What's New

Rethink Your Drink
educational series in Santa Rosa Classrooms   March 1st-March 5th, 2010

In partnership with the Network for a Healthy California and the Santa Rosa City School District, Bauman College will lead a team of Nutrition Educators into Elsie Allen High School classrooms to give nutrition presentations on Rethink Your Drink. Favorite props include a 6 lb bag of fat (affectionately termed the "soda fat baby"). We look forward to educating our youth on the detriments of unhealthy sugar consumption.

 

Feature Product

Eating For Health - Print Edition
Eating For Health - Print Edition
$18.95


Natural Chef | Print |

Natural Chef - 450 hours
Classroom course only- (5 months)

Natural Chef program student chefs learn to properly prepare healthful natural whole foods and the skills to achieve attractive food presentation. Do you have a passion for cooking fresh, delicious, whole foods? Are you interested in learning to prepare meals in a healthy manner without sacrificing taste, texture, or beautiful presentation? Whether you want to become a professional Natural Chef, Personal Chef, or polish your kitchen skills to better nourish yourself and your family, the Bauman College Natural Chef Training Program can help you attain your culinary arts goals. Completion of the program enables you to work as a therapeutic cook, personal chef, natural chef, cooking consultant, or whole foods cooking instructor.

The Natural Chef Training Program is committed to the development of nutritional and therapeutic cooks who are artists in food preparation and presentation. Course work emphasizes nutritional and therapeutic cooking and mastery of all necessary culinary arts, while learning the business aspect of Personal Chef. The Natural Chef Training Program prepares students for a career in the blossoming natural and whole foods industry.

You will:

  • Master professional culinary arts including knife skills, kitchen sanitation, and steps to efficient meal preparation
  • Convert classic recipes into healthier versions, using alternative ingredients, and developing a repertoire of tasty and reliable recipes
  • Create delicious and therapeutic meal plans for individuals with cancer, diabetes, heart disease, allergies, digestive disturbances, and other chronic health challenges
  • Test recipes, make quantity conversions, and plan, prepare and serve a multi-coursed, theme-based public Culinary Showcase
  • Enjoy working in a community of skilled instructors and fellow students who pour their passion for food and health into each dish
 
Download the Natural Chef Mini-syllabus

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Careers as a Natural Chef
Natural Chefs are in great demand as the need for good nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices becomes more apparent in our fast-paced world. Graduates of this Bauman College program are adept at preparing delicious gourmet meals that emphasize the nutritional value of food and its power to stimulate the healing process. These chefs are trained to provide healthy and ill people with top-quality, satisfying, and beautifully presented meals. Graduates work in private homes as Personal Chefs or personal therapeutic chefs, as well as for catering companies, health spas, health food stores, retreat programs, and restaurants.

Class Offerings: Spring and Fall classes meet three days per week in the daytime or evening, totaling 15 class hours each week. Students should plan to spend half as much time on homework and individual study as they spend in class.

Required Textbooks and Materials: Students must purchase required textbooks independently. See the Natural Chef Materials List for a list of provided materials and independent purchases. The cost of books varies considerably depending on where they are purchased. The Bauman College Online Book Store carries all required books available new and used at a discount, with free shipping on orders over $25.00.

Natural Chef Classroom Schedules

CEU Credits
CEU credits for RN’s are available. Bauman College is an approved provider by the California Board of Registered Nursing, Provider Number 11401, for 280 contact hours for the Natural Chef Training Program.

Dress Code Requirements:
  • Chef pants and coat
  • Slip resistant, closed toe and heel shoes
  • Hat that fully restrains hair
  • Beards are permitted, but you may be asked to wear a beard snood. Mustaches must be kept neatly trimmed and not extend below the corners of the lips
  • NO jewelry, including any type of earrings or facial piercing, rings, bracelets, or watches
  • NO long fingernails, fingernail polish or decoration, or fake fingernails

I enrolled in the Natural Chef Training Program at Bauman College in Santa Cruz because, as an educational psychologist, I knew that nutrition has a major impact on conditions such as attention disorders, response speed, and dyslexia. My goal was to develop meal plans that would provide a nutritional balance to benefit my students. In fact, I gained far more than that. It was a marvelous experience that changed how I cook for my family and eat for my own good health.

Joan McHenry, Natural Chef, Santa Cruz, Spring 2004

Natural Chef Curriculum


CF 101: Culinary Nutrition and Kitchen Basics

45 Hours
The Natural Chef Training Program provides a grounded introduction to the art and science of clinical, holistic, research-based nutrition. This module is divided into different sections covering:

Eating For Health™: These classes introduce the Eating For Health™ approach: a cutting-edge, organic, whole food, plant-based eating system, which includes staple foods complemented by phytonutrient-rich condiments like algae, bee pollen, nutritional yeast, sea vegetables, herbs, and spices. Animal foods from organic sources are included as optional secondary foods for those on an omnivorous, transitional, or reduced-carbohydrate diet. Student will also learn about macronutrients and micronutrients, which will help them to address a client’s unique protein, fat, carbohydrate, vitamin, mineral, and water needs.

Professional Safety and Sanitation: The California Public Health Department guidelines for personal appearance, hygiene, safe food handling, and pest control are presented and reinforced during the course. This class is required in order to begin working in the culinary kitchen.

Knife Skills: A good knife is a chef’s best friend. Students learn how to sharpen, clean, and care for a knife, and how to make a variety of cuts, such as slicing, mincing, chopping, julienne, brunoise, batonnet, and chiffonade. This class is required in order to begin working in the culinary kitchen.

Culinary Math: Students learn to accurately convert recipes, change portion sizes, and manage other recipe adjustments utilizing recipe management software and online nutrition analysis software.

