Chef Carrie Bonfitto, NC, BCHN, and Bauman College’s Holistic Chef Program Manager, was interviewed by Authority Magazine as part of their interview series called, “Chefs and Restaurateurs Helping To Promote Healthy Eating.” The purpose of the series is to amplify their message and share insights about healthy eating.
Check out some snippets of Chef Carrie’s interview below.
Authority Magazine | Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to ‘get to know’ you a bit. Can you share with our readers a story about what inspired you to become a chef?
Chef Carrie | My grandmother and my parents are amazing cooks whose examples allowed me to have comfort and confidence in the kitchen. However, it was a book that led me down the path to becoming a chef and nutrition educator.
Years ago, I was milling around a used bookstore and came across “Food & Mood” by Elizabeth Somer. The title of this book just grabbed me. Besides the fact that it’s a great rhyme, the idea that food has the power to regulate your mood was a revelation to me at the time. I was fascinated by this book. What could I eat to make myself feel better? What could I cook to impact other’s feelings? This was my kind of witchcraft! I devoured the book and just wanted to keep learning.
Culinary school seemed like the next logical step to learn more about the power of food. While my culinary education did teach me about ingredients and flavors and how to get people to crave my cooking, I was still missing that piece about how to craft meals that could impact a person more directly. I wanted to be able to modulate moods, energy levels, sleep patterns — all those markers of well-being.
So, I began to search for nutrition schools and found Bauman College.
Authority Magazine | Do you have a specific type of food that you focus on? What was it that first drew you to cooking that type of food? Can you share a story about that with us?
Chef Carrie | Maybe it’s my Italian roots, but Mediterranean food just lights me up:
- olives
- olive oil
- lentils
- cannellini beans
- Tuscan kale,
- Romaine lettuce
- basil
- lemon
- cod
- anchovies
- tomatoes
- mushrooms
- thyme
- Pecorino Romano cheese
These are the ingredients of my life. Each one is steeped in nostalgia for me and will be part of my future as well.
I have this distinct memory of being 18 years old and bringing my best friend to my grandmother’s house for dinner. We’re sitting at the table and there’s this giant salad in the middle of the table rimmed with cucumber slices — seasonal, fresh, gorgeous cucumbers, sliced on the bias. And my friend, she’s allergic to cucumbers! I’ve known her since she we were 7 and this is one of her truths. I see her reach for the salad and serve herself cucumbers! I’m freaking out! “CUCUMBERS! DANGER! STOP!” Then she says,, “Oh, they don’t look like cucumbers. It’s okay. I’m not allergic, allergic. I just don’t like them. These are so beautiful I have to try them.”
She eats them.
She loves them.
She’s totally fine.
That was an aha moment that has shaped my perspective on how to get people to eat vegetables.
Authority Magazine | What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started as a Holistic Chef “ and why?
Chef Carrie | Read below or watch Chef Carrie’s response to this question on our Bauman College YouTube channel.
- Food waste is a huge problem.
I didn’t have a concept of food waste until I started working as a chef. Around 40% of food in the US is wasted. It just gets thrown out. The food industry is tossing out 200 billion dollars a year. This negatively impacts our environment and is extremely sad when we have over 47 million people without enough to eat living right here in the US. Our chefs learn how to reduce food waste in their kitchens and be part of the solution. - A chef is a manager.
Running a kitchen is about so much more than cooking. You must learn skills to teach and motivate staff, operate within a budget, and stay ahead of the curve with trends and customer needs. It’s so exciting and is the most creative job I’ve ever had. - There’s more than one career path for a chef.
While most people think you go to culinary school just so you can cook in a restaurant, there are tons of other career paths. I’ve been a personal chef cooking for and creating meal plans for people with special diets. I’ve written cookbooks, taught oodles of culinary classes, sold specialty products at farmer’s markets and fairs, and been a business consultant. We’ve got graduates who are working to improve school lunch menus, become online influencers, and build their own food brands. - There’s a high demand for holistic chefs.
Any place where there is food or talk of food there’s a need for holistic chefs. Beyond the restaurants that are struggling to staff their kitchens, there are so many functional medicine practitioners out there prescribing dietary changes to their patients. These people need support from a chef who understands these food restrictions. I work with a chiropractor who helps people adopt a gluten-free diet for pain management. - There is a supportive community of holistic chefs.
There’s a misconception that all chefs are ultra-competitive egomaniacs. But that’s not the case in the holistic chef community. I wish I had known how incredibly nice and encouraging everyone would be in this industry. I never could have predicted how many amazing women I would get to collaborate with before I became a holistic chef. If I had known that before went to culinary school, I would have done it sooner!
Read the entire interview in Authority Magazine.
Chef Carrie is board-certified in holistic nutrition and has been helping people feel better with food for over a decade through her consulting and cooking classes at Two Hearts Nutrition. Now, she is defining what “healthy” means in the food space as the Holistic Chef Program Manager at Bauman College where she creates recipes, directs curriculum, and is training the next generation of holistically minded chefs. Bauman College has been a leader in integrative nutrition for over 30 years offering comprehensive programs in the fields of holistic nutrition and culinary arts that empower people to bring conscious eating, earth-friendly living, and healthy lifestyle choices to their communities.
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