Start promoting healthy cooking again

Some members of the medical community seem to be getting it. Recently Dr. David Eisenberg, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, actually “wokked the talk.” At the Culinary Institute of America in Greystone, Calif., Eisenberg demonstrated stir frying to a rapt audience of about 400 health care professionals who spent three days in the Napa Valley to learn how to cook. This isn’t neurosurgery ... this is hearty, affordable, cravenly delicious food,” he told. them

For the eighth year the doctor has promoted the idea of flavor as a health issue at the CE meeting. As a child, the doctor enjoyed working with his dad at the family bakery — until his father died of a heart attack when he was 10.

As a nutritionist I often shake my head. Common feelings range from cooking is either too hard or passe; too time consuming or uninteresting; too demeaning or hard to learn. Though medical professionals are on the front lines of America’s crusade against diabetes and obesity, many begin to practice with limited knowledge of nutrition, much less than with workable knowledge of the art and science of cooking. Yet by 2050, unless current trends are halted, one in three adults will develop diabetes.

Years ago, Northwest Community Hospital promoted healthy cooking classes taught by a local doctor/chef. Perhaps it’s time to go back to the good old days for inspiration. The promotion of cooking skills could drive down health care costs and save lives as well.

Audrey Beauvais

Arlington Heights