. [NPID: lifestyle, nutrition, diet, culinary medicine, cooking, chronic disease, healthcare program]
2016
What is culinary medicine and what does it do?
This 2016 article describes culinary medicine (a new field in medicine) and provides evidence for its effectiveness in preventing chronic diseases. Culinary medicine does not claim to replace prescription medication, and is not simply about good cooking, aromas, or flavors. Its intended purpose is to help people reach good personal medical decisions about consuming high-quality meals that restore health, as well as prevent and treat disease. While clinicians already advise patients and other healthcare professionals on dietary choices, most of them have not been trained in culinary skills or preparation, or in behavioral nutrition. These factors play influential roles in patient adherence, dietary consumption, and quality and quantity of foods eaten. The doctors are also unlikely to have been taught the mechanisms by which food influences metabolism, immunity, pathophysiology, or well-being. Dr. La Puma, the author, would like to see patients gain access to this evidence-based advice about food and cooking problems. However, the clinicians are yet to have access to this educational material. This online article considers the future challenges to wide adoption of culinary medicine. [NPID: culinary medicine, chronic disease, disease prevention, behavioral nutrition, patient adherence, immunity, well-being]