Why would you take cooking lessons from someone whose food you haven’t tasted?

Honestly, if I was being asked to pay my hard earned money for cooking lessons, that’s the very question I would ask.  That’s where the idea for “Healthy Cooking Live!” came from.

“Healthy Cooking Live!” is a demonstration of what I offer you in my healthy cooking instruction series; “Healthy Food for Life!”...and yes you get to taste the food!  Look at it as a close to three hour audition with benefits...edible ones!  At each “Healthy Cooking Live!” demonstration food enough for more than 30 hungry lumberjacks to have a full buffet style meal will be prepared from start to finish right in front of you!  There’s no enchanted oven from which finished dishes magically appear and I don’t have an army of help off to the side...it’s demonstration cooking without a net!  If I make a mistake there’s nowhere to hide it, you’ll see and taste the results.  At the end you can judge for yourself if I’m the person you want to learn from.

What is “healthy” cooking anyway?

I’ve been a serious student of lifestyle modification since my own “heart episode” on June 23, 2003; both personally, by searching through the popular literature and then formally as a student under the expert guidance of the Medical Dietetics program at the Ohio State University School of Allied Medical Professions.

I first thought that everyone I read had a different idea about what healthy eating was, but it became clear to me that there was more agreement on the general principles of healthy eating than there was disagreement on the details. 

So what is it that we can all agree on?  Americans consume far too much salt, fat, sugar, meat and high fat dairy and we eat too few fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.  Much of what we eat too much of comes in the form of processed foods that provide the excess salt, fat, and sugar.  I don’t know any self-respecting nutrition expert, dietitian, medical practitioner, or public health official that would disagree with that statement.  Frankly, it would just be irresponsible to say anything different! 

If at a young age you decide to eat less salt, fat, sugar, meat, and high fat dairy, and move your body around some, you can almost certainly delay or even avoid the chronic illnesses that plague Americans today, that’s just a fact.  But if you already have a chronic illness you may be able to reduce symptoms and control the disease by changing the way you eat...that’s what we call “lifestyle modification.”  Your doctors can verify that, just ask them...if they don’t agree then get new doctors! 

Unless you’re from Seattle and your last name is Gates and you can afford to hire someone like me as your personal Chef – in order to be successful with a lifestyle modification – you have to learn how to cook!  There’s just no way around it!  Restaurants won’t do it for you and even the processed foods that claim to be “healthy” are still too high in salt, fat, and sugar to be apart of your lifestyle modification dietary protocol.  You are in control of your own health and the skills in the kitchen that I can teach you will help you make your lifestyle modification challenge successful!

Remember...it’s not enough to just know and be willing...we have to act!

                    “Knowing is not enough;

          we must apply!”

                    “Willing is not enough;

          we must do!”

                                          - Bruce Lee

What is Healthy Cooking Live?

Remember when everyone used to cook?  I’m sure some of you don’t, but I’m just old enough to have caught the tail end of it.  You used to be able to look around most neighborhoods between 5pm and 7pm and see families eating home-cooked meals together.  It just doesn’t happen anymore.  There are almost two complete generations of Americans for which food preparation was not part of average childhood experience.  If you could get a well-prepared, inexpensive, and healthy meal in a restaurant that would be less of an issue, but that’s not the way it works.  We train our Chefs to use prodigious amounts of salt, fat, and sugar...I know, I am one and that’s the way I was trained, both at the Culinary Institute of America and the School of Hard Knocks!

In 2003 I thought I was a culinary bad-ass, and after more than 25 years of experience in international resorts, I may have even earned that title, but when I approached having to cook without extra salt, fat, sugar, meat, and dairy I faced the hardest professional and personal challenge of my life!  I discovered that I really didn't know half of what I thought I did, you see, it's easy when you use salt, fat, and sugar.  But try cooking without those culinary crutches and it's another whole ball game entirely...now you have to really cook!  I had to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch learning to cook all over again from square one.  What I’ve learned in my own kitchen, on my personal lifestyle modification journey is what I’ve incorporated into the cooking classes that will be offered here at FoodCanHeal...and “Healthy Cooking Live!” is a small taste of that experience.  It’s just a hint of what is available in far greater detail through my “Healthy Food for Life!” cooking instruction series.