HJBR May/Jun 2021

Q&A 20 MAY / JUN 2021 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE   and guide them through the recipes while having meaningful conversations about how they can use the lessons in their patient counseling. We have the students photo- graph their finished dishes and everyone gets to see the food that their classmates made while we discuss the relevant nutri- tion. The students have reported that while they miss being able to come to our kitchen for classes, they’ve actually enjoyed being able to get more comfortable cooking in their home kitchens. As we saw an overall trend in people being interested in improv- ing their cooking skills this past year while spending more time at home, we also saw increased interest in our elective series with record enrollment. Our classes end up being a pretty fun way to spend an afternoon, cooking and connecting with others, even if it is through a computer screen for now. Louisiana is often rated low for overall health and high in obesity. You speak to med students and physicians about meeting people “where they are.” What does that mean, and how do you suggest they start the conversation? It’s really important to us to approach nutrition in a way that will have the biggest impact on a patient’s health, and we believe that if you ask people to make too big of a change or too many changes at once, they are likely to be unsuccessful with sustain- ing those changes. This is why so many “diets” fail. Our curriculum is built around the Mediterranean diet, which is one of the best studied dietary patterns and simple to implement. We know that a two-point improvement in someone’s Mediterranean diet score can reduce risk of death from all causes by 25%, which is really impres- sive considering how easy it can be to get those two points! For example, that could be achieved through eating at least 2 cups of beans or legumes each week and at least 2 cups of vegetables each day. I really like the fact that we mainly focus on foods to include in a healthy diet, which feels more supportive than demonizing certain foods or eliminating entire food groups. It’s important to recognize that not every patient is going to be able to make the exact same changes in a sustainable way, but we should celebrate the fact that every small change adds up to big wins over time. We also make it a point to acknowledge that food has many functions in our lives. It provides fuel for our bodies and can have healing properties, but it also can serve as comfort, a connection to our family and our cultural heritage. So, it’s important that we take those things into account when we talk about good nutrition, because at the end of the day, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. We can use the Mediterranean diet as a framework, but it’s always about making recommendations that are appro- priate to the patient, taking into account all aspects of their health and life. It has been said that if you are really trying to eat healthy, you would not eat 98% of the items in a typical grocery store and that the U.S. chain grocery stores/food supply cannot currently sustain a healthy population. Organ- ics are considered a luxury for the rich, and until consumers demand reasonably priced, easily accessible, nutritious food, nothing is going to change, and the healthcare system will continue to have to focus on the results of poor nutrition. Do you see a solution to this, and how canwe, as today’s healthcare leaders, help change this seemly systematic failure in our food supply? I think if we focus on keeping it simple in our approach with how we talk to patients about food and good nutrition, we can be successful in helping more people avoid the side effects of poor nutrition. It can be overwhelming for people to focus on all the things you need to do to eat healthfully, such as learning how to read nutrition labels and how to meal plan to maximize time and minimize waste. Many people think that eat- ing healthfully has to be expensive, but we are able to show that with a little bit of culi- nary knowledge and skills, you can make