Nutrition & Culinary Medicine

TEACHING KITCHEN

Our teaching kitchen educates our students about healthy eating, food preparation, and nutrition

On This Page

Purpose of the Teaching Kitchen
Teaching Kitchen Facilities
Nutrition and Culinary Medicine Curriculum
Meet our Nutrition Team

purpose of the teaching kitchen

At the CHSU College of Osteopathic Medicine (CHSU-COM), we seek to help improve the health of our community by educating our medical students on healthy eating, food preparation, and nutrition. It is so important that we incorporated it into our COM curriculum for medical students to learn the basics of nutrition and culinary medicine through team-based learning applications, case studies, and hands-on cooking classes in our Teaching Kitchen.

Our Teaching Kitchen promotes hands-on learning and large group demonstrations. Equipped similar to a home kitchen, students get a realistic, hands-on experience preparing healthy meals that they can recreate at home and teach their patients. Fresh and locally sourced food from California’s Central Valley is used whenever possible so healthy meals prepared in the Teaching Kitchen align with available resources, dietary preferences, and cultural traditions.

“Our role at the medical school is to train future doctors while educating the community on healthy eating, which will help future generations make better choices,” says John Graneto, DO, MEd, Dean of College of Osteopathic Medicine.

teaching kitchen Facilities

The CHSU Teaching Kitchen is located in the CHSU College of Osteopathic Medicine building and is equipped with all of the essentials for a cooking class (including ovens, range, food preparation areas, refrigerator, storage), as well as multiple cameras and viewing screens so culinary techniques can be demonstrated for a large class or recorded for future class review. There are also an abundance of tables and chairs so that the students can participate in the class and then enjoy the healthy meal they prepared together. The kitchen can be used for hands-on cooking classes for medical students, interprofessional classes with other healthcare providers in training, and to teach cooking classes to local community groups.

nutrition and culinary medicine Curriculum

The CHSU-COM incorporates nutrition into each course taught in the first two years of our Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) program. Medical students learn the basics of nutrition through team-based learning applications, case studies, and hands-on cooking classes in the Teaching Kitchen. With an understanding of basic nutrition and the hands-on culinary medicine training our medical students receive, they are prepared to think of disease prevention and management through the lens of lifestyle intervention alongside possible prescription medications. Taking the whole body approach, our nutrition curriculum aligns with the philosophy of osteopathic medicine as well as the current guidelines for chronic disease prevention and management.

Students learn how to cook healthy, delicious recipes for the promotion of overall health as well as prevention and management of chronic conditions including: