USA Health teaching kitchen highlighted in national campaign advocating for more nutrition education for future physicians
The Teaching Kitchen Collaborative (TKC), a global network of leading organizations committed to integrating nutrition, culinary, and lifestyle education into healthcare, featured USA Health’s program in a national email campaign as a model for medical education.
By Michelle Ryan-Day
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The USA Health teaching kitchen is gaining national attention for its innovative approach to medical education, helping bridge a critical gap in how future physicians learn about nutrition and lifestyle medicine.
At USA Health, medical students, residents, and fellows regularly trade lecture halls for aprons as they step into the teaching kitchen — a hands-on learning space where they prepare healthy meals, explore the science behind nutrition, and develop the confidence to discuss dietary habits with patients.
Recently, the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative (TKC), a global network of leading organizations committed to integrating nutrition, culinary, and lifestyle education into healthcare, featured USA Health’s program in a national email campaign as a model for medical education.
The TKC campaign, titled “A Decade of Cooking Up Health,” celebrates 10 years of advancing teaching kitchens worldwide and advocates for nutrition education as a standard part of medical training. Research published in ScienceDirect and cited by TKC shows that 75% of U.S. medical schools still have no required clinical nutrition courses, a gap programs like USA Health’s are working to close.
Connor Martin, a medical student training to become an internist, said discussing nutrition with patients was challenging in the past. “I would give them pamphlets, but I would not really be able to go in-depth and explain it,” he said. “That’s why this course has been really helpful and exciting.”
The teaching kitchen at USA Health is more than a place to cook — it’s a dynamic laboratory where students learn how food, behavior, and health intersect. Under the leadership of Robert Israel, M.D., FACP, an internist and director of the Integrative Health and Wellness program, the kitchen fosters a deeper understanding of how proper nutrition can prevent and manage many chronic diseases.
“Having like-minded people with experience in teaching kitchens has allowed us to learn exponentially faster how to better serve our population,” Israel said. “Networking questions bring quick and effective responses that we can apply in our kitchen.”
As part of its ongoing efforts, TKC is inviting submissions from medical educators to share innovative strategies for teaching and assessing nutrition competencies in medical and undergraduate education. Selected approaches will be showcased at the Convening on Best Practices in Medical Nutrition Education hosted by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) with active participation of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) in April 2026.
The email also shared a glimpse into medical students at work in the USA Health teaching kitchen with the inclusion of a link to a recent Alabama Public Radio feature produced by Cori Young.
