The First Comprehensive Open-Source Culinary Medicine Curriculum for HealthProfessional Training Programs: A Global Reach

摘要

Providing a strong foundation in culinary medicine (CM)—including what constitutes ahealthy diet and how to find, obtain, and prepare healthy and delicious food—is acornerstone of educating health professionals to support patients in achieving betterhealth outcomes. The Culinary Medicine Curriculum (CMC), published in collaboration withthe American College of Lifestyle Medicine, is the first, comprehensive, open-source guidecreated to support the implementation of CM at health professional training programs(HPTPs) worldwide. The CMC is modeled after the successful CM elective course for StanfordUniversity School of Medicine students. Key goals of the CMC include presenting healthyfood as unapologetically delicious, quick, and inexpensive; translating lessons learned tohealthy eating on-the-go; practicing motivational interviewing on healthy dietary behaviorchanges; and demonstrating how to launch a CM course. The CMC highlights a predominantlywhole food, plant-based diet as seen through the lenses of different world flavors andculinary traditions. It was developed, published, and distributed with the aim ofexpanding CM by reducing barriers to creating CM courses within most types of HPTPs andpractice settings. During the first 2 months the CMC was available, it was downloaded 2379times in 83 countries by a wide variety of health care professionals interested inteaching CM. The global interest in this first, freely available, evidence-based CMCunderscores the demand for CM resources. Such resources could prove foundational inexpediting development of CM courses and expanding the reach of CM and counseling ondietary behavior changes into patient care.