Applying Community-Engaged Pedagogy to Culinary Medicine: Why and How Community Nutrition Enriches Culinary Medicine Curricula.

Abstract

Diet is a critical determinant of health, yet nutrition education remains underemphasized in medical school curricula, leaving physicians inadequately prepared to discuss nutrition with patients. Culinary Medicine (CM), a growing field blending nutritional science with practical culinary skills, offers a promising model for enhancing medical trainee competence in dietary counseling. However, many CM programs focus primarily on nutrition and culinary training, often underutilizing the educational potential of community engagement. This article advocates for the integration of community-engaged pedagogy (CEP) as a vital third pillar in CM curricula. CEP fosters reciprocal learning between medical trainees and community members, which deepens student understanding of patients' lived experiences with social determinants of health, enhances the practicality of dietary recommendations, and promotes novel forms of interprofessional collaboration. The authors provide recommendations and examples of how CEP can be embedded into CM training and call for rigorous evaluation of CEP integration to ensure that outcomes align with the goals of both students and community partners. Ultimately, as CM courses grow in popularity and become incorporated into more academic curricula, it is important to ensure that CEP becomes established as a core element of CM programming.