Virginia College News
Oncologist, Culinard Grad Help Cancer Patients Cook for Recovery
Posted: Friday, January 8, 2010
Dr. Luis Pineda's medical career has taken several unexpected turns, but each helped him define his theories on healing. A native of Guatemala, where he completed medical school, Dr. Pineda accepted a colleague's challenge to take the test to do a residency in the U.S. He passed easily and then felt he needed to do something with that open door. He came to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he gained knowledge but did not enjoy the snow and cold. That led to the decision to move to Birmingham, Alabama, for a hematology/oncology fellowship.
It was during this period that Dr. Pineda became interested in the nutritional challenges of cancer patients. They would not eat because food tasted bad to them. But he was able to find little research or information on the subject. While there was data available on the actual nutrition of foods for those on chemotherapy, no one was addressing the problem of taste.
To help in his research, Dr. Pineda enrolled in Culinard, the Culinary Institute of Virginia College. "I explained to them what I was doing, and they were very supportive," he says. The chef/instructors at Culinard, a cooking school, taught him the techniques for cooking for people with normal abilities to taste food, and then changed those recipes to tailor them for cancer patients. Pineda graduated from Culinard as a certified chef.
Later, in conjunction with bestselling cookbook author Edie Hand, Dr. Pineda published his recipes in book form and makes them available not only to his own patients, but to others who take chemotherapy. And he gives them away for free through his non-profit foundation (www.cookingwithcancer.org).
