Culinary Medicine Takes Center Stage at ACOFP

The American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians (ACOFP) annual conference took things to the next level this year with the exciting addition of a hands-on culinary medicine workshop—and we were thrilled to bring it to fruition! Physicians across the country are seeking more practical nutrition education to enhance their practice–and even their own health–and this form of continuing education helps to provide accessible, engaging content to prepare them to transform their care delivery. 

In collaboration with the Renaissance Palm Springs Hotel in sunny Palm Springs, California, we transformed a conference room into a pop-up teaching kitchen for a pre-conference session explicitly designed for osteopathic physicians in family medicine.

The four-hour workshop started with a short didactic session laying the workshop’s foundation. We covered the evidence base behind culinary medicine, its growing relevance in medical education, and practical strategies for incorporating food-based counseling into clinical practice.

We then facilitated a flavor and mindfulness exercise, in which participants explored the connections between the brain and taste. Through a guided activity, they sampled foods that stimulated chemosensory responses—experiencing warming and cooling sensations in the mouth—with the goal to better understand how our patients experience taste in different ways and implications for dietary behaviors.

Then, it was time to start cooking! Chef and DO Colin Zhu led a knife skills lesson to introduce key skills for the ingredients used during the workshop and introduce the recipes. One participant exclaimed, “Well, I’ve been holding my knife wrong for 50 years!” Then, the audience broke into small groups for a hands-on culinary experience.  

From there, it got lively in the kitchen: participants chopped onions, bell peppers, and pineapples, and they even practiced the transformative practice of massaging kale. Collectively, they prepared a sweet and spicy salsa, vibrant kale salad, hearty bean salad, and oat bites for dessert.

We wrapped up the day with a final lecture covering practical culinary techniques for applying nutrition recommendations to real food. The session included fun kitchen tips and tricks that providers can use—and teach—in clinical or community settings. We closed with a step-by-step guide to building a teaching kitchen and an interactive question-and-answer session. We were thrilled to unveil our new culinary medicine cookbook at this conference, too, and to provide this tangible resource to inspire attendees to begin using the content in their practice after they went home. 

We appreciate the support from the Obesity Medicine Association (OMA) and ACOFP in delivering this workshop and the positive feedback we have received from participants. We look forward to leading our next culinary medicine workshop at OMA’s conference in late April. In the meantime, contact us if you're interested in learning more about culinary medicine and how it can enhance your practice.