They Want Who To Teach The CEU's?

     Page One Hundred Fifty-Three.
     Well I'm five blogs behind. I've been very busy lately working on a project and it's really taking up a lot of my time.
     I'll be a primary presenter in a few weeks at a health and healing seminar. This seminar will be providing four CEU's (Continuing Education Credits) to Social Workers, Art Therapists, Music Therapists and Activities Professionals. I'll be gabbing on and on for 75-90 minutes about nutrition and how it can be incorporated into really good tasting and really satisfying food. (In theory, if you provide great-tasting food to people who are physically incapacitated, then they won't mind if its nutritious. What a concept!) And, I'll actually be getting paid a tidy little sum of $ for doing this little chat. 
     The reason I've been hired for this project is that a lot of people know me. And they know me through a variety of contexts. Some people know that I'm private/personal chef who's also really preoccupied with good nutrition. That's an unusual combination. Typically, when you think about a professional chef, you don't picture someone who's utterly obsessed with a healthy lifestyle. Likewise, when most adult Americans think "nutritionist" in their mind's eye, they see an old, dried up, gray haired, squinty-eyed, overly skinny lady who looks like she'll hurt you if you eat one M&M. Well, the fact is, I don't have any official nutrition or dietary training - it's true. But I do have an intense and life-long interest in this subject and some unusual life experience in this arena.
     I worked in the nursing home industry for seven years as an activities professional and had to learn loads about geriatric nutrition there. I've had a large number of physically ill clients as a private chef. And, really, good nutrition has been an interest of mine during my entire adult life. It's run concurrent with my interest in food prep. So, there you go.
     Also, in 1988, I learned a valuable life lesson that I've carried with me every day. It's called "nutrition in context".
     I've mentioned before in this blog that I was, simultaneously, the staff hairdresser to three treatment centers for adolescents detoxing from drugs and alcohol. I had those jobs for a decade or longer. On my first day at unit #2, I got off the elevator and smelled the most glorious odor in the world. I followed it (as is my style) right to the kitchen and met the unit cook. (To back up, this ACDU (Adolescent Chemical Dependency Unit) was on the large floor of an old hospital. Administration re-constructed this floor with it's own classrooms, play areas and industrial kitchen.) The cook explained to me that "hospital food" would NEVER do in this context. When you're dealing with teenagers who haven't eaten properly for a few years, you MUST get food into them. Therefore, administration, who realized this in the first place, hired her to cook exclusively for the unit and "fatten these kids up". And she did. She was a fabulous cook.
     That first day was Beef Stroganoff and it just continued from there. I loved my days at that unit because I knew I'd eat well. Those meals were hearty,well-balanced and old-fashioned. They personified the way families might have eaten in the 1950's. That hospital took context into account. "Whom are we feeding and why?"(Those kids LOVED the food, by the way.)
     Conversely, at ACDU #3 the dietician was a vegetarian and prepared lots of sandwiches and simple dishes. She believed that a plant-based diet was the healthy way for all people. When I talked with the kids about their feelings and experience with treatment, the "lousy food" often came up. For the record, I believe in a plant-based diet also. Though, I'm not a vegetarian. (I'm fine with animal flesh a few times a week.) My point being, ACDU #3 didn't take context into account. Different populations have different dietary needs for a variety of reasons. I'll never forget the concept of "nutrition in context".
     I've written before in this blog about how I ONCE blew up at the dietician at Fancy-Schmancy Nursing Home, where I used to work, for trying to impose a "no-cake" for the diabetics rule. She apologized and we eventually came up with a compromise. Why somebody would try to restrict the food intake of a 95 year old under ANY circumstances is beyond me. It's nothing but sadism.
       See? This is why they asked me to chat on and on. I have some unusual life-experience concerning food, nutrition and context, not just food prep.
     So, wish me luck. The seminar is the Saturday prior to Thanksgiving. I hope I'll be ready.  

 

NO...I DON'T THINK SO...

STILL NOT THERE!!!

THAT'S BETTER!!!