For many years, doctors in the field of functional medicine have warned us of the impact of toxic burdens on our bodies. Sure, they have been poo-pooed by researchers and conventional medicine. They are quacks right?  Surely no proof exists that toxicity is the foundation of illness and that we are toxic beings! I would counter that and say that it is uncanny that pioneers like Dr Mark Hyman, Dr Mark Liponis and Dr Susan Blum, to name a few, each succumbed to serious illnesses that had some roots in environmental exposure. Only after they relieved their bodies of the toxins that hamstrung their systems, were they able to rejuvenate and medically rehabilitate themselves. In other words, you’ve got to get rid of the poison before you can let nourishment in. The fields of functional medicine and sibling functional nutrition deeply embrace the means by which we can use food (and medicine) to both detoxify the body and rehabilitate/restore its energy and vitality.

So this brings me to the nutrition conversation and making food make sense in a concise and navigable way. I have spent many years looking at how to distill the complex world of nutritional science into a format that allows the public to grasp what we’re talking about – fast.  I find it interesting that in spite of all the technological advances, the style in which we continue to talk to the public about food has not changed much. We’re still talking about single nutrients followed by a list of benefits. Or we list a food and then 10 nutrients in the food. The public doesn’t “get” that. What they want is a comprehensive one-stop solution that tells them:

• What nutrition does for them
• What nutrition specifics they need to focus on
• A meal plan that delivers the nutrient specifics we’re talking about
• How to get the food from store to stove to plate in a convenient, affordable and tasty way

Having said that, I feel we must fully explain to the public that food is more than putting it in one end, feeling full and then expelling it out the other end. As Dr Mark Hyman says, food is information, and we must prepare our bodies and our food to extract maximum benefit from what we put in our mouths. To this end, I boil the conversation down to what I call Pillars of Nutrition. There are Four Pillars and each pillar addresses critical steps in the nourishment process. I use Pillars of Nourishment as a foundation educational tool in my work. It adds significant depth to the nutrition conversations and moves the dialog from “eat this Vitamin because it does this,” to a pro-active and informed conversation in which my clients truly understand the interaction between nourishment and health. After we have viewed the Pillars of Nourishment, I overlay customized recipes containing the target nutrients each client needs, and fit those into an interactive meal plan appropriate for each individual’s life and lifestyle.

Four Pillars of Nourishment

A summary of the Pillars of Nourishment, and a brief explanation of the thinking behind each pillar, is below.  Click on the graphic to see a visual depiction that I use.

Intake: Choose Whole Foods Produced With Low to No Synthetic Inputs

• WHY: start with the best materials you can buy to avoid burdening you body before you open your mouth

Optimization: Optimize Digestion

• WHY: Prepare food in a way that is easiest for your body to absorb and digest it. Why waste energy on something your body cannot use?

Absorption: Nurture and Nourish Your Gut

• WHY: The gut is the gateway to your body and your health. Like a car, if you don’t keep up with the maintenance, you’ll be stuck on the roadside going nowhere.

Elimination: Fine Tune Your Body to Excrete Toxic and Metabolic Waste Efficiently

• WHY: If you can’t get rid of waste, you become your own toxic waste dump. We use nutrients to support and fine tune the systems that allow us to extract what we need and dump what we don’t

Let me know your thoughts about the Pillars of Nutrition approach to the nutrition conversation!

I spend a lot of time talking to food and nutrition experts who work for university extension services across the country. These faithful and knowledgeable professionals are all too often the only lifeline to nourishment education in rural America and to communities across America. They are to food, what Extension Services are to local farmers – experts, educators, guidance and research partners. The food and nutrition experts I talk to these days at Cooperative Extension (now also known as the National Institute for Food and Agriculture) continues to educate, bringing cooking, canning, preserving, nutrition education and food safety expertise to families, just like their predecessors who we knew as Home Economists.  Yet Home Economists and Home Economics are both diminishing specialties with an even rarer skill set. When I look at the state of America these days, from budget debacle to imported clothing to paralyzing obesity, I shake my head and say what we actually need is to fund Home Economics on a major scale instead of relegating this art and craft to a dusty bookshelf.

