Read: The Examiner | Teaching chefs to serve up a healthier food future
First published in The Examiner on 13 October 2023.
We have control over what we eat at home. We shop, choose the options that we want and prepare them ourselves. We can choose healthy food – or not – for every mealtime, every night. But what happens elsewhere? Do we have healthy options available in the canteen at work? What about if we or a loved one end up in hospital? Or when we go out for dinner – who’s looking after our health then?
If you’re lucky, you might have one of the graduates of Technological University Dublin’s Master of Science in Applied Culinary Nutrition working in the kitchen and keeping an eye on what’s being served up. TUD lecturer in Culinary Arts Annette Sweeney designed and leads the course which launched in 2015 and was the first of its kind internationally. The two-year, part-time course came about because of research Sweeney had been doing, “looking at trends across the globe, particularly America, and also the interest that students had in nutritional needs for health and wellness.” With a strong foundation in science, the course is a collaboration between the TUD departments of Culinary Arts and Food Science. “It’s geared towards working food professionals, chefs and anyone who is in the food profession, that want to be ahead of the curve and innovate their menus with confidence for health and wellness.” These are professionals who cook in hotels, cafés and restaurants, workplace catering, healthcare facilities and hospitals, people who may be cooking your next meal.
Sweeney is keen to focus on the fact that healthy food can also be delicious: “When we think of health a lot of people think of no flavour – that’s what I wanted to change. I say healthful rather than healthy and it’s a flavour first approach.”
As part of the course, students have to complete an industry-focused applied research project. Past projects have included advancing healthier food choices in fast-food restaurants, creating savoury desserts using upcycled vegetables to replace sugar, innovating children’s menus for health and wellness – and using spent grain in cakes for coffee shops, which was what Dublin-based former student Vivienne Johnston worked on. “I have been a chef for 30 years and would traditionally use butter, cream sugar and salt for flavour,” she says. “My first thoughts on a recipe now are how can I reformulate this recipe without compromising on flavour, texture mouthfeel and increase the nutritional value.” After investigating five different coffee shop cakes for her research project, she’s now working on “a brown bread recipe using the same principle [and] increasing fibre with the addition of [high fibre spent grain product] BiaSol. My work is a work in progress,” Johnston adds. “What I learnt from the course is that there is so much work that can be done as chefs to improve the health of the nation.”
The Masters also looks at food sustainability, with a focus on the EU Farm to Fork Strategy that acknowledges that the health of people, society and the planet are inextricably tied together. “What the EU has set out is the future of food,” says Sweeney. “We need to be in this space. We need to be facilitating healthy sustainable diets. We have the reformulation task force – the partnership between the FSAI and Healthy Ireland – and they have a roadmap for food reformulating. So this Masters allows us to use a flavour first approach to look at how we can reach these food reformulation targets in relation to fat and sugar and salt and calories without compromising flavour.”
Chef and publican Brian Heffernan who owns and runs several bars in Gorey and Arklow investigated whether current training programmes for trainee chefs were in line with the introduction of the EU Farm to Fork strategy. A classically trained chef, who completed the course this year, he credits it with completely changing the way he thinks about food. “This is an essential course that can potentially change the future of the food industry,” Heffernan believes, calling Sweeney “a driving force.” “As more and more people turn to chefs and convenience foods for their nutrition as people’s lives get busier and people are losing the basic ability to be able to cook, it is leading to a rise in obesity rates and in turn chronic diseases not only in Ireland but across Europe,” he says. “Chefs can be the future gatekeepers for people’s health and well-being through the introduction of beneficial nutrition in people’s meals.” His research is having an impact on his business, as he works at educating his chefs on “the introduction of nutrition into dishes, but also the reduction of food waste through the use of all of the ingredients [and] through portion control.”
Food sustainability using plant by-products was the focus of chef Derek Oman’s applied research project. He is now working “with like-minded chefs to create a community in which sustainability is at its core.” By educating local communities to make “healthier and flavourful choices,” he has the aim of reducing food waste and having a positive impact on health via workshops and demonstrations using local suppliers and seasonal recipes. Working in a hotel, Oman is able to put theories into action, “I have the ability to test my framework and educate the current staff on changing behaviours toward reducing food waste and how to recycle plant by-products.”
“Chefs need to be able to do this because the customer is looking for it,” says Sweeney, who sees the Masters as something that you “go into with an open mind, you identify gaps through your learning and try and bring that to life for other people’s health in a creative way through the food you produce or the career path you can carve out.” Teaching chefs about nutrition, sustainability and European food systems – in a way that also focuses on flavour – is the kind of education that can cause ripples far beyond the classroom.
Annette Sweeney will be on stage at the Food on the Edge two-day symposium on the Future of Food, which takes place in at Airfield Estate in Dublin on Monday 16 and Tuesday 17 October 2023. Tickets are available at foodontheedge.ie. More information on the Master of Science in Culinary Arts Applied Nutrition at www.tudublin.ie.
