By Jo Cooper
Day 1 at Food As Medicine 2012 was a great feast with over 300 marvelous people in attendance.
Who’s here?
25% MD’s, 25% RD’s & Nutritionists, 11% Nurses & Nurse Practitioners, 10% Saybrook University Students, 4% Medical School Students & Residents. 6% are Medical School Faculty, 27% work with underserved communities. Geographically, the largest number of our attendees are from Maryland and California. A senior scientist is here from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and a physician from Beijing United Family Hospital in China. Rene Domersant from the Ministry of Health in Haiti, a participant in our Global Trauma Relief professional trainings, is here. Jeffrey Mills, Director of Food & Nutrition Services for DC Public Schools is here. Nora Pouillon of Restaurant Nora, the first certified organic restaurant in the US, and Judith Friedman of The Natural Gourmet Institute are here. The entire Krebs family from Selinsgrove, PA are here (mom’s a PT & MT, dad’s an MD, one daughter is a med student and another daughter a student). Sadja Greenwood, MD, MPH, a legendary sage is here from Bolinas, CA. The people are amazing!
Our menu for the day: Dr. Gordon started us off with Nutrition and the Art of Self-Care, incorporating exercises to awaken our sense and self-awareness. Daphne Miller, MD sparked our thinking with Our Soils, Ourselves. Cindy Geyer, MD explored our biological terrain with Understanding Core Imbalances: A Framework for Using Food As Medicine. Kathie Swift, MS, RD shared the wisdom and the tools we need to listen and assess with Nutrition In Practice. Rebecca Katz offered her food demo Kitchen Magic: Top 10 Skills to a packed room; and Daphne Miller rounded out the day with the engaging and practical Nutrition in Pediatric Practice. She gracefully shared that her practice as a family physician was shaped by attending Food As Medicine herself a decade ago, and hearing Kathie Swift’s Nutrition in Practice talk then. Much appreciated!
And the food! Chef Jack Stubbs and his superb staff here at the Hyatt Regency Bethesda co-created Chef Rebecca Katz’s delicious healthy whole foods menu of carrot ginger soup with cashew cream, greens, Mediterranean chickpea burgers with tomato mint chutney and quinoa salad with pistachio nuts– with the nuts on the side, of course.How delightful for vegan and/or g/f folks to attend a conference and be so nourished! All I heard throughout lunch and after was “mmmmmmmmmmmm!”
Day 1 mission accomplished 🙂
ps– a loving and heartfelt thanks to the staff of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine who knocked out the complexities of this program with aplomb, and made it look easy. Bravo, you extraordinary people!
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