What’s in a Name

Culinary Medicine

An evidence-based field that combines the art of cooking with medical science. It teaches practical cooking skills alongside nutrition knowledge to help prevent and manage chronic diseases. Culinary Medicine is often delivered through teaching kitchens and healthcare programs, focusing on whole, minimally processed foods and culturally relevant meals.

Culinary Nutrition/Wellness

The integration of nutrition science with culinary arts to create meals that are both healthy and enjoyable. It focuses on applying culinary strategies and cooking techniques that maximize and preserve beneficial nutrients, tailoring recipes to dietary needs, and promoting sustainable, balanced eating patterns.

Culinary Therapeutics

An emerging discipline that uses culinary strategies to improve health and well-being. It applies evidence-based nutrition and cooking techniques to support disease management, performance, and mental health. This includes therapeutic cooking interventions for emotional well-being and programs that deliver nutritionally optimized meals for clinical or wellness purposes. Culinary therapeutics educates chefs, enhancing their ability to work alongside clinicians, in healthcare-based teaching kitchens and/or in clinical practice.

Food is Medicine: 

An approach to medicine and public health that engages healthcare professionals in integrating food and nutrition into healthcare to prevent, manage, and treat diet-related diseases. It emphasizes the therapeutic role of food through interventions like medically tailored meals, produce prescriptions, and nutrition education, often linked to healthcare systems.

Lifestyle Medicine

A medical specialty that uses lifestyle interventions—such as plant-predominant nutrition, physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, social connection, and avoidance of risky substances—to prevent, treat, and often reverse chronic diseases. It addresses root causes rather than symptoms. 

Planetary Health Diets

A global reference dietary framework advanced by the 2025 EAT-Lancet Commission to align human health with environmental sustainability. It is plant-rich, includes modest (and optional) amounts of foods from animal sources, and limits processed foods and added sugars. The Planetary Health Diet highlights strategies that deliver optimally nutritious diets and collectively keep our global food system within nine (9) critical planetary boundaries anticipating a world population of nearly 10 billion people by 2050. Many traditional, plant-forward dietary patterns—from Asia to the Mediterranean, Latin America, Africa, and beyond—are well aligned with or can be easily adapted to the Planetary Health Diet framework.  

Plant-Forward/Plant-Rich/Plant-Based

Plant-forward and plant-rich dietary patterns emphasize and celebrate—but are not limited to—foods from plant sources that reflect evidence-based principles of health and sustainability. Plant-based generally refers to vegan dietary patterns.

Sustainable Diets and Food Choices

Dietary patterns that promote health and well-being while minimizing environmental impact. They are culturally acceptable, affordable, and nutritionally adequate, emphasizing plant-sourced foods, biodiversity, and reduced food waste. Sustainable diets aim to balance human health with ecological preservation.