Although Canadas Dietary Guidelines for Health Professionals and Policy Makers now emphasize the importance of food skills, food skills interventions in the form of Culinary Medicine (or Culinary Nutrition) interventions remain under-utilized alongside the delivery of nutrition care in Canadian healthcare organizations. While there is a growing body of evidence as to the relevance of these interventions to improve patient self-efficacy and confidence in adopting nutrition recommendations, achieving and sustaining dietary behaviour changes, and, thereby, experiencing improved nutrition-related health outcomes; implementation of these interventions remains relatively scarce in the Canadian context. Drawing on clinical research and practice examples from Alberta Health Services and other healthcare institutions leading the integration of culinary medicine into clinical care, this session will summarize the current evidence related to food skills interventions in the clinical context, highlight opportunities to implement culinary medicine interventions in healthcare settings, and illustrate strategic interdisciplinary collaborations that support successful culinary medicine interventions.
A passionate culinary and research dietitian, Julia Maclaren draws on practice experience in federal, academic, and primary care roles to fuel innovative knowledge translation and practical interprofessional nutrition care interventions in the form of culinary medicine programs. Delivered in partnership with clinical teams, and amplified through broadcast media technology, these programs are accessible to 4.4 million Albertans, providing innovative nutrition care opportunities for populations from pediatric to geriatric, covering a range of prevention and condition-specific topics. In her role with Alberta Health Services Julia has designed, launched, and evaluated more than a dozen clinically integrated culinary medicine programs, including: a multicomponent, multisession shared medical appointment; three funded clinical research initiatives; two system-wide quality improvement initiatives; and award-winning ongoing patient programs. Committed to research and evidence generation in this field, Julia recently completed her Master of Science in Health Services Research at the University of Calgary’s Cummings School of Medicine, successfully defending a thesis on a culinary medicine adjunct to specialty care. Seeing the impact this emerging approach to care can make for patients and families, but also for health systems and environmental sustainability, Julia developed the first culinary medicine initiative within the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare’s Green Team competition in 2024. Internationally positioned to contribute to this work, Julia co-leads the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative’s Nutrition Committee and was awarded a 2024/2025 Teaching Kitchen Collaborative Research Fellowship. Through these collaborations, she has co-authored numerous publications and is regularly invited to present at conferences on culinary medicine practice internationally.