I’m beyond thrilled to have received an editorial Eddy Award from the Edible Communities network of publications for my feature article, Farmer Doctor Patient Chef. The article was chewy to report and research, and I struggled to find a way to hook the story together. So I’m pleased to have the recognition for the effort.
The article tells the story of The Teaching Kitchen Collaborative, a collaboration between the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Culinary Institute of America. The initiative aims to prove the connection between food and health — and its BHAG (the big, hairy, audacious goal) is to teach people to cook whole foods in order to improve their health and wellbeing. Read the article.
“There’s no financial incentive to keep people out of the hospital—there’s only financial incentive to treat people when they have sickness. We cannot financially sustain the current fee-for-service model,” warns Dr. David Eisenberg, Director of Culinary Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Director of the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative. “We have to stop this endless cycle of double-digit increases each year in healthcare expenditure. We’ll go broke.” …
Research overwhelmingly shows that eating a healthy diet, being active, and managing stress can prevent disease. And cooking at home with whole ingredients is a key component of that healthy diet. Dr. Eisenberg has a radical theory: That teaching people to cook can impact health—and, ultimately, the cost of healthcare.