Let’s examine this a little more closely

First, Home Economics has another name: Family and Consumer Science. Frankly I don’t care what its name is. For goodness sake, in the UK where I studied, we called it Domestic Science.  I still have my study notes. I learned how to make many forms of pastry from scratch and fill them with sweet and savory fillings. I learned basic sauces, meat cookery, fish cookery, vegetable and fruit preparation – and yes even how to do the laundry. Sewing was a separate class but we learned that too. And in case you are wondering how long ago this was – well not too long ago and we learned these skills before national exams which we took at the age of 16. So indeed, I could cook for my parents and my siblings and mend my own clothes, and sew them to.

Fast forward to now

We are a country that laments the fact that we borrow to heavily, buy too much on credit and have far too many clothes made in China.  Guess what – Home Economics can teach you how to manage your money, be fiscally responsible and make or mend some of your own clothes.  You don’t like our trade deficit?  Make a contribution to trade this side of the port by learning who grows your food locally and buy it from them.  Then learn how to prepare and preserve it.  You spend too much money on food? Learn how to convert low cost, high nourishment food into flavorful meals. Carrying a little too much weight? You guessed it: Learn how to cook. When you control what goes in your food, you control the nutrition variable that impact your waistline and your health. Home Economics teaches us the very basics of nourishment from the hearth which in turn impacts health and the heart.

Homemade clafouti with local berries

All of this brings us full circle to the epidemic of cooking inability that pervades America. Being able to prepare food and feed ourselves is not only a basic survival skill, but an act of national homeland and home front security. A nation that cannot feed itself is a nation that may not be able to defend itself. The sad fact is that we have erased not just the arts from schools, but the simple learning opportunity that enables Americans to step into a kitchen and put one ingredient with another to nourish themselves. Let’s not confuse Home Economics with the School Nutrition Program either. The National School Lunch Program aims to nourish children so that they can learn. Pioneers like Ann Cooper, Kate Adamick and countless other chefs, nutritionists, foodservice directors, parents and advocates across the country are trying to ensure that kids get meaningful food fuel in their bellies and to their brains so that they can THINK clearly and LEARN. While school lunch supports learning, it is not a culinary arts class. Because we have removed fundamental cooking from so many schools now, it has fallen to a legion of not for profit or foundation driven after school programs to fill this gap – thankfully. But even these programs struggle for space in a cramped after school agenda for kids,  and in a bad economythese programs compete for dwindling funds too.

I do not believe that learning basic cooking skills should be the sole burden of schools either.  I was fortunate that cooking class was part of my school curriculum and one we could choose to specialize in. But I also learned cooking by being in the kitchen with my parents. READ: teaching your kids how to prepare food for themselves is part of parenting. My parents expected us to set the table, clear the table, help out in the kitchen when asked and even invited us to make a meal – simply to relieve them of the burden. By doing so, they passed on a life skill and a survival skill.

A homeland we love

Right now in America, we’re in unchartered economic waters, with a whole lot of verbal mud- slinging and finger-pointing minutia. Healthcare costs are surging, our trade deficit is ballooning at the same rate as our waistlines and are debt to GDP ratio is at a historical level. While food and cooking is not a sole cause of the current day crisis, taking charge of the homefront by controlling how to create what goes on our plate is surely a huge step forward to cost containment and an investment in our personal health and the future fiscal health of our nation. Bring back Home Economics

Yep – I hear all of that over and over again. Don’t have time. Don’t know how. Can’t be bothered. Why bother? There was even a time in the early 2000s and then again mid decade until 2008 where I swear it was a badge of honor to declare yourself a non-cook and just to eat out. Here’s the problem with any of these answers ranging from don’t know how to can’t be bothered: being able to cook is the first step in independence, and independence,  not dependence,  is a very American idea. Allow me to explain.

When you cannot cook, are unable to cook,  or choose not to learn to cook, you essentially hand over that duty to someone else. This means you are no longer in control. You cannot control who grows your food, where it comes from, what happened to it along the way, what happened to it in storage, who did what to it in the kitchen and what happens to it on the way to your plate. When you choose not to cook or not to learn to cook, you are dependent on others. To me, there is no difference between someone who literally is dependent on others to feed them because they are physically or mentally unable, and someone who is perfectly able and simply chooses not to learn to cook. You are both dependent on others and you both relinquish control. Yet as Americans, we thrive on independence, so why would we relinquish control of an asset that is the gateway to our health?

