Preface

By Melanie Hingle, PhD, MPH, RDN

Introduction to Culinary Medicine

Diet quality is the largest single contributor to chronic disease burden as well as the single biggest opportunity for prevention.¹ Morbidity and chronic disability resulting from diet-sensitive diseases and conditions compose almost half of the total health burden in the United States.²

A bipartisan Congressional food policy and health working group endorsed a “food is medicine”³ approach to reducing the burden of diet-sensitive disease in 2018, suggesting “a healthy diet is the best prescription for preventing many chronic diseases.”⁴ Although few would disagree with this idea, individuals often lack the basic skills and practical guidance necessary when using food to reduce chronic disease risk. This open educational resource (OER) is designed to help address this gap.

Defining Culinary Medicine

There is no single common definition of culinary medicine. La Puma⁵ defined culinary medicine as an evidence-based medicine that integrates the art of food and cooking with the science of medicine, which allows for the promotion of health and wellbeing and supports disease management. In this OER, we have adopted and expanded upon this definition, as follows:

Culinary medicine is a subdiscipline of food, agriculture, and human nutrition sciences characterized by the integration of nutrition evidence and culinary techniques that consider real-world budgets, time constraints, and diversity of economic, cultural, and social circumstances, while supporting holistic health and well-being.

It is also important to acknowledge that our ability to achieve holistic health and well-being using food and nutrition is determined by our access to high-quality and affordable food, availability of time and money to procure and prepare healthy food, and the extent to which our social network and health-care resources allow us to have strong alignment between our food preferences, beliefs, and traditions, and our food choices. We address a number of these factors in this book.

Who Should Use This Book

The experts we surveyed when creating the themes and content for this OER imagined the following audiences for this resource, all of whom share similar goals and would benefit from our broad approach:

• Undergraduate and graduate students in nutrition, medicine, public health, and other allied health professions who are seeking hands-on, experiential training in culinary medicine
• Nutrition and allied health professionals who work, or aspire to work, at the intersection of nutrition, food, and human health
• Individuals and community organizations who wish to embrace food as a primary way to support lifelong health

How to Use This Book

In considering which resources to include in this OER, we sought to identify culinary medicine competencies appropriate for nutrition and medical students, many of whom will go on to careers as health professionals. Although widely accepted competencies do not currently exist, proposed competencies common to allied health disciplines are in development.

In the absence of culinary medicine competencies, we surveyed experts in the field from our faculty in nutritional sciences and dietetics, medicine, and public health to identify major components of culinary medicine that were critical for our students to know to implement culinary medicine for their patients and clients, and in their own lives. The expert guidance we received was grouped into the following thematic areas, which is how the chapters of this book are structured:

• Section I. The Basics of Preparing, Selecting, and Enjoying Nutritious Food—Chapters 1, 2, and 3
• Section II. Food as Medicine: Nutrients, Dietary Supplements, Bioactive Compounds, and Popular Diets—Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8
• Section III. Anatomy of a Food Demonstration—Chapter 9
• Section IV. Implementing Culinary Medicine in Your Community—Chapters 10, 11, and 12
• Appendices. Additional Resources: Case Studies, Recipes

References

1. Neuhouser ML. The importance of healthy dietary patterns in chronic disease prevention. Nutr Res. 2019;70:3–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nutres.2018.06.002
2. The US Burden of Disease Collaborators. The state of US health, 1990-2016: burden of diseases, injuries, and risk factors among US states. JAMA. 2018;319(14):1444–1472. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2018.0158
3. Bipartisan members of Congress launch Food Is Medicine Working Group to highlight impacts of hunger on health. News release. Jim McGovern: Congressman for the 2nd District of Massachusetts. January 17, 2018. Accessed October 19, 2024. https://mcgovern.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=397179
4. Every family deserves access to good nutritious food. Facebook Live video. Jim McGovern: Congressman for the 2nd District of Massachusetts. January 17, 2018. Accessed November 26, 2024. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1551761298211735
5. La Puma J. What is culinary medicine and what does it do? Popul Health Manag. 2016;19(1):1–3. https://doi.org/10.1089/pop.2015.0003