Cutline: Dr. Mladen Golubic, top center, speaks with a participant at the “Cook Well, Eat Well, Live Well” program at ICC North Campus. Working in the kitchen with physicians at each session were dieticians, Rebecca Kaplan-Shank, right, and Alice Price, above.
About 120 physicians and advanced care medical professionals attended at least one of four sessions of a unique program, “Cook Well, Eat Well, Live Well,” linking diet with an array of diseases from diabetes to cancer.
The sessions, covered by Community Word over the past year, were held in the culinary department at Illinois Central College North Campus.
Organizers Kathy Corso and Anne Patterson designed the program in conjunction with Dr. Jeffrey Leman and Dr. Keith Knepp, Unity Point Health Methodist.
University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria is interested in continuing the program with more sessions in 2015, Corso said.
The program was unusual because it put physicians and medical professionals in the kitchens at ICC North Campus with chefs and registered dietitians working on dinners that were served before each major lecture.
Corso said that hands-on work received high evaluations in the final program assessment.
“I had someone ask me ‘What’s a chef’s knife?’” Corso said.
No one asked that question following the sessions. Doctors were in the kitchens wielding knives, cutting, dicing and chopping.
“We avoided any specific diet,” Corso said, noting that the sessions explored research-based nutritional science.
Two local physicians, Dr. Michele Couri and Dr. Amy Christison, presented during the program that also included doctors from as far away as Cleveland Clinic Center for Disease Reversal in Cleveland, Ohio.
Dr. Mladen Golubic, medical director of the center at the Cleveland Clinic, told participants the current medical system in the United States is unsustainable, with annual costs for just cardiovascular disease alone hitting $818 billion by 2030.
Golubic advocates disease prevention with a plant-based, whole-food diet with no added oil, and he recommends a regular exercise regime.