Collaboration with Stanford School of Medicine's CARE Team – Nourish Project

Asian Americans suffer from a disproportionately high rate of diabetes, and many people of Asian descent struggle to follow American Diabetes Association (ADA) dietary recommendations, due to the lack of targeted guidance that incorporates traditional cuisine as well as the health needs.

The goal of the Nourish Project is to give Asian communities the tools to eat well and live well. Every individual has different nutrient needs, so Nourish offers diverse recipes that are flavorful and convenient, following the ADA and American Heart Association guidelines. Our recipes have ≤ 600mg of sodium, ≤ 60g of carbohydrates, ≤ 3g saturated fat, and ≤ 30g protein per meal.

For the readers that want a simple way to eat healthily, we suggest you follow the ADA Plate Method. The Plate Method involves visually dividing a plate into three sections: one-half for non-starchy vegetables, one-quarter for lean protein, and one-quarter for whole grains. This method encourages balanced meals without the stress of calculating macronutrients. By adhering to the ADA plate method, Nourish ensures that our traditional recipes include appropriate proportions of vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains to support blood sugar management and overall well-being. For readers who want to engage in carbohydrate counting in detail, we provide nutrition labels for all our recipes for your reference.

Nourish creates accessible and medically vetted nutritional content for six most populous Asian American ethnic subgroups (Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese) through a team of AAPI physicians, chefs, registered dietitians, and healthcare interns that empower Asian Americans to prevent and manage diabetes through simple ingredient adjustments to recipes. The project reimagines traditional culinary dishes from Asian ethnicities and designs them to be heart-healthy while retaining the same taste, texture, and familiarity of original recipes.

We hope you enjoy the recipes and will share them with your family and friends.

Additional Facts

1 in 3 Asian Americans don’t know they have diabetes.

Diabetes is the 5th leading cause of death among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

www.cdc.gov/diabetes/library/spotlights/diabetes-asian-americans.html
www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/lcod/men/2016/nonhispanic-asian-or-islander

R&DE is proud to partner with the Stanford School of Medicine's CARE team NOURISH Project.

Food is an integral part of the AAPI identity. Yet, AAPI individuals often feel the need to abandon their beloved cultural foods in order to improve their health. In the end, this often leads to unsustainable lifestyle changes and self-doubt. Nourish's mission is to create free, culturally tailored resources to educate AAPI individuals about refined carbohydrates and exemplify traditional dishes that will help them reach their health goals. Unlike any other project of its kind, the Nourish team puts out specially tailored resources for Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Japanese individuals. Nourish's approach to food is simple: reduce refined carbohydrates, promote balanced meals, and maintain the taste, texture, and familiarity of foods that AAPI communities love.

In less than one year, Nourish has built a team of 15 interns, two registered dietitians, a growing team in Asia, a community of over 4,000 online users, partnered with UC Irvine's Institute of Future Health and Health Unity to design a groundbreaking food database and mobile application, put together a series of cookbooks, created popular cooking videos, recruited world-renowned chefs, spoken with change-makers with unspeakable impact, and so much more. Our new focus is to connect with more chefs, organizations, visionaries in a wide range of industries, and — of course — members of our AAPI communities. Together, we believe we can revolutionize the future of Asian health.

Learn more about NOURISH