NORTH HAVEN, Conn. — A relatively new teaching kitchen at Yale New Haven Health’s North Haven campus is being used to teach culinary medicine to patients.
“This is the hands-on learning that you don’t necessarily get to do in your regular doctor or dietician appointment. It’s not meant to replace those appointments but kind of compliment the things that they’re learning about,” said Chef Max Goldstein, a registered dietician who teaches the classes offered by the health system free of charge to its patients.
Goldstein works with a wide range of patients, who are referred by their doctors for the course to learn about how food impacts their overall health.
“We don’t bill insurance, there’s no copay, no out of pocket expense, which is really great. It reduces a barrier to nutrition access that some patients might otherwise have,” Goldstein said. “A lot of them do come from digestive health, which encompasses, you know, GI health, so IBS or IBD. It also encompasses bariatric surgery and medical weight loss. But, then, we get just as many patients from heart and vascular; we have a lot of diabetes patients who come through.”
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And patients can feel free to bring a guest too, which Goldstein said usually makes them more comfortable and gives them the confidence boost they need to show up.
The concept of the classes is one hospital administrators had been dreaming about for years but didn’t have the space to make it happen… until just under a year ago.
“We found over years of counseling patients that you can give them a lot of good advice, but in the end, it comes down to whether they can act on that advice,” said Lisa Mastroianni, clinical nutrition manager for Yale New Haven Health.
“It’s been a lifelong process to try to lose weight. I would lose, I would gain. I think this is a more healthy way,” said Jane Beamon, who is now on her sixth class at the teaching kitchen.
Beamon said for a long time, her doctor was trying to get her to stop eating out and cook healthier meals at home. However, she admitted she didn’t have the tools and information she needed to put that advice into practice.
“That’s why I’m here,” Beamon said. “Best way to get healthy is to learn how to cook healthy.”
At first, the patients are taught the basics, like how to use a knife and other cooking techniques. As they progress, they learn to work with simple, healthy ingredients. The instructors work mostly with the Mediterranean diet.
“The Mediterranean diet is what people in Italy, France (and) Spain tend to eat. It’s a very plant-forward diet, which does not necessarily mean plant-based, right? These recipes are not necessarily all vegetarian or vegan,” Goldstein said. “We’re really trying to get folks just to eat more fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, whole grains, cook with some healthier oils, maybe cut down on the amount of salt a bit.”
Goldstein said his main goal is to help people become more comfortable in the kitchen.
“You would be surprised how many people come in here, and they may be a little bit older, but they’re like, ‘I’ve never really cooked before,’” Goldstein said. “Because we could deliver all the education you wanted in a traditional healthcare appointment, right? But when it comes to nutrition, if the person doesn’t know how to actually go home and make that into actionable steps, you’re reducing the potential impact there.”
Giving the patients the tools they need to take control of their own health.
“Many of the diseases that we see in our patients, especially the chronic diseases, are impacted largely by nutrition and what people eat,” Mastroianni said.
Though the kitchen’s main focus is to help patients, Goldstein also works with medical students, PA students, residents, and practicing providers. In the future, he said they’d like to expand to help other members of the community.
“The idea is that it’s recipes that are easy to make quickly the night before or even the morning of, but still being nutritious,” Goldstein said.
The program is philanthropy-based and relies on donations and volunteers to keep going. Anyone interested in learning more, can click here.
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Julia LeBlanc is a reporter at FOX61 News. She can be reached at jleblanc@fox61.com. Follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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