Culinary Medicine Deutschland e.V. promotes and supports or carries out research, science and education projects in the fields of nutrition, health, consumer and environmental education as well as education for sustainable development, cultural education and public health.
- Building new nutrition, health and sustainability skills through Teaching Kitchens.
- "Good practice model Education for Sustainable Development
- Promoting research in the field of nutrition, sustainability and health/medicine
- Strengthening interdisciplinary and interprofessional education, training and continuing education
- Innovative, multi-perspective science communication
- Empowering all sections of society to make healthy and sustainable food choices
Culinary Medicine Germany is accompanied by nationally and internationally renowned scientists to achieve these goals.
The honorary scientific director PD Dr. med. Thomas Ellrott(Thomas Ellrott), is head of the Institute for Nutrition and Psychology at the Georg-August University Göttingen. In his interdisciplinary research, Thomas Ellrott pursues the extremely exciting question of what controls human eating behaviour and how it can be changed. The focus is primarily on health, but also on sustainability. The institute's staff are involved in teaching and training at the University of Göttingen in the courses of medicine, agricultural sciences, psychology, biology and sports sciences. In addition, they contribute to the Healthy Campus programme at Göttingen University.
Practical education with a focus on health promotion and sustainability
By acquiring nutrition-related competences, people are enabled to shape and change their environment and their lives in a sustainable way. Rather, specialised knowledge only leads to sustainable competences if learners can recognise a connection between the knowledge and the reality or the practical relevance of their life worlds.
The CookUOS portfolio is intended to develop new teaching strategies oriented towards Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the sense of interdisciplinary, networked learning(Cooking Courses in Higher Education: A Method to Foster Education for Sustainable Development and Promoting Sustainable Development Goals | SpringerLink).
Further competence goals promoted by active participation in the offers in teaching kitchens lie in the thematic emphasis on social and environmental competence, competences in the knowledge areas, health. Nutrition and sustainable consumption (healthy, sustainable lifestyle).
In accordance with the partial competences specified by the National Committee of the UN Decade of ESD, Culinary Medicine Deutschland e.V. promotes the following learning objectives:
- To recognise communal cooking and eating as a beneficial social interaction and cultural asset and as a contribution to overcoming social disadvantage.
- Realise that enjoyment and responsible nutrition are not mutually exclusive
- To recognise cooking and eating as an active contribution to cultural and religious integration
- Be able to initiate measures for a more differentiated consumption and eating behaviour (incl. distancing from drug and addictive substance consumption).
- Recognising nutrition and food preparation as a social and health-relevant field of action, promoting awareness for balanced nutrition and exercise
- Recognise the diversity of food supply and its equivalence regardless of price
- Recognise awareness of sustainable resource protection and the importance of regional and seasonal food offers, recognise connections between climate and nutrition
- develop an appreciation for food and thus a rational approach to it and be able to subject food, its production and preparation to philosophical, ethical and socio-cultural reflection.
- Application of scientific principles for nutrition and food preparation
- Be able to recognise connections and interactions between nutrition - exercise - well-being and health.
- Be able to classify food preparation and nutrition as a health-promoting and preventive activity (salutogenesis approach) and place nutrition in the context of pupil health, teacher health, "healthy school".
- Course participants are able to make their own contribution to health education and sustainability
- Have fun with the topic of nutrition and cooking and can pass on this knowledge
- be able to initiate the motivation of target groups and multipliers at the different places of action and motivate the transfer of knowledge into society
Statutory objectives
Culinary Medicine Deutschland e.V. promotes and supports or carries out projects of research, science and education in the fields of nutrition, health, consumer and environmental education as well as education for sustainable development, cultural education and public health. The purpose of the association is realised through the following measures, among others:
- Conception, organisation and implementation of scientific teaching kitchen events as well as research and teaching projects such as lectures, talks, symposia, further and advanced training courses, study projects, excursions, evaluations, fairs and similar events such as scientific cooking shows, on science communication and projects in the field of nutrition, health, consumer and environmental education as well as education for sustainable development (ESD).
- Supervision and promotion of measures accompanying studies and school education that serve to improve and give practical relevance to studies and school education, e.g. teaching kitchens, practical cooking seminars, workshops, seminars, announcements of competitions, scholarships, subsidies for travel costs and entrance fees for attending events with content related to the purpose of the association, especially for pupils and students or persons in need, promotion of qualification and project work.
- Maintaining contacts, exchanging ideas and deepening interdisciplinary and interprofessional cooperation between professions and institutions with an affinity for health, nutrition and sustainability in order to overcome practical or theoretical deficits between science, business and politics in the field of nutrition, health, consumer and environmental education as well as education for sustainable development (ESD).
- National and international exchange and contact with groups and associations, institutions or federations with similar objectives, in particular cooperation in the joint organisation of further education and training events as well as professional congresses, professional cooperation and joint publications as well as in the content design of events.
Our teaching kitchen initiatives Culinary Medicine Deutschland e.V. runs several teaching kitchen projects in parallel. Currently, we are focusing on medical students, as they are important multipliers for personal, community and global health. For this purpose, an elective course in Culinary Medicine was developed(PD Dr. Thomas Ellrott on "Culinary Medicine": Cooking with Medical Students - Culinary Medicine), which is currently being evaluated in a multicentre study. Due to the pandemic, it will be conducted in 2020/2021 as a virtual class via Zoom(Culinary Medicine - multicentre evaluation launched at the universities of Göttingen, Brandenburg and Gießen - Culinary Medicine). We are currently developing a curriculum and teaching offer that is located in the "Studium Generale" of the University of Göttingen and will later also be open to all universities in the area of key competences for all degree courses.
Every two years we participate with a large interactive teaching kitchen stand at the IdeenExpo, Europe's largest education fair for GenZ(huge success at the IdeenExpo 2019 - Culinary Medicine).
For science communication, we present the multi-perspective scientific cooking shows for the community called "T to the power of 3", which bring together a 3-star chef, a medical doctor specialising in health and psychology, and a physicist who teaches the physics
Download the statutes of Culinary Medicine Deutschland e.V. (German)
Become a supporting member or sponsor of Culinary Medicine Germany