The simple fact of the matter is that not being able to perform the basic act of cooking is a threat to our own health, the health of our family and, the health of our nation. Being able to feed yourself is fundamental to life for goodness sake, and yet as a nation far too many people have outsourced the job. Sure, its fine to eat out for a treat, eat out with friends, eat out when you are traveling and when you are on vacation. But the fact of the matter is, that unless you can afford to eat out at a fine-dining establishment or at a local restaurant where you understand how the food is grown, prepared and cooked, you lack control over your health.

Millions of Americans are unarmed because they lack basic cooking skills. They are dependent on C-stores, packaged foods, fast food and “whatever food”to deliver nourishment because they do not have the skills to create a nourishing alternative. But an even greater number of Americans  live in cooking deserts. Thankfully, the popularity of farmer’s markets and the selfless investment of time from hundreds of community food and gardening advocates, is paving the way to enable Americans to put simple nourishing local food on their plates. But the real impetus must come from a national investment in the basic act of teaching or learning how to cook. To this end, we must invest in cooking programs in schools, after school cooking programs and within community cooking endeavors. Failure to invest in the art of cooking means a solid contribution to the escalating costs of health care. And a sick nation presents a risk to “home front” and homeland security.

poisons and medicine are oftentimes the same substances with different intents – Peter Latham.  

Culinary-Nutrition Definition

This art-science discipline may have many descriptions, but I choose to define it in this way:

• The integration of health-supportive ingredients into customized culinary solutions to assist individuals in achieving personal health and wellness goals

Some may refer to this discipline as culinary medicine, but the use of the word medicine might suggest that only doctors can practice this art-science. Others may define culinary nutrition as a field that marries the skills of nutrition experts with culinary experts. OK, fine. But let’s look at this closely. To help our nation get back on a healthful track, we need to navigate the no man’s land between science-based advice and people’s plates. To do that, we need to marry the science with the art and then figure the variables of budget constraint, time, and accessibility, the individual palate, ethnicity, culture and food memoires. So if you look at that, the art side might be heavier than the science side. And that means if you are to deliver culinary-nutrition services and solutions, your food knowledge and culinary agility needs to be equal to or perhaps greater than the science.   

Providing Culinary-Nutrition Services

I have been deeply humbled by the experts in the functional nutrition and functional medicine community who profoundly believe and demonstrate that food heals. They delve deeply into the science of how our body functions, zero in on the biochemistry to be tweaked, develop a nutrition prescription and then hit the kitchen. Science meets the old home economics (Now known as consumer science). There is a reason that those of us trained in the nutrition and health sciences learned all that biochemistry. We actually need it. But we also need an equally profound knowledge of food, ingredients and how they work in the kitchen. But for now, if you are interested in learning more about this future of food, health and medicine field, here’s some resources that I have found useful to cover the art and science of culinary nutrition

Science

• The Institute of Functional Medicine: www.functionalmedicine.org
• The Center for Mind Body Medicine: http://cmbm.org (Attend Food as Medicine Conference)
• Nutrition and Health Conference: www.nutritionandhealthconf.org
• Dietitians in Functional and Integrative Medicine: www.complementarynutrition.org

Books to get you thinking

• Healing with Whole Foods: Paul Pitchford
• Detoxification and Healing: Sidney McDonald Baker, MD (detox = via natural process of body’s biochemical pathways)
• Food and Healing: Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D
• The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods: Michael Murray, ND
• Gut and Psychology Syndrome, Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD
• Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Ken Bock, MD
• The Second Brain: Michael D Gershan, MD
• Any of Dr Mark Hyman’s publications

Art for a Start

• Natural Gourmet Institute
• Blum Center for Health
• Healing Spices: Bharat B. Aggarwal, PhD
• The Cancer Fighting Kitchen: Rebecca Katz
• Feeding the Whole Family: Cynthia Blair
• The New Good Food Book: Margaret Wittenberg
• Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone: Deborah Madison (for fundamental recipes that WORK)
• The Flavor Bible: Karen Page

But aside from the fact that the kitchen has been relegated to the level of a vending machine or a food reheating hub, we should not be surprised why people cut a wide swath around it. Why? Because we’ve learned the kitchen has become a “dangerous” place. There is heat and fire (gas cook tops), sharp knives (dangerous), glassware, heavy appliances and fast whirling objects (processors) and sharp edges (graters/microplanes). And if we keep telling people of the dangers of the kitchen, guess what – they won’t cook and if they do, they are nervous. They don’t want to fail. They are afraid of doing the wrong thing. They are afraid of making a mistake and spoiling the dish.   So how do we help people gain culinary confidence in a place that has become some austere in so many families? The following are simple observations I have made in the kitchen that  I believe can help people gain confidence in the kitchen whether we are teaching them, cooking with them, or eating a meal prepared by them.

