Culinary Coaching Research

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Patient Outcomes

Explore selected studies on the impact of culinary coaching interventions across various patient populations and their potential to improve outcomes.

Innovation in Diabetes Care: Improving Consumption of Healthy Food Through a “Chef Coaching” Program: A Case Report A case report describing the outcomes of the first culinary coaching program, delivered in 2014.  We concluded that a culinary coaching program could help people with diabetes improve their culinary skills, nutrition, and overall self-care and health. 

Improving patients' home cooking - A case series of participation in a remote culinary coaching program

This case series presents a positive outcome of the culinary coaching program on participants' home cooking. This program might be a viable response to the need for effective and scalable health-related culinary interventions. This publication also includes the definition of culinary coaching. 

Improving Adherence to Mediterranean-Style Diet With a Community Culinary Coaching Program: Methodology Development and Process Evaluation

This report examines the feasibility of a Community Culinary Coaching Program to improve residents' nutrition in communal settlements. The residents, central kitchens, preschools, and communal dining rooms were identified as areas for intervention. Evaluation included goal accomplishment assessed by food purchases by the central kitchens, and residents' feedback through focus groups. 

Improving the quality of foods available in a rural kibbutz cafeteria in Israel to align with a freshly prepared Mediterranean-style diet through a community culinary coaching programme

This report examines the impact of a community culinary coaching programme on cafeteria food alignment with a freshly prepared Mediterranean-style diet, and diners' consumption habits and satisfaction. Intervention cafeteria food improved significantly in all Mediterranean index categories except nuts, and in the proportion of ultra-processed and unprocessed or minimally processed foods categories of the NOVA classification. 

The Impact of a Culinary Coaching Telemedicine Program on Home Cooking and Emotional Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic

A study that found a positive impact of the culinary coaching telemedicine program on emotional well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Culinary coaching via telemedicine may be an effective intervention for teaching home cooking skills and promoting self-care as a coping strategy during times of stress. 

Expectations from a Home Cooking Program: Qualitative Analyses of Perceptions from Participants in "Action" and "Contemplation" Stages of Change, before Entering a Bi-Center Randomized Controlled Trial.

The purpose of this report is to explore the expectations of participants in different stages of change from a culinary coaching program. While action group participants were looking to expand existing knowledge and techniques, contemplation group participants were focusing on acquiring culinary knowledge and skills. This can potentially contribute to developing effective, personalized nutrition interventions.

Personalized Culinary Medicine: Qualitative Analyses of Perceptions from Participants in Action and Contemplation Stages of Change Through a One-Year Bi-Center Randomized Controlled Trial

This paper assesses participants' perceptions of accomplishments, challenges, and needs up to 1 year after a culinary medicine program, according to their stage of change at entry. Perceptions were related to (1) acquire culinary and nutritional knowledge; (2) improve culinary and self-regulatory skills, (3); and (4) address the sustainability of health changes. This information can help reform effective personalized culinary medicine programs.

Medical education outcomes

Explore selected studies about the impact of culinary coaching medical education interventions, and learn about their potential to improve trainees' self-care and competencies to deliver culinary medicine interventions. 

Innovation in medical education: a culinary coaching tele-nutrition training program

This study describes the positive impact of the first Clinicians CHEF Coaching training (CHEF Coaching the basics together with Beyond the Basics) on health coaches’ confidence in delivering culinary coaching programs up to 6 months after the training, including high use of culinary coaching principles and tools in patient programs. This suggests that the culinary coaching model can be successfully expanded to health coaches, thus improving nutritional care.

Cooking Online With a Chef: Health Professionals’ Evaluation of a Live Culinary Coaching Module

This report presents and evaluates the live online “cooking with a chef” module that allows health care professionals to deliver cooking workshops from their own kitchens. The module was well received by self-selected health care professionals.

Training Physician Assistant Students to Provide Evidence-Based, Holistic, Patient-Driven Care: a Novel Curriculum

This paper describes and evaluates the implementation of a novel Whole Health/lifestyle medicine (WH-LM) education initiative that includes a culinary coaching module for physician assistant (PA) students embedded within a clinical rotation at the VA Boston Healthcare System (VABHS). Students demonstrated increased knowledge of WH-LM principles and greater self-efficacy in applying them following training.

Evaluation of a Whole Health-Lifestyle Medicine Curriculum for Physician Assistant Students: a Mixed Methods Analysis

This paper extends previous quantitative findings from the Whole Health-Lifestyle Medicine Curriculum, including a culinary coaching module, and reveals positive qualitative changes in PA student language and approach to clinical vignettes. 

Culinary Medicine publications

The CHEF Coaching team also contributed several studies that advanced the field of culinary medicine. To learn more about our contribution here.