Culinary Medicine

I have long thought of food as medicine. I stumbled on a certified medical specialty called Culinary Medicine from an online health newsletter. There is a formal educational track that leads to certification as a Culinary Medicine Specialist. Registration is open to Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, Nurses, Physician Assistants, Dietitians, Pharmacists and Diabetes Educators. Sites for study include 60 academic centers across the country. The curriculum not only addresses foods that help to treat specific health problems across the life span but also deals with socioeconomic barriers such as food insecurity.

Culinary Medicine

Definitions and goals

“Culinary medicine is not nutrition, dietetics, or preventive, integrative, or internal medicine, nor is it the culinary arts or food science. It does not have a single dietary philosophy; it does not reject prescription medication; it is not simply about good cooking, flavors or aromas; nor is it solely about the food matrices in which micronutrients, phytonutrients, and macronutrients are found.

Instead, culinary medicine is a new evidence-based 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 well-being.

A practical discipline, culinary medicine is unconcerned with the hypothetical case, and instead concerned with the patient in immediate need, who asks, “What do I eat for my condition?” As food is condition-specific, the same diet does not work for everyone. Different clinical conditions require different meals, foods, and beverages.

Culinary medicine attempts to improve the patient’s condition with what she or he regularly eats and drinks. Special attention is given to how food works in the body as well as to the sociocultural and pleasurable aspects of eating and cooking. The objective of culinary medicine is to attempt to empower the patient to care for herself or himself safely, effectively, and happily with food and beverage as a primary care technique.”

La Puma, John. “What is Culinary Medicine and What Does It Do?” Population Health Management, February 1, 2016.

Here are some recipes from the Culinary Medicine site.

I thought you might enjoy a physician’s blog that includes Culinary Medicine information: Dining with a Doc-The Celebration of Food as Medicine.