Don’t let nutrition get in the way of flavor

With great food comes great nutrition. Teach people how to cook using great, flavorful ingredients. People only understand quality and “great” ingredients if they taste them next to ones that are inferior quality.  This is why I developed the Flights of Flavor concept to teach people to taste food just as we do wine. You don’t know a really great Cheddar after all, until you have tasted an aged one next to a processed on.

A recipe and a great meal is the sum of all of its part and not a nutrient calculation.  If you focus on plant based cuisine that incorporates a wide variety of foods, nutrition becomes the passenger versus the sole destination.

Rule of thumb: variety, flavor and satisfaction are far more important that nutrient derivatives.

Taste what you make

Many people think like good engineers and approach recipes the same way. They read the recipe, follow it without deviation and then put their masterpiece on the table. Problem solved. Never once during the cooking process, was the dish tasted. I learned a long time ago that recipes are simply guidelines. Think of them as the canvas and the cook has the paintbrush.  A recipe is for interpreting. Ingredients vary each time we use them. They have individual character just like humans.  Ingredient behavior is influenced by how they are grown, stored, their age and how they are heated, cooled and the equipment they come in contact with, just to name a few variables.  So we need to set people up for success. Success is teaching even the most novices of cooks how to balance flavor. This skill will help more people be successful more than any one other skill, except how to use a knife properly. Balancing flavor allows people to brighten up a flabby dish, rescue something that is on the brink of disaster, or take something from ordinary to fantastic. So teaching flavor balancing to me is a foundation principle for long term kitchen success.

Rule of thumb: taste, adjust, taste, re-adjust.

Don’t use a Knife if you don’t have A Sharpener!

Buy a knife that is comfortable for you, but when you buy a knife, buy a sharpening tool too. A knife is only as good as the edge it keeps. Use your knife. Use your sharpener. Have your knives professionally sharpened at least once a year…. If you remember!

You need 3 basic knives. A chef’s knife (7-9”); a paring knife (3”) and a serrated knife for bread – and you can also use if for soft skinned fruit as well.

Learn to use that chef’s knife. If in doubt, watch any YouTube video or online culinary video that shows you how. Once you understand cutting using a locomotive action, you’ll always be able to cut things uniformly. Uniform cuts mean even cooking. Even cooking means no burning, great flavor, confidence building!

Rule of Thumb: if you buy a knife, buy a sharpening tool too

Stirring is not the same as tossing

Nervous cooks stir and stir and stir and they don’t know they are doing it!  When a recipe says toss ingredients together, it means toss once, twice, maybe three times to incorporate or coat ingredients and then walk away. It does not mean stir and stir and stir. Nervous cooks, or novice cooks don’t realize that they are stirring when the recipe says “toss” or “coat.” Then they look down at their pilaf or their quinoa mush and head for the trash can and say “I can’t cook.”

Rule of thumb: stir ingredients in a pot – think polenta, risotto, sauces. Combine or toss cooked ingredients together in bowls and serve

Let’s help people to enjoy their kitchen space. Set them up for success. Encourage them to take cooking lessons at local community colleges, cooking schools, Art Institutes, or even watch some of the great cooking videos or free cooking schools videos online.  Check out www.rouxbe.com, or for basic skills and techniques, just search the skill you are looking for and inevitably a plethora of free “how to” YouTube videos will pop up.

For more about Amanda Archibald and her culinary-centric food education programs, visit www.fieldtoplate.com viagra viagra

So this lofty culinary teaching revolution requires an understanding of the food preparation landscape and how we need to change the paradigm. A lot of in-home cuisine and restaurant meals consist of smothering and covering proteins and carbohydrates with sauces, dressings, drizzles. Many of them are either dairy or dairy alternative based, or consist of flavored high fructose corn syrup solutions manifesting themselves as glazes, drizzles or dressings. Take a look at an average menu and you’ll see what I mean. The smoother and cover trend manifests itself at home in these culinary examples: boiling pasta, barbequing protein or arranging iceberg lettuce and cherry tomatoes and smothering these base ingredients with other ingredients that essentially mask the flavor integrity of the original ingredients. Smear and cover cuisine is reductionist cooking. It means hiding the very essence of flavor under a blanket of other ingredients so that you can no longer decipher the taste base of your dish. Instead of showcasing base flavors and textures, we mask them, making the base ingredients mere transporters of the “toppings.”

