Healthy Culinary School Growing

Enrollment in culinary school has been on the rise since the Food Network made cooking cool. Now, years later, culinary students are looking for something more than basic cooking. With most of the population looking for healthier food, lots of people cutting down on meat and people just being more conscious of what they eat in general, it's no surprise that lots of future Chefs want to learn how to cook for the FUTURE. One school leading the charge with this is the Natural Epicurean Academy of Culinary Arts in Austin, Texas. The school specializes in what CEO Rich Goldstein has dubbed "Healing Cuisines." The curriculum is not only said to be good for your health, it's also flavorful. The school is throwing out the notion that healthy food has to be bland. Goldstein says, "This cooking school in combining ancient essential healing cuisines with modern western nutritional science has created a unique blend of eastern and the western approaches to culinary arts as a healing modality." The healing modality Goldstein speaks of is two fold. One he says, as science has proven, eating healthier can prevent many health conditions. This goes beyond the obvious of obesity, diabetes and such. In addition to preventing disease though Goldstein says it can also heal certain conditions and meal plans should be prescribed along with, or even in place of some prescription drugs. We aren't talking about a diet or meal plans. We are talking about changing the way you eat forever. Goldstein says, "Healing Cuisines are fundamentally plant-based, nutrient rich and whole foods based. They primarily avoid animal-based foods, dairy, refined sugars and processed foods. The value of each of these cuisines in fostering health has been proven through both science and tradition." The healing cuisines taught to students at Natural Epicurean are: Macrobiotics (whole grains), Vegetarianism, Veganism, Ayurveda (system of medicine and nature) and Raw and Living Foods (descriptions farther below). Goldstein's hope is the students at Natural Epicurean can take what they have learned and make a worldwide impact on food and health: "Folks who continue to think of the Standard American diet as "normal" tend to see that the five healing cuisines are a departure from the way they are used to thinking about diet. Once they begin to have a deeper understanding of the power of cuisine to heal, and how personal that journey is, they begin to appreciate the potential of relating food to health." While Natural Epicurean started as a small school it has grown thanks to the trend toward eating healthier. Now it's so popular night classes are even being added. People that are already working full-time during the day expressed interest in attending night and weekend classes so the school just announced a schedule to accomodate them. School director Betty Edmond says, "We are so glad to be able to respond to a popular demand by providing this evening and weekend professional chef training program so that people with conflicts during the say, from jobs to family, can still attend and fulfill their dreams with this experience." Natural Epicurean is located at 1700 South Lamar Austin, TX 78704 More information can be found at: naturalepicurean.com