Foundations of Cooking: A solid foundation is key to becoming a great cook. In this class, students learn all the basics from cooking techniques and kitchen equipment, to elements of flavor and taste.

CF 102 and CF 103: Food Foundations

120 Hours
In these modules, students practice cooking with whole, seasonal, organic, and locally grown foods. They learn to cook with alternative ingredients in place of the overly consumed and commonly allergenic dairy, wheat, meat, and sugar that are staples of mainstream home and restaurant cuisine. Classes provide detailed instruction in preparing nutritious gourmet meals from greens, vegetables, stocks, sauces, soups, stews, grains, legumes, sea vegetables, fish, chicken, and vegetable proteins. Students learn to create healthy appetizers, snacks, breakfasts, beverages, baked goods, and desserts. The art of sprouting is taught and the expert use of fresh herbs is emphasized.

CF 104: Ethnic Cuisines and Dietary Approaches

45 Hours
Bauman College values global cooking traditions that embrace plant-based, whole food choices. Ethnic food preparation – the use of exotic vegetables and spices, healing properties of particular foods, and unique food aesthetics and plating styles – is closely studied and practiced. In this section, students are guided on a journey of the wonderful culinary traditions of the Mediterranean, Thailand, Japan, India, and Latin America.

CF Mid-Term

15 Hours
For the Midterm presentation, students are provided with a variety of foods and asked to improvise a dish with the supplied ingredients.

CF 105: Farm to Table

30 Hours
The Natural Chef Program is highly regarded for its focus on fresh, whole, seasonal, and organic foods. In this section, students are taught the art of fermenting, dehydrating, and food preserving. Since raw foods are an important part of a healthy diet, students learn the benefits of raw foods and how to prepare delicious, enzyme-rich meals. In addition, students will take a field trip to a local organic farm, garden, market, or other place of culinary interest.

CF 106 and CF 107: Therapeutic Applications

90 Hours
These sections of the Natural Chef Training Program cover dietary therapeutics, a distinguishing feature of the program. Therapeutic Menu Planning reviews information on cooking for clients with health challenges, teaching students how to set up a schedule of meals that clients or their caregivers can easily store, warm, and serve as needed. Other classes cover the energetics of food, therapeutic herbs and spices, and cooking for a variety of health issues, including: blood sugar regulation, weight management, digestive wellness, allergy and immune function, Candida control, cancer, HIV/AIDS, and heart disease. Students learn how health challenges can be managed with targeted diet and lifestyle changes, along with an integrated use of health and medical systems. This is the cutting-edge of a powerful shift in health promotion, disease prevention and recovery, and natural longevity.

CF 108: Client Services

45 Hours
This module is divided into the following classes:

Personal Chef: Teaches the ins and outs of cooking in a client’s own home while budgeting time, cost and ingredients efficiently.

Catering: Covers all aspects of developing a successful whole foods catering business.

Business Development: Guides students into their own financially successful niches, with specific instruction in developing streamlined culinary operations within existing management, marketing, and referral systems. Students design brochures and business plans to inform prospective clients and financial backers of what they have to offer. Bauman College values the team concept and encourages cooperation. Our graduates frequently create businesses together and often stay in touch long after the course is completed.
 

CF 109: Final Presentations

15 Hours
The Natural Chef Training Program is an experiential, hands-on learning process. Students bring their unique interests, passions, and experiences to the program, and Bauman College draws on these special gifts by emphasizing the creative and expressive side of each Natural Chef. Students are required to deliver a final presentation in order to demonstrate their competency and develop confidence in public speaking. For this project, each student chooses a culinary focus that will be his or her specialty after graduation. Students conduct research, provide nutrition information, and cook original recipes to demonstrate their culinary and healing arts talents. Recent topics have included gluten-free cooking, sports nutrition, and cooking for cancer recovery.

CF 110: Culinary Showcase

45 Hours
The training culminates in the presentation of a Culinary Showcase to demonstrate the students’ mastery of food selection, preparation, and presentation. This very special theme-based meal illustrates the benefits of skillful planning, budgeting, shopping, and aesthetics. Under the supervision of their instructors, students gain hands-on experience in catering for a special occasion, and family and friends have an opportunity to sample the students’ work in a festive atmosphere. Music and poetry have accented several recent Culinary Showcase meals. In the four classes leading up to the showcase, students work in committees and learn to handle necessary tasks with ease and confidence. These artistically presented, wonderfully imaginative, and delicious meals are very special celebrations for students, staff, and guests. Seasonal holidays, Mardi Gras, and Caribbean, Southwestern, Indian, and Mediterranean cuisines have inspired recent Culinary Showcases.

CF Culinary Externship

To instill competence and confidence in the Natural Chef, experience in the culinary field is imperative. The Bauman College Natural Chef Training Program facilitates this through a required externship. As part of the Natural Chef Program, students are required to complete 50 extern hours as Personal Chefs or caterers, or in natural food restaurants, soup kitchens, community organizations, retreat centers, or other settings. Each student creates a Natural Chef portfolio containing a brochure, recipes, meal plans, meal cost analysis, and forms to use in assessing client needs. Clients evaluate the student’s work and program staff monitor the student’s progress.

 

 

ABOUT BAUMAN COLLEGE

Bauman College is a holistic nutrition educational facility and healthy cooking school offering, in addition to their other nutrition certification programs, a Natural Chef program that provides student chefs with classes in organic cooking, holistic whole foods preparation, and training in attractive food presentation. This complete holistic culinary arts program prepares Natural Chef program graduates to pursue careers as professional vegetarian chefs in the growing natural food restaurant industry, organic personal chefs, and special dietary needs chefs that will provide healthful food to prevent illness and promote optimal health for their special needs clients.
 
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