Nutrition training for chefs: taste as an essential determinant of choice

The primary objective of Project LEAN (Low-fat Eating for Americans Now), a social marketing initiative of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, is to help Americans reduce their fat intake to less than 30% of total energy. In Las Vegas, Nev, one of the 10 community sites selected to implement this goal, Las Vegas LEAN acted to change the food environment for restaurant patrons. This program empowered chefs to use their culinary expertise in developing good-tasting, low-fat menu items. The literature shows that consumers, despite verbalizing health concerns, choose food on the basis of taste. This ambivalence between belief and behavior demonstrates the need for innovative culinary techniques to develop food dishes that consumers will not only accept, but will enjoy and order repeatedly. Entrepreneurial dietitians, thus, have an opportunity to market nutrition skills to restaurants and hotels wishing to implement low-fat cuisine with good taste. Our intervention demonstrated that nutrition education for chefs is the key to long-term and successful menu changes. If taste is what consumers are seeking in low-fat items, and improved taste will finally get ambivalent consumers to change their eating behavior, enlisting the expertise of chefs is key.