Raised in small-town Pennsylvania nutritionist and personal chef Lauren Pilgrim has lived in Brooklyn for fourteen years, and is the latest addition to Brooklyn Jubilee’s health care ministry. Lauren’s expertise, insights and recipes will be key to our holistic approach to wellness, especially as we try to tackle the diet-related disorders such as high blood pressure and diabetes are endemic in low-income areas of Brooklyn.
Initially drafted to work on healthy versions of traditional West Indian recipes to use in our Flatbush ministry, Lauren’s enthusiasm for food is always part of her conversation; “I’ve loved cooking since I was very young, but didn’t decide to pursue food as a career until I was 30. Although I grew up eating healthy — my parents were careful about that kind of thing, we didn’t eat a lot of processed food and weren’t allowed sodas —it wasn’t very good food. It was good for me, but not particularly well prepared or enjoyable to eat.”
Lauren pursued a culinary qualification at The Natural Gourmet Institute (NGI), because the school has the only program in New York focused on health in relation to cooking. Its emphasis is on primarily organic, local, sustainable food.
Dealing with her own health issues at the time, Lauren says “I chose NGI because I was always in the arduous process of doing elimination diets and struggling with my health. I wanted to be able to eat, and really enjoy what I was cooking, rather than going to a traditional cooking school where I would have felt like I was eating foods that make me unwell.”
Lauren is very calm and measured in conversation, so her assertion that she “can be pretty preachy about food” has to be taken with a pinch of salt. A tiny pinch, probably, given the concerns about salt and high blood pressure. “I’m pretty strict with what I eat but I feel a million times better than before I changed my diet.” She cites improvements in her physical health, but also in her mood and outlook. She’s firmly convinced that good eating is part of a holistic approach to health and wellness. “It’s really rewarding to see people benefit from dietary changes and from eating my food! And of course, eating well can clearly be preventative medicine, especially in diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.” Leaning on her culinary training, Lauren has adapting West Indian recipes, pouring through cookbooks and, “figuring out what I can do to make the dish healthier without sacrificing anything delicious, and while keeping it as authentic as possible.”
In mid-December she will lead our new West Indian Cooking Club in Flatbush — a chance for community members and food professionals to share their knowledge, cook together and produce healthier versions of traditional recipes. The group will then share the recipes with soup kitchens, neighbors and, eventually, with clients of Brooklyn Jubilee’s healthcare ministry. Lauren will be the first member of our volunteer team to guest chef at soup kitchens, run workshops and hand out recipes designed to empower people to feed themselves well and deliciously.
“Eating well is empowering,” says Lauren, “if a person can take control of at least this one aspect of their health, it’s a huge step in the right direction.”