Starting a Culinary Medicine Program

Are you interested in incorporating innovative programming to help your patients sustain positive lifestyle changes? Culinary medicine is an interdisciplinary approach to nutrition that combines health science and culinary arts to translate recommendations into practical skills and promote the self-efficacy required for sustained behavior change. Teaching kitchens are the educational spaces where health and culinary professionals practice culinary medicine and where people participate in experiential and hands-on learning. Starting a culinary medicine program can support the health of children, adults, employees, students, and various other community members and can help prevent and/or manage their chronic diseases. Follow the six easy steps below to start as soon as tomorrow.

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1. Investigate what programs already exist 

Conduct a landscape assessment to better understand what resources and programming are already available in your community. This can prevent you from reinventing the wheel as well as understand potential partners as you aim to build a program and/or make referrals. Talking with patient navigators, community health workers, food policy councils, and other community leaders can help you find this information . You can also use tools like Find Help, Neighborhood Navigator, 2.1.1, or the Food Is Medicine Map. Keep in mind it’s important to do your research and visit in person before recommending that a patient do so to ensure the resource is valid, safe, and aligns with your goals. 

2. Assemble your team    

Consider assembling an interprofessional team (dietitians, chefs, social workers, etc.) to reflect all pertinent skills and expertise and optimize the patient experience. The few articles below provide evidence and best practices for working interpersonally to build culinary medicine programs.  

• Registered Dietitian Nutritionists Taking the Lead in Teaching Kitchens.
• Physician-Chef-Dietitian Partnerships for Evidence-Based Dietary Approaches to Tackling Chronic Disease: The Case for Culinary Medicine in Teaching Kitchens
• Characteristics of Current Teaching Kitchens: Findings from Recent Surveys of the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative

3. Establish your teaching kitchen  

There are several possible models of teaching kitchens, each with benefits and challenges. The simplest place to start is to offer classes online and broadcast from your home or in a pop-up kitchen in a conference room. Essential kitchen equipment for day one will likely include a chef’s knife, cutting board, measuring spoons and cups, mixing bowls, and maybe even an induction burner, hot plate, blender, or electric kettle (to comprise a set for each group you will teach). Partnering with a community organization that has a kitchen (such as a church or community center) may also require fewer start-up resources to be able to offer your program. Review the Setting Up a Teaching Kitchen and Setting Up a Teaching Kitchen Facility guides offered by the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative.

For virtual offerings, we recommend using video conferencing platforms like Zoom or Ekos. AI. We also suggest two camera angles including straight-on and overhead. Laptops and phone cameras work great! We recommend this tripod for using your phone overhead or you can invest in this document camera (as shown in the photo below).

See how our culinary dietitian expert, Paige, RD, conducts a virtual cooking class.

4. Create your content 

Your culinary medicine lesson plans will apply nutrition and behavioral science to impart real food and cooking skills. Your audience and whether you aim to offer a single class or a series will guide the appropriate topics for your lessons. Recipes are key components that create the opportunity for experiential and repeatable learning. There are many terrific recipe tools that already exist (many of which were created by our expert team):

• Recipes and toolkits from UT Health Houston
• Providence Community Teaching Kitchen’s YouTube channel
• Recipes and free online classes from Boston Medical Center's Teaching Kitchen (Note that Healthy Habits and WellSense Health Plan are classes that YOU can take)  
• American College of Lifestyle Medicine’s free curriculum
• Health Meets Food’s free recipes
•  Culinary Health Education for Families skill videos and recipes
• The Complete Recipe Writing Guide: Mastering Recipe Development, Writing, Testing, Nutrition Analysis, and Food Styling
• Rewire Health’s digital platform and mobile application

5. Explore funding opportunities 

Although programs can begin using existing resources (such as by allocating a percentage of an employee’s time and using food from the institution’s food pantry or cafeteria kitchens), consider additional funding like local or federal grants, fundraisers, or pertinent medical billing options. To begin, local foundations and resources that are invested in improving your community’s health is typically the best place to start. Once you grow your program and have initial pilot data, you can pursue larger grants. A few examples of pertinent federal grants and foundations include:

• Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP)
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• The Rockefeller Foundation
• Future opportunities offered in response to the National Institute for Health’s Request for Information on Food Is Medicine Programs
• Medical billing guides from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and Health Meets Food

6. Join professional groups or consider further training

You do not have to do this alone. There are many groups of leaders doing this work who are eager to help, connect, and learn from one another. In addition, you can seek continuing education opportunities to help get you started. Several examples of such groups and trainings include:

Professional Groups

• American College of Lifestyle Medicine’s Members Interest Group
• Culinary Nutrition Collaborative
• Teaching Kitchen Collaborative
• Food and Culinary Professionals Dietary Practice Group

Training and Certification Opportunities

• Health Meets Food Culinary Medicine Training
• The Institute of Lifestyle Medicine’s Culinary Health Education Fundamentals (CHEF)Coaching
• Australia Catholic University’s Culinary Nutrition Science Certificate
• Culinary Health Education Fundamentals (CHEF) Coaching
• American College of Lifestyle Medicine’s Certified in Lifestyle Medicine Practice
• Gaples Institute’s Certification

If you are looking for more tailored support or would like to bring innovative workshops or other programming into your organization, our team of experts offers consulting services such as training, resource lists, and workshops for individuals as well as teams. We would love to help you optimize your practice! 

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