Attitudes and beliefs about how chefs can promote nutrition and sustainable food systems among students at a US culinary school

Abstract

Objective: Chefs have the potential to influence diet quality and food systems sustainability through their work. We aimed to assess the attitudes and perceptions of culinary students about nutrition and sustainability as part of their roles, responsibilities and future work as chefs. Design: We surveyed students attending the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in the fall of 2019 (n 546). Descriptive statistics compared food priority rankings and Likert-scale distributions of nutrition and sustainability attitudes and beliefs. Adjusted generalized linear models were used to evaluate whether there were differences in attitudes and beliefs across demographic groups. Setting: The Culinary Institute of America, a private, not-for-profit college and culinary school with US campuses in New York, California, and Texas. Subjects: Students ≥18 years old currently enrolled in any of the school’s associate’s or bachelor’s degree programs. Results: Students agreed that chefs should be knowledgeable about nutrition (96.0%) and the environmental impact of their ingredients (90.8%) but fewer considered healthfulness (57.8%) and environmental impact (60.2%) of their food to be primary considerations in their career as a chef. Taste was the primary factor influencing culinary students’ food choices but food priorities differed by race/ethnicity. Conclusions: Culinary students believe nutrition and sustainability are important. Opportunities exist to empower them with knowledge and skills for promoting public health and sustainable food systems in their future work as chefs.

Promoting Nutrition and Food Sustainability Knowledge in Apprentice Chefs: An Intervention Study at The School of Italian Culinary Arts—ALMA

“…At the same time, some instruments have been validated on culinary students, but they aimed at assessing beliefs and attitudes toward food, and cooking skills, rather than nutrition and food sustainability knowledge [ 13 , 44 , 45 , 46 ]. Only a recent study [ 12 ] on U.S. culinary students addressed the issue of food sustainability, delving into their attitudes and beliefs about the role of chefs in encouraging healthy diets and sustainable food systems. The students interviewed listed price, taste, and convenience as priorities when choosing food.…”

“…In this connection, culinary students consider nutrition and sustainability as important aspects of dish development, recognizing the responsibility of their choices in influencing future food systems [ 12 , 13 ]. Although several culinary schools and organizations are now including nutrition and sustainability in their training programs [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ], culinary students’ knowledge of healthy and sustainable nutrition is still scarcely investigated and is limited to the nutritional aspect of the diet, without considering food sustainability or the environmental impact of foods [ 18 , 19 ].…”

The Food Service Playbook for Promoting Sustainable Food Choices

“…Given how important taste is to boost demand for plant-rich food, it is essential that chefs and other food preparation personnel are skilled in creating healthy, sustainable meals that are also delicious. Yet despite many chefs holding positive attitudes toward both health and the environment, many have not received the training required to create delicious and nutritious plant-rich meals (Bertoldo et al 2022). Compared to meat, plant-rich options may contain more and varied ingredients that require different and unfamiliar cooking techniques, and certain plant-based ingredients can be a challenge to procure from existing suppliers.…”

Culinary Medicine or Culinary Nutrition? Defining Terms for Use in Education and Practice

“…In culinary arts education, there is an established teaching of nutrition concepts, following the belief that nutrition knowledge is important for chefs [ 32 ], and recommendations to underscore the importance of ‘culinary nutrition’ in gastronomy [ 33 ]. Existing content areas include healthy recipe and menu development often aligned with country-specific dietary guidelines, foods for special diets including food allergy management, and religious and culturally specific diets [ 34 ].…”