We already know that what we eat affects our health. But did you know there’s a whole branch of medicine related to using food to treat and prevent disease? Culinary medicine is a new field taught in some medical school programs.
It looks at how you shop for food and at the ways you cook, store, and eat it. It combines the art of food and cooking with the science of medicine and healing.
Research shows you can help prevent illness, treat disease, and sometimes fix your health with proper nutrition. Doctors trained in culinary medicine can help you make good medical decisions related to the kind of food you eat.
But it’s not a one-size-fits-all. Culinary medicine is focused on your personalized health needs. Different foods help different people with different conditions. Your diet may not work well for someone else.
Culinary medicine isn’t just about healthy food choices. It aims to use foods that are important in your culture, meals you enjoy, and recipes you find fun to create. It includes information on healthy eating patterns. It also helps you know how to shop for healthy foods and how to store and prepare them.
The goal is to give you the knowledge you need to care for your own health through nutritious and enjoyable food.
Rather than heavily processed foods and ingredients, those used to address disease are more likely unprocessed or minimally processed foods.
Your doctor can work with you to create the best diet for your health issues. You can ask them to consider foods that are popular in your culture or meals that you enjoy. They’ll look at these foods and see how they can best be used to benefit you. Rather than heavily processed foods and ingredients, they’ll encourage you to choose unprocessed or minimally processed foods.
An important part of culinary medicine is bioavailability. This has to do with the nutrients in your food and how available they are to your body. Their health benefits can depend on your food’s temperature, the way it’s cooked or prepared, and how you eat foods together. Some examples include:
Some diets and foods are as effective or more effective than prescription meds in treating certain health issues, studies show. Some examples include:
More Americans are eating out and cooking at home less. But a study found that cooking your meals at home leads to eating fewer calories.
Research also shows that making food at home leads to a healthier overall diet. Home cooked meals may allow you to eat more fruits and vegetables. Also, you’re better able to control what goes into your body.
Culinary medicine uses this concept to target and improve your well-being. It can be a relatively low-cost and easy way to take charge of your health.
Around 41 million people around the world die each year from chronic diseases. Unhealthy eating patterns and poor lifestyle habits are top causes of these health problems. Because of this, nutrition should be used as a main tool of prevention.
But in many cases, doctors have reported that they don’t know enough about culinary medicine. While they know nutrition is important to health, they say their medical education didn’t train them to use food for treating or preventing health issues.
That’s why culinary medicine is being taught at more and more medical schools in the U.S. and other countries. It gives doctors effective practice tools that are less costly than meds. But you may still need meds to treat or improve your health.
Early research into culinary medicine programs shows they also help doctors feel more confident using food in treatment plans.
Some reasons awareness of culinary medicine is growing are:
Interest in this emerging field is growing. So is the number of med schools offering culinary medicine training. But with lots of differences in those programs, it’s hard to measure the field’s benefits as a whole.
Different schools provide different systems of delivery and feedback and a different mix of teaching staff. If programs were more alike, researchers could better study the impact of culinary medicine training.
Studies show these classes can help doctors use nutrition to improve lives. But more data is needed to tell if they’re more effective than traditional nutrition-related courses.
SOURCES:
Population Health Management: “What Is Culinary Medicine and What Does It Do?”
BMC Medical Education: “Exploring culinary medicine as a promising method of nutritional education in medical school: a scoping review.”
The International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity: “Frequency of eating home cooked meals and potential benefits for diet and health: cross-sectional analysis of a population-based cohort study.”
Public Health Nutrition: “Is cooking at home associated with better diet quality or weight-loss intention?”
Colorado State University: “Functional Foods for Health.”
American Society for Nutrition: “The Art of Cooking for Health: Culinary Medicine.”
Nutrition Journal: “Trends in US Home Food Preparation and Consumption: Analysis of National Nutrition Surveys and Time Use Studies from 1965–1966 to 2007–2008.”
American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine: “Culinary Medicine and Nature: Foods That Work Together.”
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