So what’s the answer and where do we begin? As teachers and educators, it goes without saying that before we embark on our cooking education for others, we must deeply honor the cultures and life circumstances of each and every person we work with. Having said that, here is my culinary teaching philosophy: I call it the Reduction to Production Philosophy. The philosophy says that we will teach people how to move from Smothering and Covering to Recovery and Discovery Cuisine. By so doing we will elevate cuisine from reductionist “Smothering and Covering” to enlightened Recovery and (Flavor) Discovery cuisine. Smothering and Covering cuisine simply smears or ladles sauces and dressings on top of other ingredients, hiding their very essence. Recovering and Discovery cuisine uses simple, complimentary ingredients to showcase the essence of food, its unique texture and flavor and its health-conducive properties. The Natural Gourmet Institute in New York has taught the concept of restorative, health-conducive cuisine since inception by the way. So let’s look at some examples:

Smoother and Cover Cuisine:  Iceberg lettuce wedge with a blue cheese dressing; honey-mustard glazed BBQ ribs; Chicken pasta with a creamy spinach-artichoke sauce

Recovery and Discovery Cuisine: Napa cabbage and carrot slaw with a lime cumin dressing; lemon-herb roasted asparagus fettuccini with toasted walnuts; Spinach, garlic and feta polenta pizza; Savory ginger bok choy noodles; simple cinnamon-blueberry-pecan parfait

Ah ha some of you say! Recovery and Discovery cuisine is an elite cuisine. It has weird ingredients that you can only find at the pricey upscale stores and they cost a fortune. Well here is the paradigm shift that we need to introduce to America’s kitchen. Recover and Discovery cuisine is THE cuisine we must teach. Some may call it culinary therapy or restorative cuisine. Others may call it elitist. Some may call it Asian or some other cuisine that is not “American.” I call it an inclusive cuisine because it includes the very ingredients and nutrients that align with health and nourishment. Recovery and Discovery cuisine does not exclude traditional American fare from the table. Nor does it banish time-honored heirloom recipes from the cookbook. Recovery and Discovery cuisine is offered as a transitional cuisine; one that can be introduced a side at a time or a soup at a time. A cuisine that offers new flavor and texture ideas at the same time reflecting our understanding of new nutrition science and the rapidly diversifying ethnic palate of America. This vibrant or “vitality” form of cuisine, is an expansive form of nourishment and cooking. Smothering and covering is a contractive or reductionist form of nourishment and cooking. There is nothing elite about exposing people to nourishment and vitality.

The simple fact of the matter is that we can no longer afford (literally) to buy into the idea that lower fat or lower calorie renditions of the same old recipes are acceptable. We can no longer stand by and say that we are being insensitive when we suggest a fresh lemon and a bottle of olive oil be a staple in the kitchen. We cannot call cuisine elite when ginger has health-conducive properties that bottled fabricated “Creamy” dressing alternatives will never have. As teachers, educators, chefs, nutrition and health professionals we must help people calculate the costs associated with not having health conducive ingredients in their kitchens. The base ingredients for a simple vinaigrette are capable of producing many more health-conducive dressings at a lower unit cost than any one bottle of a national brand salad dressing ever will. A single ginger root can produce many more meals at a lower per meal cost than any one package of “mix” added to one set of assemble and heat ingredients. Oh and the return on health and nourishment for including ginger? Immeasurable compared to heat and eat processed equivalents. These are the facts that we must now present as we lay nourishment foundations for each and every person we teach.

It comes down to this. We can continue the reductionist model of making recipes fit into a cooking paradigm that is not working, or we can – to paraphrase Gandhi’s famous words – be the change we want to see in America’s Kitchens.

Amanda Archibald will be teaching Recovery and Discovery Cuisine throughout 2011 in Field to Plate’s Edible Education to Nourish the Nation workshops, nationwide.