Dr. Andrew Weil’s True Food Kitchen

Recently, Dr. Weil made an inter­est­ing busi­ness deci­sion. To demon­strate to the pub­lic at large that healthy eat­ing did not mean bor­ing eat­ing, he opened True Food Kitchen—a restau­rant offer­ing fine, tasty cui­sine based on his anti-inflammatory diet. The diet is pred­i­cated on Dr. Weil’s con­clu­sion that chronic inflam­ma­tion is the root cause of many seri­ous illnesses.

“Having spent a life­time try­ing to per­suade peo­ple through books, arti­cles and speeches that healthy food can also be deli­cious, it’s won­der­ful to finally have a way to reach the pub­lic via the most per­sua­sive medium of all: the food itself,” Weil told Organic Connections.

Healthy Doesn’t Mean Tasteless

“Too often the words healthy food con­jure up images of strange-looking, taste­less meals served in a bare-bones set­ting where cus­tomers might rightly antic­i­pate a less than sat­is­fy­ing expe­ri­ence,” Weil con­tin­ued. “At True Food Kitchen we start with great-tasting food that hap­pens to be good for you, and work from there. At each loca­tion the chefs cre­ate sat­is­fy­ing fare influ­enced by Mediterranean, Asian and Californian cui­sine in an engag­ing, envi­ron­men­tally friendly setting.”

True Food Kitchen has been an unqual­i­fied suc­cess. Beginning with its orig­i­nal Phoenix loca­tion, there are now five restau­rants in Arizona and California, with many more in the plan­ning. “From the out­set my part­ners and I have worked hard to ensure that True Food Kitchen would be a new kind of restau­rant: one in which deli­cious fla­vors, healthy nutri­ents, envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness and an invit­ing atmos­phere come together to cre­ate an unfor­get­table din­ing expe­ri­ence,” said Weil. “I think that peo­ple are attracted by the authen­tic­ity behind our mes­sage of nour­ish­ing food, envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­ity and good health. Of course, the deli­cious food speaks for itself.”

Adherence to Dr. Weil’s anti-inflammatory diet is key to the cre­ation of all of True Food Kitchen’s fare—much of which was cre­ated by Weil him­self. “The anti-inflammatory diet that I pro­mote is the nutri­tional com­po­nent of a healthy lifestyle and can be used to pre­vent and treat the type of chronic age-related dis­or­ders that afflict so many, includ­ing car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease and dia­betes,” Weil explained. “Combined with reg­u­lar exer­cise, ade­quate sleep, appro­pri­ate stress man­age­ment and avoid­ance of toxic expo­sures (includ­ing tobacco smoke), these healthy lifestyle habits give us more con­trol than our genes over our health des­tiny. But of all these activ­i­ties, fol­low­ing a healthy diet rep­re­sents the most pro­found life­long envi­ron­men­tal influ­ence on our health.”

Local and Organic

Dr. Weil isn’t just pro­vid­ing healthy food, how­ever. He also inte­grates sus­tain­abil­ity into food sourc­ing for the restau­rants. “True Food was designed not only to please cus­tomers with gourmet fare served in a warm and engag­ing set­ting, but to do so in a vibrantly healthy way that is based on envi­ron­men­tally sus­tain­able prin­ci­ples,” Weil said. “We source locally and organ­i­cally wher­ever pos­si­ble, thereby expend­ing fewer nat­ural resources, sup­port­ing regional farm­ers, and encour­ag­ing sus­tain­able farm­ing prac­tices. I believe strongly in tak­ing respon­si­bil­ity for my own health, and also in tak­ing respon­si­ble action that sup­ports and sus­tains the health of the planet.”

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A Personal Mission

Being a pio­neer and promi­nent spokesman for healthy liv­ing, Dr. Weil addi­tion­ally sees the restau­rant as an exten­sion of his own per­sonal love of great food. “I travel widely and have been influ­enced by many won­der­ful culi­nary expe­ri­ences,” he said, “espe­cially ele­ments of Mediterranean and Asian-style cui­sine, the two health­i­est food cul­tures in the world. I enjoy cook­ing for friends and fam­ily, and I like to exper­i­ment with var­i­ous fla­vors and tex­tures that are both deli­cious and healthy. In fact, the peo­ple for whom I have cooked have long urged me to open a restaurant.”

But Dr. Weil didn’t stop at the restau­rants. In October 2012 he pub­lished a cook­book, True Food: Seasonal, Sustainable, Simple, Pure, which is based on the restau­rants’ recipes. Between True Food Kitchen and the book, Weil hopes to bring soci­ety up yet another notch in terms of a healthy lifestyle. “My hope is that the restau­rants and cook­book will con­vince peo­ple that deli­cious food and food that’s good for you are not in oppo­si­tion,” he con­cluded. “I believe our suc­cess will influ­ence other restau­rants to move in this direc­tion; and I want to see more peo­ple learn to make sim­ple, easy dishes at home that con­form to the prin­ci­ples of cutting-edge nutri­tional science.”

For more infor­ma­tion on True Food Kitchen, check out www.foxrc.com/restaurants/true-food-kitchen.