I am extremely excited to introduce the addition of Culinary Medicine to The King’s Kitchen Blog! At the end of my fourth year of medical school, some of my classmates and I were able to participate in a new elective at UCF College of Medicine. We were fortunate to be the inaugural class for Culinary Medicine, an elective based on the curriculum developed at Tulane to teach medical students about nutrition in a new and exciting way. Throughout the four weeks of the elective we learned about various aspects of nutrition and even got to spend time in the kitchen! Under the guidance of Dr. Karch, our faculty member in charge of the elective, we worked with an amazing group of registered dietitians, and some superb chefs who teach at the UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management. We studied the Mediterranean diet and learned how to not only implement it into our clinical practice, but our own lives. While the registered dietitians taught us how to make food healthier, the chefs taught us how to make these changes while still keeping the food delicious. We took that knowledge to the community, where we provided cooking demonstrations for community members at local YMCAs and Whole Foods. These community members got the sample these new recipes, while we provided education on how these recipes were beneficial to their health. This Huffington Post article provides more information about our elective.

I felt so inspired by everything that we learned at the end of our four weeks. I wanted to share this knowledge with not only my patients, but I thought that my blog would be the perfect place for me to share more than just family recipes and cooking tips. By adding a Culinary Medicine section to The King’s Kitchen Blog, I am able to share exciting new research in the area of nutrition and wellness, fun and healthy new recipes, and strategies to incorporate healthy eating into your daily life. I hope that you will find this information as interesting as I did!

To learn more about culinary medicine, nutrition, and strategies to incorporate healthy changes into your life, click the Culinary Medicine link in the menu at the top of the page or follow this link to the new Culinary Medicine section of The King’s Kitchen Blog!