The Power of Food Put into Practice at the 2025 Healthcare Culinary Conference
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On June 9-11, 2025, the Healthcare Culinary Conference, now in its second year in partnership with UMass Dining’s Chef Culinary Conference, explored “The Power of Food” and the transformative role it plays in health and well-being. Attendees participated in the educational sessions of the main conference and a full day of sessions designed entirely for healthcare professionals on topics ranging from bridging nutrition, health, and sustainability to the relationship between food security and health outcomes.
“We spend a lot of money in treating these actual comorbidities related to obesity. And what we need to do is try to get ahead of it,” said Anna Maria Siega-Riz, dean of the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, in a welcome address to conference participants. “And that's what, for me, the importance of public health and public health nutrition is all about. We want to prevent disease, not treat it.”
A tour of the Western Food Bank of Massachusetts and a partner farm, along with hands-on cooking demos from professional chefs, showed conference participants that using food as medicine is more than theory. Dedicated professionals are leading the effort that’s making it a reality.
“Our board president, Dr. Charlotte Boney, Chair of the Department of Pediatrics [at Baystate Health], always reminds us that food is medicine,” said Andrew Morehouse, the Food Bank’s Executive Director. “She sees it day in and day out in her daily practice. So do we at the Food Bank,” he added, noting the organization provides healthy food to more than 124,000 individuals.
The Food Bank and its farm in Hadley team up to address hunger and food insecurity by providing high quality foods to the community through a variety of programs including SNAP. Their actions are more than responsive. The partnered organizations strive to understand the causes of hunger so that they can help end it.
And when those foods and ingredients reach the household, preparation is key to promoting the power of food. That’s where the need for healthcare professionals to learn how to cook and be comfortable with recommending healthy foods is critical for their patients to be compliant with their chronic disease regimen. This year two chefs led cooking demonstrations for participants.
Chef Kristy Del Coro, a chef who combines her culinary skills with her foundation in nutrition, led one team of attendees. Opposite them another group was taught by chef Steven Petusevsky, an early leader in the movement of making healthier foods more craveable.
The two teams worked parallel but in tandem preparing their own cohesive meals ranging from veggies and high-protein pasta dishes to honey walnut cake topped with whipped yogurt. Everyone then enjoyed the fruits of their labor for lunch – with all of the foods prepared within 1.5 hours, and a few, such as the black eyed peas with dill, scallions and fermented wild capers, within 15 minutes.
Siega-Riz sees the pairing with UMass Dining’s Chef Culinary Conference as a “wonderful win-win situation” that she expects will continue helping the healthcare community realize the power of food for years to come.
“Patients rely on their healthcare providers to guide them in what foods to eat when they are diagnosed with diabetes or hypertension while nutritionists, community health workers, and farmers, are the boots on the ground support staff to making it all possible,” she said. “Enhancing the knowledge of what is considered good nutrition and how to cook with the help of chefs is a fun and meaningful way to keep us living a high-quality life.”