{"id":10393,"date":"2026-04-21T19:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/college-health-human-services\/?p=10393"},"modified":"2026-06-18T20:27:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T20:27:06","slug":"putting-the-kitchen-to-the-test-the-nau-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/college-health-human-services\/news\/putting-the-kitchen-to-the-test-the-nau-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting the kitchen to the test | The NAU Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Students in the Food is Medicine class were hard at work in their final lab of the semester. With aprons on and hair pulled back, groups of four students gathered around a cooking station in the HRM kitchen and read through their recipes. One group washed and chopped mushrooms, another mixed cookie batter and others prepared chicken or jackfruit to marinate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week, though, another group of students joined the lab. These public health students had clipboards, checklists and thermometers, and they were looking closely for any slips in food safety. They quizzed the other students about handwashing and kept their eyes peeled for (plastic!) bugs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was career-ready learning for everyone\u2014cooking and nutrition for the Food is Medicine students and how to do a restaurant safety inspection for the public health students. And at the end, everyone got stuffed mushrooms, skillet cookies and stir fry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easier for them to learn when they\u2019re cooking vs. reading a slide,\u201d said Megan Meyer<\/strong>, a faculty member in nutrition and food, while public health faculty member Kasondra McCracken<\/strong> added, \u201cIt\u2019s really cool for the students to give it a try.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gastro-pupils<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Senior Lizzie Greene<\/strong> reviewed the recipe for skillet chocolate chip cookies with her group. These weren\u2019t standard cookies; they were vegan and had no refined sugar, which can help keep a diner\u2019s blood sugar down.  <\/p>\n\n\n

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Making cookies that are lower in fat and sugar is a great way to make sweets part of a balanced diet, said Greene, a biomedical science major. All semester they\u2019ve studied how to use food as medicine in a person\u2019s everyday practice, and cookies help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s going to be more fun than just eating fruits and vegetables,\u201d she said.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her goal after graduating is to work in immunology at Flagstaff Medical Center, and this class will be beneficial. Plus, Greene said, she has her own health issues and is always looking for ways to feel better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For freshman Joseph Keleher<\/strong>, a nutrition and foods major, adding the extra element of the health inspector\u2014and a reporter with a notepad and photographers with cameras\u2014upped the ante of the cooking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun! It reminds me of cooking shows,\u201d Keleher said. \u201cIt really is nice to be in this environment.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s studying nutrition and food and loves cooking, so this class has provided a welcome look into how a commercial kitchen is different than a home kitchen. He wants to be a dietitian with the goal of eventually returning to graduate school and becoming a professor.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to broadening his palate\u2014throughout the semester the students have cooked tofu, jackfruit, bison and other less common proteins\u2014Keleher appreciates the different outlook on food that professor Jay Sutliffe<\/strong> shares in the classroom and culinary lab director Chloe Sutliffe<\/strong> creates in the kitchen. The class focuses on plant-based recipes, new ways to cook vegetables, what can be done with different ingredients and how including a generous dose of naturally occurring nutrients like fiber, iron and vitamins can make food a key part of managing chronic conditions and helping to prevent disease. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Chloe Sutliffe, who oversees the lab, said the hands-on experience wasn\u2019t just about cooking. The students get to taste everything as well and develop a broader palate and appreciation for different ways of cooking and flavors from other cultures.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking at foods that can heal us,\u201d she said. \u201cWe really want them to experience different foods and gain the culinary skills so they can take food to a different level in their homes.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bryce Bolin weaved his way through the kitchen, food thermometer in one hand, clipboard on the other. He was on a mission: Did the tofu get to a safe temperature? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Bolin, a sophomore environmental science major taking McCracken\u2019s environmental health class, getting to be a health inspector was a lot of fun. He always walked past the kitchen and wondered what got taught in there.  <\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI actually get to see what\u2019s going on in here today,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The restaurant, he was able to report, was pretty clean\u2014he found a trash can without a bag and a couple of stations were out of hand sanitizer. He also found four plastic bugs that McCracken planted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wants to be an environmental lawyer, so this doesn\u2019t go directly into his career plans, but for some students, it\u2019s a great fit. McCracken said this is the second semester they\u2019ve done this joint class, and two students have approached her after and said they wanted to do health inspections for a career after graduating. It\u2019s a good job for a college grad, she said; people need a bachelor\u2019s degree and the job is usually in demand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 To learn more about the Food is Medicine class, check out the NAU course catalog<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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See the original article on The NAU Review<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students in the Food is Medicine class were hard at work in their final lab of the semester. With aprons on and hair pulled back, groups of four students gathered around a cooking station in the HRM kitchen and read through their recipes. One group washed and chopped mushrooms, another mixed cookie batter and others prepared chicken or jackfruit to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2917,"featured_media":10403,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[34,65,66],"class_list":["post-10393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-of-health-and-human-services","category-health-sciences","tag-health-sciences","tag-hs","tag-nutrition"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/college-health-human-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/college-health-human-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/college-health-human-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/college-health-human-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2917"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/college-health-human-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10393"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/college-health-human-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10405,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/college-health-human-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10393\/revisions\/10405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/college-health-human-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/college-health-human-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/college-health-human-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/college-health-human-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}