Guided with Stefanie Hanke / Ärzteblatt
"Eat healthier and lose a few kilos" - this is what patients often hear from their doctors. However, many patients find it difficult to put this advice into practice when it is so vague. The new subject "Culinary Medicine" is intended to make future doctors more competent advisors on nutrition and lifestyle issues. The physician and nutritional psychologist PD Dr. Thomas Ellrott is supervising a pilot project at the University of Göttingen in which the students themselves stand at the cooker.
Dr Ellrott, what exactly is behind the term "Culinary Medicine"?
PD Dr Thomas Ellrott: Culinary Medicine is a new method of translating the findings of nutritional medicine into the living environments of patients in a practical way. This is linked to a special teaching format: Because in this new subject, nutritional medicine, science and psychology are combined with practical culinary medicine. The teaching format is a special cooking course for medical students, internationally called "Teaching Kitchen". The aim is for the prospective doctors to learn the language they need to speak in order to be able to successfully advise their patients on the subject of nutrition and lifestyle diseases. In Göttingen, together with our cooperation partner, the CookUOS e.V. association headed by Uwe Neumann, we have been offering this as an elective subject since this winter semester 2020/21 as part of a pilot project.
Nutritional medicine is already part of the degree programme. What is different about Culinary Medicine?
PD Dr. Thomas Ellrott: In medical school and in further medical training, many aspects of nutritional medicine are taught across all subjects, but the nutritional facts are very much in the foreground. Doctors know which nutrients have which effects on which diseases. However, this does not necessarily mean that they can advise their patients in a goal-oriented way. They have to learn to speak to their patients in a language that is oriented towards food, recipes and practical cooking skills - and not towards nutrients and calories. In the supermarket, no one buys carbohydrates, fat and proteins either, but food and eating.....
Read the full article here:
https://aerztestellen.aerzteblatt.de/de/redaktion/arzt-und-klinik/thomas-ellrott-ueber-culinary-medicine