When you visit the doctor and get a restricted diet on your food, it's just the saddest thing ever. Most of patients usually do not adhere to this. No salt, no sugar, no anything.
There might be a new way that doctors can redefine nutrition for patients, KQED Science reports.
Based on recent polls, there are very few medical specialists who've had enough training about giving nutritional advice to patients. Truth is, medical schools aren't that keen on teaching students about food.
There's a recent change to this though. Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana is starting to make a difference.
The medical students at Tulane are doing something differently. They're not just taking classes about nutrition. Apparently, cooking is included in their curriculum.
Dr. Timothy Harlan A.K.A. as Dr. Gourmet is Tulane's executive director at The Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine. The practitioner says that the program isn't all about nutrition. The main focus of this is to be practical about food. Dr. Gourmet wants to encourage Tulane doctors to teach their patients about the skills in cooking: how to cook, what to cook and why.
In a video made for the school, Harlan says, "Physicians talk about nutrition and diet all the time, but they don't talk about it in a way that communicates change to their patients."
The students are presented with low-cost ingredients so they can cater to low-income areas too. Harlan says that the school has made the cooking program available to practicing doctors and the public.
This program definitely fits New Orleans. It was discovered in 2010 that about 64 percent belong to the obese or overweight category. This contributes to higher risk in diabetes, and other cardiovascular health conditions.
Tulane is one of the first schools to employ a licensed chef as a teacher. They also sold the curriculum to sixteen medical schools.
