Culinary and Lifestyle Medicine

The Yale Primary Care residency program’s Diet and Disease curriculum is a longitudinal culinary medicine and nutrition education program designed to prepare residents to address the central role of diet in chronic disease prevention and management. Over the course of residency training, the curriculum explores three of the most common diet-related conditions encountered in primary care practice: cardiovascular disease, overweight and obesity, and type 2 diabetes, with each year dedicated to a focused exploration of one disease area.

Through a combination of interactive lectures and hands-on culinary instruction, residents learn evidence-based approaches to nutrition counseling and lifestyle intervention while developing practical skills that can be directly applied in clinical care. Sessions emphasize realistic, patient-centered strategies for dietary change and incorporate broader discussions surrounding food access, systemic inequities, and the social drivers of health that influence diet-related disease.

A defining feature of the curriculum is its experiential learning environment. Sessions take place in the Yale New Haven Health Teaching Kitchen, where residents participate in culinary medicine with a team of physicians, dietitians, and chefs.1 In these hands-on cooking experiences, residents prepare recipes that reinforce the sessions’ educational themes and demonstrate practical approaches to healthy cooking and eating. By combining clinical nutrition education with culinary skill-building, the curriculum seeks to increase residents’ confidence in discussing food and dietary behavior with patients2 while fostering a deeper understanding of the relationship between food, culture, health, and chronic disease management.

1. Wood NI, Stone TA, Siler M, Goldstein M, Albin JL. Physician-Chef-Dietitian Partnerships for Evidence-Based Dietary Approaches to Tackling Chronic Disease: The Case for Culinary Medicine in Teaching Kitchens. JHL. 2023;Volume 15:129-137. doi:10.2147/JHL.S389429
2. Wood NI, Fussell M, Benghiat E, et al. A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Culinary Medicine Intervention in a Virtual Teaching Kitchen for Primary Care Residents. JGIM. Published online June 25, 2025. doi:10.1007/s11606-025-09652-x