New forms of cooking, improbable ingredients and other trompe-l’oeil supposed to defend a cause… Each season of “Top Chef” has its share of surprises in store. The 2023 vintage was no exception to the rule. From the first episode broadcast on March 1, it is surely Albane who will have marked us the most.
In addition to her already broken voice on the starting line (courage Albane, it often happens to us here too), the candidate explained to the chefs that she made a “holistic cuisine”. Paul Pairet tried to understand what she was saying about the benefits of apples for the lungs. But she obviously did not convince her interlocutors.
The same dubious reactions were observed on social networks. “What is holistic cuisine? It’s very sectarian? “, wondered a user. “Holistic cuisine… a #fakemed [faux médicament] moreover ? […] The apple that regulates lung infections, how does it work? “Annoyed another. We therefore looked into the subject and interviewed a specialist in holistic cuisine and a professor of nutrition.
“Nourish body, soul and spirit”
For the past ten years, Anouck Grau has worked both as a private chef – for sports teams – and as a communication consultant “for everything related to food”. When asked how to define holistic cuisine, which she advocates on her website, the chef speaks of a cuisine that “nourishes all the senses”: “When we talk about holistic, we are talking about nourishing the body, the soul and spirit. »
For its followers, holistic cuisine is not limited to a single form of food. “There is no dictionary definition of what holistic cuisine is. Everyone has their own,” admits Anouck Grau. More broadly, holistic cuisine is concerned with the high nutritional value of foods. “We will prefer a Beaufort with the milk of cows that have been fed naturally to an industrial Camembert”, illustrates the private chef. Several other elements of nutrition are taken into account, such as the use of seasonal and mostly organic products. Holistic cuisine would also be largely based on vegan cuisine. “About 80%,” adds Anouck Grau. So far, nothing revolutionary.
no miracles
What really changes compared to a reasoned diet is surely the consideration of the human being as a whole, hence the use of the term “holistic”. “When we talk about holistic cuisine, beyond eating food with high nutritional value, it is also the state of mind in which we eat”, describes Anouck Grau. We should therefore favor the sitting position to eat and take the time to enjoy the meal: “When we eat under stress, we feel that our stomach is in knots and, in fact, it is difficult to digest. »
Besides the body, the soul is an essential link for supporters of holistic food. For Anouck Grau, this goes through hobbies such as cinema or theater, but also by preserving her well-being. “You also have to ask yourself how you feel mentally,” she adds. In reality, everything for Anouck Grau is to take care of her lifestyle in order to limit the risks of certain diets on health, for example strokes (cerebral vascular accidents) or infarctions. “There is no food-medicine in the sense that you should not eat apples to get better”, however tempers the specialist.
Avoid magical thinking
On this point, the professor at AgroParisTech François Mariotti can only confirm his words. “We must avoid falling into magical thinking,” he warns. The public health nutrition expert admits to having never heard of the term “holistic cuisine” before. In nutrition, François Mariotti prefers to stick more to scientific language. “There will rather be an epidemiological phase where we will observe several factors around food or sport, then the phase where we will establish convictions. We will say for example “it seems to be good for your health to eat vegetables”. »
The whole thing is to stay within the scientific field which seeks to associate consumption with states of health. “Nutrition describes effects on health, but very specific effects. We will say that a food category is beneficial for cardiovascular health, for example fruits or vegetables. That, we know, we have data that associates the consumption of fruits and/or vegetables with a lower incidence of disease. Other scientific trials can also be set up to, for example, try to remove a food from a diet and observe the effects on the health of the individual.
However, holistic thinking remains far from science, points out the nutrition professor. “We will rely on the organic, the psychic. It means that what is good for the mind is good for the body. However, if you eat less red meat, you will have less risk of colorectal cancer, you will have less risk of cardiovascular disease, less risk of depression or infection. However, it does not work like that, it does not work on everything, ”he warns.