Vancouver, B.C.
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) offers Culinary Rx as a benefit of ACLM membership in an effort to provide accessible online educational support that drives long-term lifestyle and behavior change.
Rouxbe Cooking School announced today that Culinary Rx, an online instructional cooking and nutrition course that healthcare professionals prescribe to their patients for prevention, treatment, and lifestyle health, is being offered as a showcased benefit to members of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM). Culinary Rx was developed in 2015 in collaboration with The Plantrician Project and leading physicians who subscribe to a food-first approach to healthcare. Now, all members of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine will have direct access to this important educational resource at deeply discounted member-only pricing.
Since its inaugural launch in July of 2015, over 1,500 people from around the world have engaged in the Culinary Rx online nutrition education and plant-based cooking course as part of their transition to adopting a more healthful dietary lifestyle. Participants have shown strong engagement and exceptional course compliance, supporting long-term behavior change. Increased cooking confidence and enjoyment of cooking are two primary course objectives.
“This is an informative and eye-opening course. It very clearly illustrates how easy, fun and delicious adopting a plant-based diet can be, and of course how much healthier it is for you! I have already recommended it to family and friends,” said student Paula Finnerty.
Physicians and healthcare providers are now able to prescribe Culinary Rx to their patients or clients through the Culinary Rx website or through an iOS application called the “Prescriber.” This enables a medical and wellness professional to personalize the Culinary Rx invitation and keep track of each patient’s progress.
“Those dedicated to lifestyle medicine acknowledge that food trumps all,” said Susan Benigas, ACLM Executive Director. “The question physicians often ask is, ‘How do I educate patients about an optimal dietary lifestyle and provide the cooking instruction and nutrition literacy required to guide them on their journey?’ Culinary Rx is a scalable eLearning platform that is designed to support sustained behavior change over time. Where optimal dietary lifestyle is concerned, I’ve found no better educational tool than Culinary Rx.”
Early survey data is demonstrating that the course is working*:
- 99% would recommend the course to others
- 92% gained confidence in their cooking ability
- 88% are now motivated to adopt better overall healthier habits
- 42% are reducing meat consumption, increasing plant-based foods
- 28% are making the shift to 100% plant-based diet
“This is the kind of data we were hoping for,” says Joe Girard, Rouxbe CEO. “Our goal with the course was to help people make the challenging shift to a healthier diet and to do so in a manner that drove long-term behavioral change. People can learn what to eat to support their health, but if they can’t cook it and make it taste delicious, the change won’t last. We need to teach people how to cook and to begin to enjoy the process and that’s exactly what happens with Culinary Rx participants.”
* Data from completion surveys from 180 Culinary Rx participants during the beta offering.
About Rouxbe’s Wellness Programs
Rouxbe provides wellness and health programming for individuals, health care providers and organizations. Rouxbe’s revolutionary online platform delivers cutting edge e-learning solutions that drive and measure learning outcomes and engagement while providing effective, lower-cost alternatives for teaching people the fundamentals of cooking as part of larger lifestyle and preventative health efforts. For more information on culinary wellness or to learn more about Rouxbe, please contact Joe Girard, CEO & Co-Founder at jgirard@rouxbe.com.
