Teaching health practitioners the foundations of clinical nutrition and how to cook

What is Culinary Medicine?

Culinary Medicine is a unique combination of nutrition and culinary knowledge to assist doctors learn the foundations of clinical nutrition as well as how best to motivate their patients to lead healthier lives using food.

This course is RCGP accredited and designed to give participants a foundation in clinical nutrition and practical cooking skills. Currently, the course is divided into modules which cover topics such as fats, carbohydrates, vegetarian diets and obesity.

Interested in Culinary Medicine?

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Empowering health professionals to talk confidently about food in medicine

How does Culinary Medicine work?

Each module is structured into 4 parts

Online

The participant has access to presentations online before the class

Reading

The participant is also expected to read the relevant clinical papers online

Cooking

A cooking class relevant to the module is held at a culinary school and led by a dietician, chef and doctor

Discussion

The class discuss a clinical case and the recipes they’ve made

Currently we teach qualified doctors in culinary schools on weekends and we are looking at creating a completely online version course. Sign up to the newsletter to be the first to hear about this.

We are also working on getting culinary medicine in medical schools as part of their Undergraduate curriculum.

Where did Culinary Medicine Come from?

Since 2017 we have been working with Dr Timothy Harlan and the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at Tulane University in New Orleans where their Culinary Medicine programme was started in 2012.

In the UK we have taught individual modules to qualified doctors on weekends using the facilities at Westminster Kingsway culinary school. The cost of each module is priced at £150 which includes all materials, access to online resources, ingredients and 6 CPD points.

We have also successfully taught an intensive 4 week SCM module to Year 3 Bristol University Medical students in July 2018 as part of their undergraduate training.

Interested in Culinary Medicine?

Sign up to our newsletter here and we’ll email you when our next course dates are announced and how you can get involved

Connecting all health professionals and bringing an evidence based perspective to diet, lifestyle and medicine

Culinary Medicine in the Press

January 2018

March 2018

June 2018

October 18

2018

Why Culinary Medicine?

This new knowledge empowers the profession to elevate the conversation they are able to have with as their patients. Teaching practitioners how to cook will have knock on effects on consultations This new skillset enables people, to cook healthy food from scratch.

As practitioners you will be more confident in the science behind nutrition and better able to motivate your patients to change behaviours. Have a read of some of the clinical papers describing what culinary medicine is below.

What Is Culinary Medicine and What Does It Do?

Culinary Medicine is an innovative programme designed to teach healthcare practitioners the foundations of clinical nutrition and how to cook.

What is the evidence for Culinary Medicine?

Below are a selection of papers published in clinical journals and papers discussing what culinary is and what the potential benefits could be to both physicians in training as well as patients:

What is Culinary Medicine (paper)

Hands on vs traditional nutrition in Medical Schools

Nutrition Counselling in Clinical Practice

Medical schools should be prioritising nutrition and lifestyle education (BMJ)

Future Doctors Perceptions about Incorporating Nutrition into Standard Care Practice

Teaching Kitchens and Culinary Medicine

Hands on vs Traditional Nutrition

What Dissection is to Anatomy, Culinary Medicine is to Nutrition. Rather than learning purely about macronutrients, energy balance and how this relates to medicine from textbooks alone, culinary medicine is designed to teach practitioners the practical aspects of why food is so beneficial to health as well as behavioural change and motivational interviewing techniques.

Medical Schools Should be Prioritising Nutrition and Lifetyle Education

It has been recognised by the GMC and other governing bodies that nutrition in medical undergraduate training is not sufficient to meet the needs of prospective doctors. Culinary medicine aims to be the turn key solution to the issue of poor nutrition training within medicine.

Future Doctors Perceptions about Incorporating Nutrition into Standard Care Practice

We have been working closely with NutriTank, a student led organisation campaigning for better nutrition training in medical schools, to reflect the requirements and expectations of prospective doctors. It is clear that future doctors need to be ‘nutrition literate’ to cater for the rising numbers of patients suffering lifestyle related disease.

Teaching Kitchens Culinary Medicine

We have partnered with Westminster Kingsway Culinary School, one of the best culinary centres in Europe, to launch our first cooking classes. We aim to create a ‘Culinary Medicine Centre of Excellence’ where future classes can be delivered and new content can be created here.