Yale New Haven Health Teaching Kitchen Named to the National Teaching Kitchen Collaborative

New Haven, CT (October 22, 2024) – Yale New Haven Health (YNHHS) has been formally accepted into the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative (TKC), a leading network of educational, research, and community organizations with teaching kitchens aimed at improving personal and public health. YNHHS has joined organizations including Google, Compass Group, and Cleveland Clinic, leading the teaching kitchen movement to improve health outcomes in the United States and around the world.

“We are very honored and proud to be accepted into the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative,” said Joseph Mendes, PA-C, RRT, MS, Executive Director, Digestive Health, Yale New Haven Health.“ YNHHS opened the largest teaching kitchen in Connecticut just last year, and joining the TKC allows us to share best practices and resources with our colleagues across the United States and provide collaboration on research in the field of culinary medicine in a healthcare setting.”

YNHHS teaching kitchen interactive classes and activities take place at the YNHHS site at 8 Devine Street in North Haven. Faculty and registered dietitians provide culinary medicine skills to patients and learners, sharing the importance of food as a pathway to healing as well as improving lifestyles, health equity, sustainability and education.

“The field of culinary medicine is rapidly expanding, and we’re honored to be leaders in that here at the Irving and Alice Brown Teaching Kitchen at Yale New Haven Health,” said Nate Wood, MD, MHS, the kitchen’s inaugural Director of Culinary Medicine. “We’re already seeing the lives of our patients and medical trainees being positively impacted by these teaching kitchen classes. We’re very excited to partner with the TKC to build upon that impact and to further expand our reach.”

“Welcoming Yale New Haven Health into the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative is an exciting milestone for us,” shared Katie Welch, TKC’s Executive Director. “They are a leader in advancing the integration of culinary nutrition within medical training and patient care. We look forward to working with their esteemed team to share their innovations and successes with our global community, and to work collaboratively on research and advocacy.”

TKC is a unique collaborative of medical professionals, chefs, educators, researchers, and food system experts dedicated to improving personal and public health. TKC’s mission is to build and support a global network dedicated to improving personal and planetary health through cooking, movement, and mindfulness education. The TKC was formally launched in 2016 in partnership with The Culinary Institute of America and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as a network of thought-leading organizations using teaching kitchen facilities as catalysts of enhanced personal and public health across medical, corporate, school, and community settings. In 2020, TKC became a 501(c)(3) and is now a global network of 65 organization and corporate members and over 265 professional members. Its members represent a diverse range of organizations, including leading academic medical centers, public youth services institutions, private employers and public libraries. TKC functions as a central hub and accelerator to support the reproducibility, scalability, and evaluation of emerging teaching kitchen models and educational programs.

Yale New Haven Health (YNHHS), the largest and most comprehensive healthcare system in Connecticut, is recognized for advanced clinical care, quality, service, cost effectiveness and commitment to improving the health status of the communities it serves. YNHHS includes five hospitals – Bridgeport, Greenwich, Lawrence + Memorial, Westerly and Yale New Haven hospitals, several specialty networks and Northeast Medical Group, a non-profit medical foundation with several hundred community-based and hospital-employed physicians. YNHHS is affiliated with Yale University and Yale Medicine, the clinical practice of the Yale School of Medicine and the largest academic multi-specialty practice in New England. Yale New Haven Hospital is the primary teaching hospital of Yale School of Medicine. www.ynhhs.org