An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away: How Culinary Medicine Encourages the Return of Food as Medicine and Promotes Health

Culinary medicine is an up-and-coming field in the world of patient care. It focuses on treating patients through a holistic interdisciplinary approach combining the fields of culinary arts and medicine. This field teaches not only nutritional guidelines, but also cooking techniques and how changes to a patient’s diet can be made in the context of their life. This includes cultural, economic, and other considerations. Its goal is to provide medical professionals with another tool to combat preventable diseases that are some of America’s leading causes of death and help to improve a patient’s overall condition. The importance of food as medicine has a rich history, and its origins in and similarities with both traditional Chinese medicine and medieval medicine are significant. The goal of this paper is to explore the roots of food as medicine and see how these roots manifest themselves in contemporary culinary medicine, while also exploring the efficacy, ethics, and costs of culinary medicine.Bachelor of Art