A Delicious Revolution in Medicine

From the polio vaccine to the first human heart transplant to the mapping of the human genome, major healthcare breakthroughs often debut with international media fanfare. Yet, there are times when a revolutionary new approach is introduced quietly, building over time until the world is ready to pay attention. This is precisely what has happened here at Tulane, where the School of Medicine launched the nation’s first medical teaching kitchen in 2012.

Today there is a bipartisan focus on food and nutrition, motivated by a monumental paradox: the United States spends far more on healthcare per capita than any other nation. Our research ecosystem has long been the envy of the world. The medical care and cutting-edge therapies available in U.S. health systems are unparalleled. And yet, the U.S. ranks last among peer nations when it comes to health outcomes and preventable deaths.

Tulane has long been at the vanguard of addressing this paradox. Over 50 years ago, a team of Tulane researchers led by Dr. Gerald Berenson (A&S ’43, M ’45) launched the Bogalusa Heart Study, one of the most influential longitudinal health studies in the history of medicine. Berenson partnered with community members in his rural hometown of Bogalusa in Washington Parish, Louisiana, to prove definitively that health and nutrition in childhood contribute to cardiovascular risk factors in adulthood. This discovery upended medical assumptions of the time.

Berenson’s work also laid the foundation for the Tulane School of Medicine to establish itself as a national leader in culinary medicine. By establishing the first teaching kitchen operated within a medical school, Tulane gave health professionals and community members alike new tools to address the dietary factors contributing to heart disease and other preventable health problems.

Now known as the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at Tulane University, this pioneering program offers hands-on training for medical students and residents in the School of Medicine, rotations and classes for future health professionals in the Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and free community classes that allow anyone in the local community to learn about nutrition and culinary medicine through fun, hands-on cooking classes. It’s a perfect outgrowth of Tulane’s expertise as a leading international research university, paired with New Orleans’ well-deserved reputation as one of the world’s great food cities.

As The New York Times recently reported in a feature story about the “Food Is Medicine” movement, the Goldring Center’s evidence-based curriculum has now been adapted by the American College of Culinary Medicine for use in over 60 medical schools, residency programs and nursing schools across the nation. While aligning with proven nutritional strategies, the Goldring Center’s success also builds on the understanding that no one wants to eat food that’s not delicious. Of course, this is especially true in New Orleans, where meal preparation has been refined to a high art. With a “food-first approach to nutrition” that integrates medicine, nutrition and culinary expertise, Tulane and New Orleans are helping the nation rediscover a simple truth: The most powerful medicine is healthy food that people actually want to eat.