Part of a series of reports about food trends in the USA
Dr. David Eisenberg is teaching a group of medical specialists in a kitchen at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Napa Valley, California this weekend.
Its the 10th meeting of the Healthy Kitchens/Healthy Lives conferencea joint project of the CIA, Harvard School of Public Health and Samueli Institute, a non-profit investigating healing. The conference brings doctors, registered dietitians and nutritionists, educators, sustainability experts and healthcare professionals together with chefs, such as Mollie Katzen and Michelin-starred Suvir Saran.
Dr. Eisenberg co-founded the program as “a place where nutrition scientists could teach medical providers what they need to know about which foods we should eat more of, or less of, and why,” he said. “And, based on scientific evidence, chefs [translate] that into demonstrations on how to prepare healthy, delicious, affordable, easy-to-make dishes.” For him, the continuity between food and medicine is obvious and practical. “It is not my view that the right question is ‘How do we replace drugs with foods?’ The premise of this conference is ‘How do we help people move in the direction of a healthier lifestyle and diet, to prevent illness or manage illness that’s already occurred?'”
Though connecting food and health has a long history, this collaboration between doctors and chefs represents a newer approach—studying and sharing how certain foods can prevent diseases or help manage them. In May, the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at Tulane University will debut the nation’s first teaching kitchen affiliated with a medical school. Located in New Orleans, it will be a place for students, doctors, chefs and the local community to investigate the role food can play in managing obesity and related diseases.
The Goldring Center’s Executive Director and Assistant Dean for Clinical Services, Timothy Harlan, is both a chef and a doctor, having owned restaurants before attending medical school. He said the program’s goal is to school doctors-in-training in “some very simple techniques they can use to change the dialogue with their patients, change the way their patients think about food and nutrition.” Classes integrate nutrition with biochemistry, physiology and anatomy. The program also encompasses a food-research branch and has licensed its curriculum to two other medical schools. Dr. Harlan added, “Make no mistake, I am an allopathic physician. I do not believe in anything other than evidence-based medicine. As an internist, I prescribe statins and beta-blockers and ACE inhibitors and aspirin. I believe in them and they have a role. Diet alone is very good. Medication alone is very good. But diet plus medication is synergistic. It’s another tool in the box that physicians should have available to them.”
Both the Harvard/CIA partnership and the Goldring Center’s programming rely heavily on the principles of the Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, healthy fats, certain fish and a minimal quantity of good-quality meat and cultured dairy. The results of a recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health and Cambridge Health Alliance link the diet with lower risk of heart disease. A previous study, published by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, shows that the Mediterranean diet is linked with lower risk of obesity, diabetes and cancer.
The chefs involved are eager to demonstrate that eating for wellness needn’t mean dull “health food.” David Bouley, for one, grew up in a French family “where the pantry and medicine cabinet always seemed to overlap,” he said. He recently opened Bouley Botanical, an event space and “living pantry” growing 400 plant species to provision Mr. Bouley’s Manhattan restaurants.
Plants growing by the window at Bouley Botanical Danny Kim for The Wall Street Journal
A continuing interest in the healing properties of food had caused Mr. Bouley to seek the advice of nutritionists in the past. “All they ever told me was what not to put in food,” Mr. Bouley said. “They never told me what I should cook.” It wasn’t until he began to collaborate with a medical doctor, Mark Hyman, that the chef found what he was looking for.
During last fall’s New York City Wine & Food Festival, Dr. Hyman, author of “The Blood Sugar Solution” (Little, Brown), teamed up with Mr. Bouley for a dinner called “The Chef and the Doctor.” Over the meal, the two discussed the healing properties of ingredients such as mushrooms (full of polysaccharides, said to battle tumors) and sardines (omega-3s, believed to protect against heart disease and stroke). Some dishes they collaborated on—a creamy almond soup sharpened by glazed scallions; wild mushrooms with white truffle, sweet garlic, grilled toro and coconut foam—are now staples on the menu at Bouley restaurant.
“ ‘All they ever told me was what not to put in food. They never told me what I should cook.’ ”
Another high-profile New York chef, Seamus Mullen, has been working in an idiom he calls “Hero Food,” in a cookbook of the same name and at his acclaimed restaurant Tertulia. Mr. Mullen has seen for himself what diet can do: According to his doctor, Frank Lipman, he has reversed the effects of rheumatoid arthritis by eating the right foods. Mr. Mullen’s pain was debilitating; he endured multiple hospitalizations. “I knew there was a direct correlation between food and my body’s ability to deal with inflammation,” he said. “But I wasn’t sure how to put that into practice.” It took months, but when Mr. Mullen woke up one morning last May without chronic pain, his life changed. He started cycling again (he was once semi-pro). Last October, he said, for the first time his blood-test results showed no sign of rheumatoid arthritis.
Mr. Mullen believes eliminating gluten was a major factor, in addition to sticking to “hero foods” like leafy greens, grass-fed meat and eggs. (For more on the benefits associated with these foods, see “Culinary Rx.”) “The fundamental part of the equation is that it needs to be delicious, that the ingredients are well sourced,” he said. “I take it one step further by increasing the good fats and cutting back on some of the carbohydrates and sugar.” Take a recipe from Mr. Mullen’s book, tosta matrimonio: grilled flatbread topped with tomatoes and anchovies, their briny tang tempered by fresh ricotta and a drizzle of saba, a naturally sweet grape-juice reduction. The dish packs a big dose of heart-disease-fighting omega-3s from the fish; cancer-battling folate and sulfur from garlic; and anti-inflammatory olive oil. Mr. Mullen hopes to collaborate further with Dr. Lipman on a restaurant concept.
Beyond the rise in, and growing concern about, rates of heart disease, obesity and diabetes, the conversation around the Affordable Care Act is shaping thinking about food as prevention. “It’s pretty clear that if we can reduce the burden of disease, we can reduce the burden of the cost of disease,” said Dr. Harlan of the Goldring Center. “Farm before pharm” is the mantra of a number of programs designed to provide assistance to children at risk of developing diet-related diseases. In this vein, Wholesome Wave, a non-profit whose mission is to make locally grown produce available to people at all income levels, launched its Fruit and Vegetable Prescription Program (FVRx) in 2010.
Now available in six states, FVRx prescriptions are dispensed by primary care providers and redeemed at farmers’ markets. According to a 2012 study by the program’s healthcare partners, 37.8% of participants decreased their BMI (body mass index, a weight-to-height calculation used to predict health problems) over one year. Wholesome Wave President and CEO Michel Nischan—a chef, restaurateur and cookbook author—points to affordable local food access as a platform for policy change. “If large employers could see an investment in providing minimum-wage employees a connection with a company doctor and an opportunity to increase fruit and vegetable consumption, their premiums are going to go down pretty significantly on the back end,” he said.
It is the goal of Mr. Nischan and other chefs collaborating with doctors and farmers to advocate for the role that nutrition can play in overall wellness by gathering and offering up data that supports their claims. Encouraging people to eat more of these foods—by showing how delicious they can be—is the first step.
