A Living Lab: Learning in the Kitchen
Many people consider the kitchen the most important space in a house. It’s where we cook and eat, but it’s also lots of other things. It’s where we hang out and talk about our day. It’s where we pay bills or do homework. It’s where we share cultural traditions, like birthdays or Thanksgiving. In many ways, kitchens are where we narrate the stories of our everyday lives.
The kitchen can also be a place to learn. It’s a comfortable, informal space to figure out how to optimize our health in a personalized way. Learning in the kitchen has emerged as an exciting new avenue for nutrition research – one that acknowledges the fact that every individual, every family, and every community has unique needs and preferences about eating well.
“Teaching kitchens” have arisen as a mainstay of the emerging fields of culinary medicine, lifestyle medicine, and whole person health. They connect the art of food and cooking with the science of nutrition. Teaching kitchens offer a way to learn how to support healthy living, and not just through cooking and eating nutritious food. They also are a place where people can learn to pay attention to whole health through exercise, laughter, and living in the moment (a simple way to describe mindfulness).
Being intentional about health and wellness through preparing affordable, sustainable, delicious, and healthy meals is hardly new: this ethos is a mainstay of most Indigenous cultures. For example, many Native American communities rely heavily on the “three sisters” (corn, beans, and squash) for everyday meals, symbolizing the interdependence of these crops. In the field, corn stalks support climbing beans, and beans enrich the soil with nitrogen captured from air. By spreading aggressively across the ground, squash plants keep the soil moist. Beyond providing balanced nutrition, this plant trio symbolizes the strength of community and cooperation in farming and throughout life. The three sisters are also ingredients for countless delicious recipes and meals!
Teaching kitchens can involve a single family or a whole community – a group of older adults in a community senior center or a classroom of third graders learning basic cooking skills. Some involve multiple generations of participants, creating a rich environment of sharing stories and traditions about food and drink.
They can be in-person or virtual, like those that came to life during the COVID-19 pandemic. These environments have become common among organizations such as the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative, an invitational network of hospitals, medical schools, colleges, universities, corporations, and community-based organizations with teaching kitchens. Last month, ONR was thrilled to debut a teaching kitchen program at The Children’s Inn at NIH. The Inn is a wonderful nonprofit organization that provides a temporary home and a wide range of programs for children, teens, and young adults with rare and serious diseases who are participating in an NIH clinical research study. This event was the first of a new Teaching Kitchen program organized by ONR involving children and their families staying at the Inn, as well as the Inn’s staff. Special thanks to the NIH researchers, ONR dietitians, and our external partners who brought critical expertise in nutrition and health and contributed to the success of this unique collaborative effort.
During the “Fun Ways to Get Your Fruits and Veggies” event, children and their families made butternut squash and white bean quesadillas, “hidden” veggie hamburgers, cinnamon-roasted chickpeas, apple cinnamon muffins, along with almond butter and banana roll-ups. Then, while children and their families cooked, a chef and ONR dietitians explained the health benefits of the dishes that were prepared and shared. For at least a moment, children and families weren’t focusing on the illness that brought them to The Children’s Inn. Rather, they mingled, laughed, and learned skills they could take home with them – all while sharing delicious and healthy foods. I already can’t wait for the next event!
Because teaching kitchens intentionally integrate nutrition and health, they embody the Food is Medicine paradigm. There is also a nationwide push to include teaching kitchens within health professional training programs so that tomorrow’s doctors, registered dietitians, nurses, social workers, and other health care providers are better equipped to provide both nutrition and cooking advice tailored to the personal needs of their patients and families.
Electronic consults (eConsults) in Culinary Medicine are also a cool and new idea. Delivered by licensed health providers with a deep understanding about the connection between nutrition and health, eConsults deliver personalized dietary recommendations via secure electronic health records. Beyond conveying nutritional advice, eConsults aim to enhance communication and empower patients to take control of their health on their own terms. They are also reimbursable for providers – a key step toward broad adoption within the U.S. health system.
But do teaching kitchens work? Do they help people make good choices about what they put in their mouths? Despite a relatively small knowledge base, we don’t really know a lot of the details – this is a huge opportunity for the field of nutrition science!
There is some evidence that people who participate in teaching kitchens feel “liberated” and “more in control” than at any other point in their lives, and recent publications suggest that teaching kitchens can have positive impacts across a range of populations and settings. NIH-funded research is also currently testing the effect of delivering food resources and kitchen skills (“FoRKS”) among adult safety-net primary care patients with food insecurity and high blood pressure (many of whom also have type 2 diabetes). In addition to assessing traditional health-related outcomes, the scientists will be measuring both kitchen confidence and skills, as well as improved nutrition and food security.
My colleague and NIH grantee David Eisenberg, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, is a pioneer of the concept of teaching kitchens. He continues to build an evidence base to improve and widen the scope of effective teaching kitchen programs and launched in 2018 the Teaching Kitchen Research Conference, which publishes new findings after each event.
Eisenberg (as do I!) envisions an exciting future in which hospitals are “showrooms of the most appealing and nutritious foods.” A future in which schools and workplaces include cafeterias with ventilated ceilings so that they can become teaching kitchens; and places where patients, families and staff can access healthy, delicious, affordable meals as well as pre-prepped ingredients to take home, cook, and share with their families. A future in which children and adults can have a “brief oasis of mindful, resilience-building reflection during any given day,” in a technology-free zone conducive to living in the moment.
The kitchen is a place where all of us can learn. We can experiment with new recipes (ideally simple ones using inexpensive whole ingredients) to build our health one bite at a time. On behalf of ONR, I wish you and your families a happy, healthy, and joyful Thanksgiving holiday. Take a chance on a new recipe inspired by the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative! It’s sure to be an affordable and delicious prescription for your future and that of your family.
As always, I welcome comments, feedback, and suggested new directions for nutrition science research. Until next time, please visit the ONR website to get office-related information and consider signing up to the ONR Updates list to receive monthly emails (including the Drew’s Views blog and the ONR Director’s Updates newsletter).
Nutrition Is Who We Are!
Drew Bremer