THE MINDFUL KITCHEN PROJECT - APPLIED WELLBEING IN CULINARY EDUCATION

Kitchen organisation has long been influenced by a hierarchical structure which has promoted a negative culture affecting the wellbeing of chefs. While more recently cooking has increasingly gained attention through celebrity chefs and social media, little focus has been paid to the impact of kitchen as a workplace on chefs’ wellbeing, which is what this chapter aims to address. This chapter introduces a new global and innovative approach to improving chef’s daily experiences of wellbeing through the art of cooking, ‘The Mindful Kitchen Project’. It explores how a mindful pedagogy, integrated with wellbeing concepts, applied in the culinary classroom, impacts chefs as they start their career. This chapter presents different conceptualisations of wellbeing via curiosity, optimism, positive emotions, gratitude, engagement with food and hopefulness, as applied to food, self-care and teamwork, as experienced by the culinary students. The impact of mindful pedagogy on creativity and its application for professional chefs is discussed from a wellbeing and applied professional practice perspective. Recommendations on how this wellbeing arts approach can build wellbeing capabilities in chefs and give them a ‘Mindful Kitchen wellbeing toolkit’ for personal sustainability and professional kitchen leadership are discussed.